“It would, perhaps, be expected of me to go on and visit Oxford.”
“Yes,” sez I warmly, “Thomas J. has read so much to me about Tom Brown at Oxford, it would be highly interestin’ to see the places Tom thought so much on.”
“Yes,” sez Alice with enthoosiasm, “and where Richard the Lion-hearted was born, and where Alfred the Great lived.”
Sez Josiah, “I wouldn’t give a cent to see where he lived. I despise fryin’ flap-jacks, and always did, and if a man undertakes to fry ’em, he ort to tend to ’em and not let ’em burn.”
But Alice went right on, “And think of being in the place which William the Conqueror invaded!”
“And,” sez Al Faizi, “where Latimer, and Ridley, and Cranmer were burned at the stake for their religion by Bloody Mary.”
It beat all how well-read that heathen is—he knows more than the schoolmaster at Jonesville, enough sight.
But sez Martin, with his thumbs inside of them armholes of hisen—
“It is not for any such trifling reasons that I would visit Oxford, but, as I say, it undoubtedly would be expected of me, if it was known at Oxford that I was so near, that I would give a little of my valuable time to them; for there, I have thought hard of sending my son to finish his education.
“For as you know, Cousin Samantha, my boy is to have the best and costliest education that money can give. His future is in the hands of one who will look out sharply for the very best and most valuable means of education. It is not as if he were a common child. But he is my little Partner—are you not, Adrian?” sez he fondly to the little boy, who wuz lookin’ dreamily out of the winder.