w. Only, they--they--told me you would."

"_They_ told you I would. Whoever told you's _another_ lunatic. I
never heard the beat of it. Who's _they?_"

"Why, everybody. They all said so, m'am."

It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her
fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:

"Who's 'everybody'? Out with their names, or ther'll be an idiot
short."

He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:

"I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told me to. They all told
me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she'd like it. They all said
it--every one of them. But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it no
more--I won't, honest."

"You won't, won't you? Well, I sh'd _reckon_ you won't!"

"No'm, I'm honest about it; I won't ever do it again--till you ask
me."

"Till I _ask_ you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I
lay you'll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever _I_ ask
you--or the likes of you."

"Well," he says, "it does surprise me so. I can't make it out,
somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But--" He
stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a
friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman's, and
says, "Didn't _you_ think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?"

"Why, no; I--I--well, no, I b'lieve I didn't."

Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:

"Tom, didn't _you_ think Aunt Sally 'd open out her arms and say, 'Sid
Sawyer--'"

"My land!" she says, breaking in and jumping for him, "you impudent
young rascal, to fool a body so--" and was going to hug him, but he
fended her off, and says:

"No, not till you've asked me first."

So she didn't lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed
him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and
he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she
says:

"Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn't looking for
_you_ at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming
but him."

"It's because it warn't _intended_ for any of us to come but Tom," he
says; "but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me
come, too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a
first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for
me to by and by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger.
But it was a mistake, Aunt S