"
He next turned his attention to building. Things went on swimmingly during
the erection--so did the houses when built. The proprietorship of the
ground was disputed--our uncle Job had paid the wrong person. The buildings
were knocked down (by Mr. Robins), and the individual who had benefited by
the suppositionary ownership of the acres let on the building lease "bought
the lot," and sent uncle Job a peculiarly well-worded legal notice,
intimating, "his respectable presence would, for the future, approximate to
a nuisance and trespass, and he (Job) would be proceeded against as the
statutes directed, if guilty of the same."
It is impossible to follow him through all his various strivings to do
well: he commenced a small-beer brewery, and the thunder turned it all into
vinegar; he tried vinegar, and nothing on earth could make it sour; he
opened a milk-walk, and the parish pump failed; he invented a waterproof
composition--there was fourteen weeks of drought; he sold his patent for
two-and-sixpence, and had the satisfaction of walking home for the next
three months wet through, from his gossamer to his _ci-devant_ Wellingtons,
now literally, from their hydraulic powers, "_pumps_."
He lost everything but his heart! And uncle Bucket was all heart! a red
cabbage couldn't exceed it in size, and, like that, it seemed naturally
predestined to be everlastingly in a pickle! Still it was a heart! You were
welcomed to his venison when he had it--his present saveloy was equally at
your service.
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