_I should hav the prefferense_. I hain't submitted no more cases to
arbytration sinse, and my advise to all peepul is to arbytrate nuthin'
if your case is honest, for there ain't no judge there to keep one man
from trikkin' the other. An honest man don't stan no chance nowhere
xceptin' in a court house with a good lawyer to back him. The motto of
this case is, never to arbytrate nuthin' but a bad case, and take a good
lawyer to advise, and pay him fur it before you do that.

But I got Fretman. _I_ didn't, but my lawyer, Marks, did. Fretman was a
nutmeg skhool teacher who had gone round my naborhood with his skool
artikles, and I put down of Troup and Calhoun to go, and intended to
send seven or eight more if he proved himself right. I soon found that
the little nullifiers warn't lernin' enything, and on inquiry I found
that nutmeg was a givin' powerful long recessess, and employin' his time
cheefly in carryin' on with a tolerbul sized female gal that was a goin'
to him. Troup sed he heerd the gal squeel one day, and he knowed Fretman
was a squeezin' of her. I don't mind our boys a squeezin' of the Yankee
gals, but I'll be blamed if the Yankees shall be a squeezin' ourn. So I
got mad and took the children away. At the end of the term Fretman sued
me for eighteen dollars, and hired a cheep lawyer to kollekt it. Before
this time I had lerned sum sense about a lawyer, so I hired a good one,
and spred my pokit book down before him, and told him to take what would
satisfi him. And he took. Old Phil Davis was the jestice. Marks made the
openin' speech to the effek that every profeshunal man ort to be able to
illustrate his trade, and he therefore proposed to put Mr. Fretman on
the stan' and _spell him_. This moshun was fout hard, but it agreed with
old Phil's noshuns of "high jestice," and ses he: "Mr. Fretman, you will
hav to spell, sur." Marks then swore him that he would giv true evidense
in this case, and that he would spell evry word in Dan'l Webster's
spellin' book correkly to the best of his knowledge and beleef, so help
him, etc. I saw that he were a tremblin' all over like a cold wet dog.
Ses Marks, "Mr. Fretman, spell 'tisik.'" Well, he spelt it, puttin' in a
_ph_ and a _th_ and a _gh_ and a _zh_, and I don't know what all, and I
thot he were gone up the fust pop, but Marks sed it were right. He then
spelt him right strate along on all sorts of big words, and little
words, and long words, and short words, and he knowd