It wuz the money he begreched, though you could git ’em from a sixpence up. I gin a shillin’ for mine. It wuz a good plate.
Wall, we went acrost the old bridge, over the clear waters of the Avon. And we visited the Memorial Hall, a big buildin’ built in honor of the poet’s three hundredth anniversary. It has a theatre to act out Shakespeare’s plays on Memorial days, and a library filled with the volumes that have been writ about him, and the picter gallery is filled with picters, some on ’em different faces of hisen, and them relatin’ to his life and writin’s. It wuz a interestin’ spot, and I would have loved to lingered in it longer, and so would Alice and Al Faizi, but Josiah wuz tired out, and he sed to me aside—
“It is most night and I am starved to death!” Sez he, “I hain’t most starved, but starved.”
“Wall,” sez I, “we shall have to do what Martin sez.”
“Martin!” he whispered enough to take my head off—“Martin! Can he suffer and die for me, do you think?”
And then he reviled me for not havin’ some cookies and cheese with me.
And I asked him if I could be expected to make a restoraunt of myself, and lug round cookies and cheese for him all over Europe. And we had some words.
But the expression of his face wuz pitiful in the extreme when Martin come up, and sez he—
“Without doubt it would be expected of me to visit Shottery and see Anne Hathaway’s cottage. And as my time is limited, and I have already wasted nearly a day of my valuable time in noticing Shakespeare, I think that we had better do up the whole of this weary job to-night; so I propose that we go at once from here to Shottery.” And he hurried out to the carriage.
Josiah whispered to me in a feeble voice, “He needn’t use any Shottery on me or stabbery or any other killery, I shall fall dead without ’em. I cannot stand it, Samantha!” sez he.