Another one of the queer things them old Doges ust to do wuz to marry the Adriatic to the city at a certain time every year.
What did they want to marry water for?
But Josiah wuz all worked up with the idee, when he hearn us a-talkin’ about it, and about the magnificent ceremonies they went through with at the weddin’.
Sez he, “How uneek it would be for me to marry the creek to Jonesville and perform the ceremony out to our mill-dam! It would be beautiful, and it would be as cheap as dirt, too; Ury could fix up a raft, and I could take one of the curtain rings out of the spare bedroom to wed it with.”
“What do you want to be weddin’ the creek for?” sez I coldly.
“Oh, for fashion,” sez he—“style. Old-fashioned things are so stylish now,” sez he. “You know how them old, long, black clocks, humbly things in the first on’t as they could be—you know how they’re set up in the boodores of luxury now, a-lookin’ like a coffin on end. And spinnin’-wheels and sech that our grandmas ust to hustle out of the room, if company come, now they’re sot up on velvet carpets, and made sights on. And this manoover would be dretful stylish. Oh, how the Jonesville bridge would be crowded! how the Jonesvillians would look on in admiration to see the sight!
“Of course I should wear my dressin’-gown. The public has never had a chance to see it on me yet, you have always been so sot on keepin’ me to home in it. This would be a very agreeable treat to have on Fourth of Julys, or any national holiday, and I could carry it out perfectly and dog cheap, with a little of Ury’s help.”
But I sot my foot right down on the idee to once. Sez I, “It looks silly as anything in them wicked old Doges, and you hain’t a-goin’ to import any of their tricks into Jonesville. Next thing I’d know you’d have a inquisition a-goin’ on, and a secret tribunal of Ten.”
“Next thing I’d know you’d have a inquisition a-goin’ on.”