And come to look closter, I see he had took off the blanket and
bedspread and had swathed 'em round his form some like a toga.

And I see it wuz them that he wuz apostrofizin' and orderin' to lay down
in folds and fall graceful.

And somehow the idee of his takin' the bedclothes offen me seemed to mad
me about as much as his foolishness and vanity did.

And sez I, "Do you take off them bedclothes offen you, and put 'em back
agin, and come to bed!"

But he didn't heed me, he went on with his vain doin's and actin'.

"I am impersonatin' Apollo!" sez he, a-layin' his head onto one side and
a-lookin' at me over his shoulder in a kind of a languishin' way.

Sez he, a-liftin' his heel, and holdin' it up a little ways, "I did
think I would be Mercury, but I hadn't any wing handy for my off heel. I
would be strikin' as Mercury," sez he, "but I think I would be at my
best as Apollo. What do you think I had better be, Samantha?"

[Illustration: "I would be strikin' as Mercury, but I think I would
be at my best as Apollo."]

"A loonatick would strike me as the right thing, Josiah Allen, or an
idiot from birth.

"Or," sez I, speakin' more ironicler as my fear died away, leavin' in
its void a great madness and tiredness, "if you'd brung your scythe