it. I owed
a tin peddler; had been owin' him for four weeks. I owed him twenty-five
pounds of paper rags, for a new strainer. I had been expectin' him for
over three weeks every day. But in all the three hundred and sixty-five
days of the year, there wuzn't another day that would satisfy him; he
had got to come on jest that day, jest as I wuz fryin' my nut cakes for
dinner.

I tried to put him off till another day. But no! He said it wuz his last
trip, and he must have his rags. And so I had to put by my work, and lug
down my rag-bag. His steel-yards wuz broke, so he had to weigh 'em in
the house. It wuz a tegus job, for he wuz one of the perticuler kind,
and had to look 'em all over before he weighed 'em, and pick out every
little piece of brown paper, or full cloth--everything, he said, that
wouldn't make up into the nicest kind of writin' paper.

And my steel-yards wuz out of gear any way, so they wouldn't weigh but
five pounds at a time, and he wuz dretful perticuler to have 'em just
right by the notch.

And he would call on me to come and see just how the steel-yards stood
every time. (He wuz as honest as the day; I hain't a doubt of it.)

But it wuz tegus, fearful tegus, and excitin'. Excitin', but not
exhileratin', to have the floor all covered with rags of different
shapes and sizes, no two of a kind. It wuz a curius time before he come,
and a wild time, but what must have been the wildness, and the curosity
when there wuz, to put a small estimate on it, nearly a billion of crazy
lookin' rags scattered round on the floor.

[Illustration: "SHE LOOKED CURIUS, CURIUSER THAN THE FLOOR LOOKED."]

But I kep' calm; I have got giant self-control, and I used every mite of
it, every atom of control I had by me, and kep' calm. I see I must--for
I see that Miss Fogg looked bad; yes, I see that the author of
"Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" wuz pretty much used up. She looked curius,
curiuser than the floor looked, and that is goin' to the complete end of
curosity, and metafor.

Wall, I tussled along and got dinner ready. The tin peddler had to stay
to dinner, of course. I couldn't turn him out jest at dinner time. And
sometimes I almost think that he delayed matters and touzled 'round
amongst them rags jest a purpose to belate himself, so he would have to
stay to dinner.

I am called a good cook. It is known 'way out beyend Loontown and
Zoar--it is talked about, I spoze. Wall, he stayed to dinner. But he
only made fou