And right here, while the past wuz a-pressin' so clost to us, that we wuz almost took back there in the body—our minds wuz there, way, way back—
When sudden, swift, wuz we brung back from the past—brung back to conscientousness, as it were, by two forms and two voices.
Here of all places in the world, in the heart of a Moorish palace, did my eyes fall upon the faces of Bizer Dagget, and Selinda, his wife.
And I sez, as my eyes fell from the contemplation of art-decked freeze and fretted archways onto the old familar freckled face, and green alpaca dress, and Bizer's meek sandy whiskers, and pepper-and-salt suit—
Sez I, "Whyee, Selinda and Bizer, is it you? How do you do? When did you git here? You didn't lay out to come when we started."
"No," sez Selinda; "you know jest how it wuz, you know we had his folks to take care on, and Father Dagget wuz so helpless that we had to lift him round. And we shouldn't been able to git here at all, only Father had a severe fall out o' bed one night in the dead of night. He wuz all alone, and skairt—so we spoze—and that fall took him off on the second day.
"And as quick as we could git ready we sot off here.
"Whyee! Selinda and Bizer, is it you?"
"It didn't seem really right, but you know Father hain't known anything for upwards of two years, and you know jest how bad we did want to come here.