"What for?" sez I. "What do you want to do?"

"Why, to teach 'em," sez he. "To show myself off. To counsel 'em."

"To counsel 'em about what?" sez I heavily, bein' bound to come to the
bottom of the matter, and the sense on't, if sense there wuz in it.

"Why," sez he, "they are havin' a counsel there to see if there are any
new ways for men and Methodists to be equinomical. And I'll be dumned if
there is a man or a Methodist from Maine to Florida that can counsel 'em
better about bein' equinomical than I can.

"Why, you have always said so," sez he. "You have called it tightness,
but I have always known that it wuz pure economy; and now," sez he, "has
come the chance of a lifetime, for me to rise up and show myself off
before the nation. To git the high, lofty name that I ort to have, and
do good."

I dropped my choppin' knife out of my hand, and rested my elbow on the
table, and leaned my head on my hand in deep thought.

I see he had more sense on his side than I thought he had. I recollected
the different and various ways in which he had showed his equinomical
tightness sence our married life begun, and I trembled for the result.

I ruminated over our early married life, and how, in spite of his words
of almost impassioned tenderness and onwillingness for me to harm and
strain myself by approachin' the political pole--still how he had let me
wrestle with weighty hop-poles and draw water out of a deep well with a
cistern pole for more'n fourteen years.