er bet they do with _these_ mumps.
These mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said."

"How's it a new kind?"

"Because it's mixed up with other things."

"What other things?"

"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption,
and yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don't know what all."

"My land! And they call it the _mumps?_"

"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."

"Well, what in the nation do they call it the _mumps_ for?"

"Why, because it _is_ the mumps. That's what it starts with."

"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and
take pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his
brains out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some
numskull up and say, 'Why, he stumped his _toe_.' Would ther' be any
sense in that? _No_. And ther' ain't no sense in _this_, nuther. Is it
ketching?"

"Is it _ketching?_ Why, how you talk. Is a _harrow_ catching--in the
dark? If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another,
ain't you? And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the
whole harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a
harrow, as you may say--and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther,
you come to get it hitched on good."

"Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip. "I'll go to Uncle
Harvey and--"

"Oh, yes," I says, "I _would._ Of _course_ I would. I wouldn't lose no
time."

"Well, why wouldn't you?"

"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles
obleeged to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you
reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that
journey by yourselves? _You_ know they'll wait for you. So fur, so
good. Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is a
_preacher_ going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive
a _ship clerk?_--so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard?
Now _you_ know he ain't. What _will_ he do, then? Why, he'll say,
'It's a great pity, but my church matters has got to get along the
best way they can; for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful
pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's my bounden duty to set down here and
wait the three months it takes to show on her if she's got it.' But
never mind, if you think it's best to tell your uncle Harvey--"

"Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good
times in England whilst we was