Samantha at the World's Fair

by Marietta Holley

I leaned hard on my faithful old umbrell, for I had a touch of rumatiz that day.

And sez I, "Romance, Josiah, should be looked at with the bright eyes of youth, not through spectacles No. 12." Sez I, "The glowin' mist that wrops her round fades away under the magnifyin' lights of them specs, Josiah Allen."

He had took his hat off to cool his forward, and I sez further—

"Romance and bald heads don't go together worth a cent, and rumatiz and azmy are perfect strangers to her. Romance locks arms with young souls, Josiah Allen, and walks off with 'em."

"Oh, shaw!" sez Josiah, "we hain't so very old. Old Uncle Smedly would call us young, and we be, compared to him."

"Wall," sez I, "through the purblind gaze of ninety winters we may look younger, but bald heads and spectacles, Josiah Allen, tell their own silent story. We are not young, Josiah Allen, and all our lyin' and pretendin' won't make us so."

"Wall, dum it all! I never shall be any younger. You can't dispute that."

"No," sez I; "I don't spoze you will, in this spear."

"Wall, I am bound to go out in a gondola, I am bound to be a gondolier before I die. So you may as well make up your mind first as last, and the sooner I go, the younger I shall go. Hain't that so?"