“Better that,” sez I, “than the hot water you would be deluged with if you should try it in public. Nobody would stand it, and you’d find it out they wouldn’t without scaldin’ you.”
Wall, from Edinburgh Martin said that we would start for London, and so we took the train goin’ south and sot off in the early mornin’ and in pretty good sperits.
We only made one stop on our way to London, and that wuz at York—the quaint, old, walled city, in which Americans take an interest on account of their own New York bein’ named after it.
Our New York is some younger—about seventeen hundred years younger, and that is a good deal of difference between a Ma and a young child. But, then, it hain’t common to have the youngster about twenty times bigger than its Ma.
Wall, we went to a good tarvern and recooperated a little durin’ the night from the fatigues of travel, and the next mornin’ bright and early we sot out to see the sights of the city, knowin’ that our stay there wuz to be but short.
Martin engaged a guide, though he didn’t often want one, sayin’, as he did, that he felt that he wuz so familar with history and all those places that a guide was “an unnecessary outlay and a drug.”
But bein’ in a hurry to git on to-day, we went first to see the great wall that has stood for centuries, and seems able to stand quite a number more of ’em. I got out of the carriage and laid my hand on the wall, feelin’ that it would be a satisfaction to put my hand on the stun.
Josiah said, “That looks foolish, Samantha; you have never tried once to put your hand on to the stun wall between our paster and Deacon Gowdy’s.”
“But,” sez I, “that wall has never been looked upon by Adrian and Constantine the Great; it has never been trod by Britons, Picts, Danes, and Saxons, each on ’em a-warrin’ for and defendin’ their native land.”
“Wall,” sez he, “our wall is a crackin’ good one.” Josiah looked kinder scorfin’ at me for my enthoosiasm, but I didn’t mind it any.