"I went off," continued Bart. "The fact is, I thought that that retreat of the sciences might hold that little learning, which is a dangerous thing—as you used to not quote exactly—and I thought it prudent to avoid that 'Pierian spring.'"
"What is the young man talking about now?" inquired Uncle Josh. "I would raly like to know, I would."
"I must ask the Doctor to explain," answered Bart. "I was referring to one of his old drinking-places, where, according to him, the more one drank the soberer he grew. You would not fancy that tipple, would you?"
"You see, Uncle Josh," said the Doctor, laughing, "what comes of a young man's going a week to college."
"The young man didn't know anything at all, before," declared Uncle
Josh, "and he seems to know less now, amazingly."
This was Uncle Josh's sincere opinion, and was received with a shout of laughter, in which Bart heartily joined. Indeed, it was his first sincere laugh for many a day.
Johnson asked him "whether he went to the Ohio river," and being answered in the affirmative, asked him "by what route he went, and what he saw."
Uncle Jonah, as Bart usually called him, was one of his very few recognized friends, and asked in a way that induced him to make a serious answer.
"I walked the most of the way there, and all the way back. I went by way of Canton, Columbus, Dayton, and so to Cincinnati, and returned the same way."
"What do you think of that part of the State which you saw?"