And I asked him if Martin laid out to go to London in the mornin’, and he said that he guessed he did. “But,” sez he with a tone of regret—
“I did want to visit Scarborough; there’s no need hurryin’ so to London,” sez he.
“Who and what is Scarborough?” sez I in a weary axent as I got up and wadded up my back hair.
“Why, it is the fashionable waterin’-place of England,” sez he; “it is only a little more than forty milds away,” sez he; “we could go jest as well as not, and it would be so genteel. I would,” sez he, a-smoothin’ out the folds of his dressin’-gown, and bringin’ the tossels forred in a more sightly place—“I would love to mingle in fashionable circles once more, Samantha.”
I looked down at his old bald head in silent disaprobation. He wuz too old to hanker after fashion and display, and too bald, and I knew it.
But I knew that I could not make him over, after he had been made so long—no, I should have to bear up the best I could under his shortcomin’s.
But I sez mekanically, and to git his idees off—“I would kinder love to visit Whitby, Josiah; that hain’t much further away, and that is where all the most beautiful jet is made. I thought like as not that you would want to buy me a handkerchief pin, Josiah Allen.”
He looked injured, and sez he, “Where is the black pin you mourned in for Father Smith?” His tone wuz sour and snappish in the extreme.
Sez I, “That pin wuz broke over twenty years ago.”
“Wall,” sez he, “I can glue it together with Ury’s help, or we could tie it up, so’s it would be jest as good as a new one. It don’t come to any strain on your collar,” sez he anxiously.