"No," sez I solemnly; "it will be as the Lord sez, and He is callin' to wimmen all over the earth, and they are answerin' the call."
But we hearn afterwards that Josiah had got it wrong—it wuz Ragah—R-a-g-a-h—instead of Rager—and he wuz one of the most sensiblest fellers that ever stepped on our shores in royal shoes. He paid his own bills, wuz modest, and intelligent, wanted to git information instead of idolatry from the American people. He didn't want no ball, no bowin' and backin' off—no escort. No chance at all here for the Ward McAllisters to show off, and act.
He acted like a good sensible American man, some as our son Thomas Jefferson would act if he should go over to his neighborhood on business.
He wanted to see for himself the life of the Americans, the way the common people lived—he wanted to git information to help his own people.
And he wanted to see Edison the most of all. That in itself would make him congenial to me. I myself think of Edison side by side with Christopher Columbus, and I guess the high chair he sets on up in my mind, with his lap full of his marvellous discoveries, is a little higher than Columbuses high chair.
Oh, how congenial the Ragah of Kahurthalia would be! How I wish we could have visited together! But it wuzn't to be, for Josiah said that he'd gone the night before, so we wended on.
Wall, we hadn't more than got into the grounds this mornin' when Josiah hearn a bystander a-standin' near tell another one about the Ferris Wheel.
"Why," sez he, "you jest git into one of them cars, and you are carried up so that it seems as if you can see the hull world at your feet."
Josiah turned right round in his tracts, and sez he, "Where can I find that wheel?"