You never saw a feller look so mean as he did when I said this; he turned all manner of colors, and acted mad enough to eat me. I didn't seem to mind him, but took up a newspaper and begun to read, jest as if he wasn't in the room; and by-am-by I got so deep in the paper, that I forgot all about him or cousin Beebe either.
Look a-here, Par, if you hain't seen the New York Evening Express, jest stretch your purse-strings a leetle, and subscribe for it. It's a peeler of a paper, I can tell you. You needn't take my word for it though, for I've made this letter so tarnal long, that it'd cost more than the price of a paper a hull year to pay the postage, so I've a notion to git the editors to print this for me in their primest evening paper, and so you'll git my letters and paper tu, all for five cents. I'll jest give you a little notion how they make the Express, for I read it eenamost through, afore cousin John come. The editors get all the papers in the country together, jest as we pick out our apples in cider time, and they go to work and git all that's worth reading out on 'em, and put it all in one great paper, which they sell for two cents; so that a feller can know what's said by every editor North and South, on one side and t'other, without the trouble of reading but one paper;—jest as we can git the juice of a bushel of apples all in a pint of cider, after it's once been through the mill. I raly think it's one of the best plans I ever heard on, and I'm so sartin that every body will take it by-am-by, that I've a notion that if you'd jest as livs let me throw up the onion trade, I'll try and get in to write for it, but we'll talk all that over by-am-by, arter I've seen the editors. Major Jack Downing is writing for them already, and perhaps—but I hain't made up my mind about it yit, though I kept a thinking it over all the while I was a reading in the counting-room.
Wal, I was jest taking a dive inter the advertisements, when cousin John came in. I raly believe you wouldn't know the critter, he's altered so. He's grown as fat and pussy as old lawyer Sikes in our parts, but I raly think he looks better for it. I tell you what, his clothes must cost him a few. He had on a superfine broadcloth coat, that didn't cost a whit less than ten dollars a yard, I wouldn't be afraid to bet a cookey. You could a seen your face in his boots, and his hair was parted on the top of his head, and hung down on the sides of his face and all over his coat collar, till he looked more like a woman in men's clothes than any thing else. I thought I should a haw-hawed out a larfin, all I could du, though it made me kinder wrathy to see a feller make such an etarnal coot of himself. I thought I'd see if he'd know me agin, so I on'y jist crossed one foot over t'other on the top of the stove, and tipt my chair back on its hind legs, and kept on reading as independent as a corkscrew, jest ter see how he'd act.
Wal, he cum right up to the stove, and took his coat tail under his arms, and begun to whistle as if there warn't nobody in the room. Once in a while as I took a peek over the top of the paper, I could see that he was a looking at me kinder sideways, as if he couldn't exactly make up his mind whether he knew me or not. I felt my heart kinder rising up in my throat, for it put me in mind of old times when we used to weed onions and slide down hill together. At last I couldn't stand it no longer, so I jumped up and flung down the paper, and, says I, "Cousin Beebe, how do you du?"
He stared like a stuck pig at fust, but I raly believe the feller was glad to see me when he found out who I was, for he shook my hand like all natur. Sez he, "Mr. Slick," sez he, "I'm glad to see you down in the city; how's the deacon, and aunt Eunice, and the Mills gals? You see I han't forgot old times."
With that we sot into a stream of talk about Weathersfield people, and so on that lasted a good two hours, by the town clock. Arter a while cousin John took out his watch, all gold inside and out, and sez he,
"Come, Mr. Slick, it's about four o'clock—go up and take a family dinner with us."
I rather guess I stared a few, to think of being axed to eat dinner at that time o' day; but as I hadn't eat any thing but a cold bite aboard the sloop since morning, the thoughts of a good warm dinner warn't by no means to be sneezed at.
"Better late than never," sez I to myself, arter I had put on my hat and stuck my hands in my pantaloons' pockets ready for a start. But jest as we wur a going out, there come a feller in to talk over some bisness matters, so sez Cousin Beebe, sez he—
"Here, Mr. Slick, is the number of our house—supposin you go along and tell Mrs. Beebe that I'll be home as soon as I can get through a little bisness—she wont make a stranger of you."