Mr. Turtle was consulted, and the conclusion of Sharp's interview with him amounted to this: that Turtle should go immediately, and purchase for Whistle & Sharp the old steamboat cylinder, crank, and shaft; and the parties separated.
The steamboat cylinder, crank, and shaft, alluded to, was what Turtle called the "Puddleford bank--metallic basis." Some years before, a steamboat, on an exploring expedition up the river, among its windings and sand-bars, was wrecked, and a heavy cylinder, crank, and shaft, thrown ashore at Puddleford, where they lay at the period I speak of, and had for a long time, deeply imbedded in sand. This mass of iron, weighing many tons, had for a long time been a perpetual bar to the collection of all debts against Puddlefordians. Chitty, in his Pleadings, never invented one so omnipotent. It suspended every execution directed against it. It was transferred, by bill of sale, from one Puddlefordian to another (as no creditor was ever found willing to receive it at any price), as necessity required, and was considered, by common consent, public property--a "bank" as Turtle called it, "to which any person had a right to resort in distress."[B]
Turtle took a bill of sale of this iron from the last man in trouble, and turned it out to the sheriff on the execution against Whistle & Sharp.
"Now, Mr. Sheriff," said Turtle, triumphantly, "bring on your ap_pri_zers; a thousand dollars' worth of property to pay a little over three hundred. My clients, Whistle & Sharp, are bunkum yet--allers stand up to the rack at the end of an execution. Bring on your ap_pri_zers, Mr. Sheriff."
Mr. Turtle chose an appraiser first--a second cousin of Mr. Whistle, of the firm of Whistle & Sharp, and a man who was deeply in debt on their books--a bilious, weazen-faced, melancholy-looking man, who had acquired a great reputation for wisdom by saying nothing--whose name was Clinket. No one appearing to choose for the plaintiffs, the sheriff selected the other two. He named Mr. Troper, a seedy old fellow, whose crown was half out of his hat, whose beard was white, his nose red, and who had a whiskey-cough, and who was in the habit of visiting the barrel-tap of Whistle & Sharp three or four times a day, in consideration of odd jobs performed by him around the store; also, Mr. Fatler, a chubby-faced, twinkle-eyed wag, who would not hesitate to perpetrate a good joke, even under oath, particularly upon non-residents.