The words Martin said then I won’t never tell—no, indeed! besides the wickedness on ’em, it wuz too humiliatin’ to hear ’em applied to my own pardner. “Fool” wuz the last one of the three, and “The” wuz the first one, but I will not tell the middle word—you can’t make me.
Alice went to laughin’ (partly hysterics); she felt dretful relieved, and as the figger seemed now to be aproachin’ the house, I went back into my room, into which it soon entered in a gay and jaunty manner.
He had been enjoyin’ himself first-rate, and sez he—
“Wall, Samantha, I’ve found the word, and I’ve been a-singin’;” sez he, “I sung the verse all over, and it sounded beautiful, and then I stood still a spell, and all of a sudden the right word come to me. It wuz ‘bind,’” sez he.
Sez I coldly, “You’ve skairt a woman almost into fits and made a church-member and a relation swear like a pirate.” Sez I, “I’ve seen you took for lots of things, Josiah Allen, from first to last, but I never thought I should ever live to see the day to see you took for a ghost—a Banshee. A common ghost would sound as good agin as that.” And I went on and related the facts. He acted mad and puggilistic like, and sez he—“I can’t help folks from makin’ dum fools of themselves.”
Sez I, “I wish you’d kep’ yourself from it.”
Sez he, “It is a pity if a man can’t sing a little durin’ the evenin’ without his folks actin’ like perfect fools!”
“Sing!” sez I; “I wonder how many more episodes you’ll have to go through without your learnin’ the truth about what you call your singin’.” Sez I, “You can’t sing, Josiah Allen, any more than a cow can play on the melodian, and I’ve told you so often enough for you to believe it.”
“Wall, wall,” sez he, “it’s time to go to bed. When a man is a-travellin’ with a hull crew of loonaticks and fools, it stands him in hand to git what little rest he can, nights.”
That man wuz ashamed of his conduct, and I knew it.