that would bow your old bald head in horrow, and drive you, vain old
creeter that you be, back where you belong."

He wuz afraid he'd gone too fur, and sez he, "Mebby you'd ruther be
Venus, Samantha? Mebby you'd ruther appear in the nude?"

Sez I, coldly, "I should think that you'd done your best to make me
appear in that way, Josiah Allen. There's only one thin sheet to keep me
from it.

"But," sez I, spruntin' up, "if you talk in that way any more to me I'll
holler to Miss Plank!

"Pardner or no pardner, I hain't a-goin' to be imposed upon this time of
night!"

Sez I, "I should be ashamed if I wuz in your place, the father and
grandfather of a family, and the deacon in a meetin'-house, to be up at
midnight a-posin' for statutes and actin'."

"But," sez he, "I didn't know but they would want to sculp me while I
wuz here in Chicago, and I thought I'd git a attitude all ready. You
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
soothin'ly--

"Wall, wall, Josiah, come back to bed and go to sleep, and to-morrow
we'll go and see some live stock and some plows and things."

So at last I got him quieted down, though he did murmur once or twice in
his sleep--Apollo! Hercules! etc., so I see what his inward state wuz.

But towards mornin' he seemed to git into a good sound sleep, and I did
too, and w