HOT WATER.
“Wall,” says I, still clingin’ to my simely, as great oriters always do, “It is my religion to scald you, if you don’t stop your insultin’ talk instantly and to once! You can’t talk no such stuff in the house of her who was once Smith,” says I, glancin’ agin at the teakettle, and steppin’ up a little nearer to it.
“Be composed, mum,” says he, a hitchin’ up his chair a little nearer the door; “Be composed! I was speakin’ in a strictly religious sense.”
Says I, “You can’t never make me think a crime can be committed religiously.” And agin I looked longin’ly at that teakettle.
“Compose yourself down, mum, and let us argue for a brief spell,” says he.
His tone was sort o’ implorin’ and beseechin’. And he took a plug of tobacco out of his coat-pocket, and bit a great chew off’en it, and put it into his mouth, I s’pose to try to show off and make himself attractive. But good land! how foolish it was in him. He didn’t look half so well to me as he did before, and that hain’t sayin’ but a very little, a very little indeed.
He wadded the tobacco all up on one side of his mouth, till his cheek stood out some like a wen, and the tobacco-juice started and run down on each side of his chin. And so, havin’ fixed himself, I s’pose, so his looks suited him, he says agin:
“Less argue the subject.”
I see that here was the chance I had wanted to convince him of his iniquity. I see that Duty was leadin’ a war-horse up in front of me all saddled and bridled, ready for me to mount and career onward nobly on the path of Right.