I wouldn’t for a long time, then I gave it to him. The girls had made freckles all over it. This was the one they wrote on its back: “He ast me, but I wouldn’t have him.” They’d painted his hair as red as a rooster’s comb. He got quite pale when he seen it clost.[[5]]
“It’s a burning shame” sez I, “for them young ladies to make fun o’ their bows.”
“Clear out,” sez Peters.
I grabbed a nuther bunch o’ raisins ’n’ quietly disappeared. I tell you he was wrathy.
Mister Courtenay he’s a lawyer ’n’ got a offis on the square by the court-house. I knew him very well, ’cos he comes to our house offen. He’s a awful queer lookin’ chap, an’ so stuck up you’d think he was tryin’ to see if the moon was made o’ green cheese, like folks says it is, the way he keeps his nose up in the air. He’s got a deep, deep voice--way down in his boots. My heart beat wen I got in there, I was that frightened; but I was bound to see the fun out, so I ast him:
“Is the ‘What is It’ on exabishun to-day?”
“Wot do you mean?” sez he, a lookin’ down at me.
“Sue said if I would come to your offis I would see wot this is the picture of,” sez I--given’ him his own photograph inscribed “The Wonderful What is It.”
It’s awful funny to see their faces wen they look at their own cards.
In about a minute he up with his foot--which I dodged just in time.[[6]]