“Do you spoze they would?” sez he.
“Of course they would!” sez I; “twilight would see you a-moulderin’ in a cell in Loontown.”
“I couldn’t moulder much in half a day!” sez he.
But I see that I wuz about to conquer. He paused a minute in deep thought, and then he turned away; but as he went up the steps slowly, I hearn him say—“Dum it all, I never try to show off in politeness or anything but what sunthin’ breaks it up!”
But anon he come down clothed in his good honorable black kerseymeer suit, and Al Faizi soon follered him in his Oriental garb, and we proceeded to meetin’.
As I say, the excitement wuz nearly rampant as we went in. And I spoze nothin’ hendered the female wimmen and men from bein’ fairly prostrated and overcome by their feelin’s, only this fact, that the winter before a Hindoo in full costoom had lectured before the Jonesville meetin’-house, so that memory kinder broke the blow some. And then some on ’em had been to the World’s Fair, and seen quantities of heathens and sech there.
So no casuality wuz reported, though feather fans wuz waved wildly, and more caraway wuz consoomed, I dare presoom to say, than would have been in a month of Sundays in ordinary times.
But while the wonder and curosity waxed rampant all round, Al Faizi sot silent and motionless as the dead, with his soft, brilliant eyes fixed on the minister’s face, eager to ketch every word that fell from his lips—a-tryin’ to hear the echo of the Great Voice speak to him through the minister’s words, so I honestly believe.
For I think that a honester, sincerer, well-meanin’er creeter never lived and breathed than he wuz; and as days went on I see nothin’ to break up my opinion of him.
Politer he wuz than any female, or minister, I ever see fur or near. Afraid of makin’ trouble to a marked extent, eager and anxious to learn everything he could about everything—all our laws, and customs, and habits, and ways of thinkin’—and tellin’ his views in a simple way of honest frankness, that almost took my breath away—anxious to learn, and anxious to teach what he knew of the truth.