"Somethin' in a hat, sir?"
"Yes, sir," says I; "everything in a hat."
He didn't know what to make of that, so he tried again.
"One of our new straws, perhaps?" he asks. "The fifteenth is almost here, you know."
"Maybe so," I told him, "but I don't want any straw, the fifteenth or the sixteenth either. I want a plug hat, a beaver hat—that's what I want."
The clerk was a little set back, I guess, but poor Mary was all at sea.
"Why, Zebulon!" she whispers, grabbin' me by the arm, "what are you doin'? You're not goin' to buy a silk hat!"
"Yes, I am," says I.
"But you aren't goin' to wear it."
To save me, when I looked at her face I couldn't help laughin'.