when his blood is rousted up, I
may swing right out and pay jest the same amount St. Louis is payin' for
her Exposition."

"Fifty millions!" sez I with emotions of or--or to think I had a pardner
that would tell such a gigantic falsehood, and instinctively I thought
of a story I'd hearn Thomas Jefferson tell the evenin' before.

He said three commercial travelers wuz talkin' before an old man from
the country whose loose fittin' clothes were gently scattered with
hay-seed. The first one told with minute particulars of a Western
cyclone that had lifted a house and sot it down in a neighborin'
township. The next one said that he wuz knowin' to the circumstances and
how the cyclone swep back and brought the suller and sot it down under
the house. And the third one remembered vividly how the cyclone went
back the second time and brought the hole the suller left and
distributed it round under the new site.

The old man listened with deep interest, and said he wuz glad he'd had
the privelige of hearin' 'em, for their talk had cleared up a Bible
verse he'd long pondered over.

They wuz astounded to think their talk had awakened religious
meditations. But the old gentleman said their conversation had cleared
up that passage where it said:

"Annanias come forth."

He said it wuz now plain to him that it meant that these three drummers
should stand before Annanias, the Prince of Liars, he takin' his place
behind 'em, the fourth in the rank of liars.

But this is neither here or there I only mention it as comin' into my
mind instinctively and onbeknown to myself as I hearn Josiah Allen's
remark, it came and went, as thoughts will, like a lightning flash, even
as I wuz repeatin' the words agin in wonderment and horrow.

"Fifty million dollars!"

"No, I said to you, Samantha, that in our conversation we would leave
out the orts, fifty dollars wuz what I meant. But as I said this is what
I've thought when my brain wuz fired with ambition and glory of histin'
the name of Allen up where it ort to be and will be. But when my blood
has quieted down and I took a dispassionate view of the affair I have
thought it would be more in keepin' with the old traditions of the Allen
family, to spend jest fifteen, I can do a noble job with Uncle Sime's
help and Ury's, with exactly the same sum that wuz paid for these
purchases."

I see he wuz jest bound to ignore the millions. But I knowed it wouldn't
do any good to keep twittin' him of