“I never should think of usin’ it.”
“Oh, nothin’, nothin’ in the world, only I thought it would be uneek to own one. I never should think of usin’ it,” sez he, as I looked still more stonily at him.
“I should think not!” sez I, and my axents wuz about the temperture of five ice suckles.
But after we’d all turned away and wuz a-lookin’ at other relicks, I see him furtively apply that string to it, and mark down the dimensions on’t in his account book.
I d’no what under the sun the man wuz a-thinkin’ on, and I don’t believe he did.
Wall, we wandered round through the rooms for a long time, I with memories a-walkin’ tight to my side—what a host of ’em wuz a-follerin’ me of them shadow shapes—
Sweet Ellen Douglas, and Ivanhoe, and Rebecca, Marmion, Rob Roy, Guy Mannering, Rosamond, Nigel, the Wild Huntsman, Meg Merrilies, etc., etc., etc.
Oh, what a crowd of phantoms, and what different lookin’ creeters they wuz that wuz a-walkin’ up and down that room with me, onbeknown to Josiah and the rest!
And what curous words they wuz a-pourin’ out into my ears—words that I only could hear—some on ’em wuz in poetry—
“Charge, Chester, charge—