never know what may happen, and it's always well to be prepared, and
attitudes are dretful hard to catch onto at a minute's notice."

Sez I, "Do you come back to bed, Josiah Allen. What would they want of
you for a statute?"

"Wall," sez he, reluctantly relinquishin' his toga, or, in other words
the flannel blanket and bedspread--

"I see many a statute to-day with not half my good looks, and if Chicago
wanted me to ornament it, I wanted to be prepared."

I sithed aloud, and sez I--

"Here I be waked up for good, as tired as I wuz, all for your vanity and
actin'."

"Wall," sez he, "Samantha, my mind wuz all so stirred up and excited by
seein' so many ile paintin's and statutes to-day, that I felt dretful."
And as he sez this my madness all died away, as the way of pardners is,
and a great pity stole into my heart.

I do spoze he wuz half delirous with seein' too much. Like a man who
has oversot himself and come down on the floor.

That man had been led round too much that day, for my own pleasure; to
gratify my own esthetik taste I had almost ruined the pardner of my
youth and middle age.

His mind had been stretched too fur, for the size on't, so I sez