Sez I, “Do you believe that the water could heal it? If you hain’t got faith I wouldn’t take off my shue;” for my ardent companion wuz even then a-onbuttonin’ the top button.
He paused. “But,” sez he, “would I have to leave my shue here if I got cured—would it be fashionable and stylish to do so, and go home barefooted?”
And I swep’ right by him, and sez I, “Come on, Josiah Allen; all the water of Lourdes can’t cure a soul whose highest aim is to be stylish.”
And he come on a-mutterin’, “You complain if I don’t look ahead, and you complain if I do. How did I know whether it would be expected of me to go home in my stockin’ feet or not, and you’d complain if I got a hole in my stockin’.” Sez he, “If I hain’t healed you complain, and if I be healed you find fault with me.”
Sez I soothin’ly, “Dear Josiah, you might git cold in your stockin’ feet—it is all for the best, and I d’no its power over corns anyway,” sez I.
“Wall,” sez he, “it would look queer to Pau to see me mount the hotel steps with one shue and one red stockin’ on.”
For he had worn his dressiest pair that mornin’.
And he murmured, “If I had my dressin’-gown on, it would droop down over my feet some.”
Al Faizi had been all this time a-lookin’ round and notin’ down things in his note-book, and seein’ everything with his deep, strange eyes, but sayin’ little about it, and a-thinkin’ a lot, as wuz his general way.
The next mornin’ we left Pau, and in the afternoon we found ourselves in the “Bay of Biscay, Oh!”