“Josiah,” sez I, “this is the Infanty—Ulaley, you’ve hearn me speak on.”
Josiah made his best and lowest bow, and murmured sunthin’ about havin’ read about her in the World.
“Yes,” sez I, “and you’ve hearn me talk about her a sight.”
But he had a sort of a obstinate streak come over him, sech as pardners will have in the strangest and most onconvenient times, and he never assented to that at all, but sed agin that he had read about her in the World.
And I had to let it go. Truly, pardners, though agreeable at times, yet how clost do they clip off the wings of your pride and ambition at other and more various times!
Ulaley see it. Wimmen know only too well how often sech contrarytemps occurs, and she helped me out, as I’ve helped many a woman out of the mud-puddle of embarrassment a pardner’s words have throwed her into.
Sez she, “I have such warm recollections of your country—it is so great a country,” sez she.
“Yes,” sez I, “our country is a middlin’ big one, but I thought I wouldn’t speak of the size on’t to you, Ulaley, thinkin’ that you might think mebby that I’d come over here to kinder twit you of the smallness of yourn.” And wantin’ to be real polite, sez I—
“The value of anything don’t always depend on its size.”
“No, indeed!” sez Josiah.