e wuz a noble chance for a P. A.

So I sez to 'em, "I've hearn of your doin's, and I want to advise you
for your good." They looked at me real stiddy and I went on, "You may
think you hain't so guilty because you only take folkses heads. But
for the lands sakes! did you ever stop to think on't? What can they do
without their heads? Of course," sez I reasonably, "there is a
difference in heads. Some folkses heads hain't got so much sense in
'em as others. I've seen 'em myself that I've thought a good wooden
head would be jest as useful. But they are the best they've got, and
they're attached to 'em, and they can't git along without 'em. And I
always thought you might jest as well take their hull bodies whilst
you wuz about it. Don't you see that is so? When it is pinted out to
you by a P. A.?"

[Illustration: _"I went forward to see the Head Hunters. I sez to 'em
'I've hearn of your doin's and I want to advise you for
your good_.'" (_See page 281_)]

They kinder jabbered over sunthin' to themselves, and I sez as I
turned away, "Now, don't let me hear of any more such doin's! Be
contented with the heads you've got, and don't try to git somebody
elses that don't belong to you." Sez I, "Sunthin' like that, namely
stealin' the interior of folkses heads, has been done time and agin
among more civilized folks, and it don't work; they git found out."

I left 'em getisculatin' and jabberin' in that strange lingo and am in
hopes they wuz promisin' to quit their Head Huntin', but can't tell
for certain.

As I santered along a female asked me if I had seen the Divin' Girls,
sez she, "There is a immense pond of water, and they are the best
divers and swimmers in the world."

But I sez, "Nobody can dive into deeper depths than I have doven
to-day."

"The ocean?" sez she.

"Oceans of anxiety," sez I, "rivers of grief." I spoze my dretful
emotions showed on my linement, and to git my mind off she sez, "You
ort to see the aligators."

I'd hearn they had immense tanks of water as long as from our house to
Philander Dagget's, holdin' thousands and thousands and thousands of
aligators, from them jest born, to them a hundred years old, from them
the size of your little finger weighin' a few ounces, to them big as
elephants, weighin' two tons.

But I told her I could worry along for years without aligators, I
never seemed to hanker for 'em, I wouldn't take 'em as a gift if I had
to let 'em have the run of the house. Humbly thin