“Let me know the worst to once! What have you writ?”

He proudly ondid the paper, and I read—

“I, Josiah,

Am settin’ by the fire,

Am right on the spot

Where Shakespeare sot;

I’m proud to be there,

Though I spoze, from what Samantha sez, that it hain’t the same chair.”

“There,” sez he proudly, as he folded up the paper, and put it into his portmoney. “There hain’t a verse here on these hull walls or on the visitors’ book that will compare with that.”

“No,” sez I coldly, “there hain’t—Heaven knows there hain’t.”