He shuffled the letters at once, searching for the delicate, disconnected writing so familiar to him and hardly knew whether its absence was not as disquieting as its presence would have been.
The mail being attended to, he sent for Greenwood and spoke to him about the likelihood of war and its consequences.

Jonathan proved to be quite well informed on this subject.

He said he had been on the point of speaking about buying all the cotton they could lay hands on, but thought Mr.Hatton was perhaps considering the question and not ready to move yet.
"Do you think they will come to fighting, Greenwood ?" Mr.Hatton asked.
"Well, sir, if they'll only keep to cotton and such like, they'll never fire a gun, not they.

But if they keep up this slavery threep, they'll fight till one side has won and the other side is clean whipped forever.
Why not?
That's our way, and most of them are chips of the old oak block.

A hundred years or more ago we had the same question to settle and we settled it with money.