And agin I sez, “I knew it before.”
And I silently but smoothly poured my sweet cream over my sliced potatoes, and turned my lamb-chops and drawed my coffee forwards so it would come to a bile.
And he repeated, “I believe in lettin’ things alone that don’t consarn us; it hain’t none of our bizness.”
And seein’ he wuz bound on talkin’ on it, why, I felt a feelin’ that I must roust up and set him right where I see he wuz wrong; I see it was my duty as a devoted pardner. And so, after we had got down to the table, and he sez agin in more powerful and even high-headed axents, “that it wuz none of our bizness,” then I spunked up and sez, “It seems to me, Josiah Allen, that the cause of eternal truth is always our bizness.”
“Oh, wall! it hain’t best to meddle; that is my idee, and that is my practice. Don’t you know that when Ury had that fight with Sam Shelmadine, I said I wouldn’t either make nor break? I said I won’t meddle, and I didn’t meddle. It wuzn’t my bizness.”
“WHEN URY HAD THAT FIGHT WITH SAM.”
“But you found it wuz your bizness before you got through with it—you lost Ury’s help six weeks in your hurryenst time, when he wuz away to the lawsuit, etc., etc. And it made Philury sick, and you and I had to be up with her more or less, and you took cold there one night, and had a sickness that lasted you for weeks and almost killed you; and if you had died,” sez I in deep tones of affection and pathos, “if you had left your devoted pardner forever, could you have looked me in the face and said that this trouble of theirs wuzn’t nuthin’ that affected us? No; when a black cloud comes up the sky you can’t tell where the lightnin’ is a goin’ to hit—whether it will strike saint or sinner.” I see he wuz affected by my tender and eloquent allusion to his passin’ away; for a moment he looked softened and almost as if he wuz a goin’ to lay down the argument somewhere and leave it there. But anon his linement clouded up, and he assumed the expression of doggy obstinacy his sect knows so well how to assume, and sez he:
“But this is sunthin’ entirely different. There hain’t no earthly possibility that this nigger question can affect us one way or another; there hain’t no way for it to,” sez he.
Sez I, “Hain’t you got a heart, Josiah Allen, to help others who are in trouble and jeopardy, and don’t know which way to turn to get the right help?”