CHAPTER XXIV.
“THE WIDDER ALBERT.”
I’d told Martin when we’d first come to London that I must see the Widder Albert whilst I wuz there.
A few days had run by, and I sez to Martin—“Like as not Victoria will be a-wonderin’ why I hain’t been to her house.”
Of course when I first arrove I had sent her word to once, and asked her in a friendly way to come and see us jest as quick as she could, knowin’ that it wuz etiket for me to do so, and it wuz nothin’ but manners for her to make the first visit.
And a-takin’ it right to home, that if she had come over to Jonesville, and wuz a-stoppin’ to the tarvern there, it would be my place to make the first call. I hain’t over-peticular in sech matters, but still I set quite a store by etiket, after all, and havin’ made the overtoor and sent the word that I wuz here, I didn’t want to demean myself by actin’ too over-anxious to make her acquaintance, though I did in my heart want to neighbor with her, thinkin’ quite a lot of her as a woman who had rained long and rained well.
It wuz Martin that I sent the word by. He argued quite a spell about the onproperness of my sendin’ sech word to a Queen. But I argued back so fluent about the dissapintment it would be to her if she didn’t know I wuz here, and my onwillin’ness to hurt her feelin’s by my not makin’ myself known to her, that I spoze he wuz convinced, for he sez—
“Leave it right in my hands; don’t say a word to anybody else on the subject, and I will tend to it in the right way.”
So I gin my promise, and as he hurried right out of the room, I spoze he tended to it imegiately and to once. And I sot in my room the rest of that day in my best waist and my shiniest collar and cuffs, expectin’ some that she would be to see me before night.
And the next time I went out sight-seein’, though I didn’t say a word about her, accordin’ to my promise, yet I expected to go back and see the benine face, mebby a-lookin’ over the bannisters a-waitin’ for me.