“Dear, dear! You'll be the death of me.”
“Whether it shall be possible,” began William C. Jones, “to avoid compassing your decease through obstinacy and public interests, being the object of this interview; and if so——”
“Your honour,” said Dr. Ulswater with a grand gesture. Nobody could beat him for elegance when he was in trim—“Your honour,” he said, interrupting W. C. and addressing Louisa, “I beg the privilege of donating Hannah Atkins to Zionville, and to the service of her fame. To the interests of archaeology Zionville is more than a legion of mummies.”
Louisa ran to the window, thrust his hat through the bars and waved it, and we heard Zionville break forth in one simultaneous pean.
But when Dr. Ulswater and I came out of the jail and joined the rejoicing, when—as the subject and centre of rejoicing—we came down opposite Babbitt's Hotel, there we saw, on the veranda of it, Sadler six feet two, and engaged in sinister meditation against a green pillar. Then I knew he had written the Letter to the Magistrates.
He came down from the veranda to join the rejoicing, and when I claimed to see into his insidious villainy, he looked depressed; but Dr. Ulswater was surprised and delighted.
“By hookey!” he said,—For since his marriage to Mrs. Ulswater he had come to swear always by innocuous things, and he was hard put to it sometimes for satisfaction; hence sometimes his objurgations were familiar, and sometimes recondite.—“By hookey!” he said, “Sadler, I knew there was something Zionville reminded me of. It was you!”
“I belonged to her,” said Sadler, sadly, walking along with us—“before she reformed. She wollered in her nakedness then, and we both found out that sin was monotonous. Since then we've each took a shy at the spiritual life and found it was sportier'n the other. But still I don't know if her Sunday School clothes will fit me. But, doctor,” he concluded, “if it suits you and Mrs. Ulswater to sojourn and abide here, I'll try on them clothes.”