He blushed up red; he was ashamed; and he said “he would see if I could be admitted.”
And he led the way along, and I follered, and the boy. Bub Smith had left us at the door.
The hired man seemed to think I would want to look round some; and he walked sort o' slow, out of courtesy. But, good land! how little that hired man knew my feelin's, as he led me on, I a thinkin' to myself,—
“Here I am, a steppin' where G. Washington strode.” Oh the grandeur of my feelin's! The nobility of 'em! and the quantity! Why, it was a perfect sight.
But right into these exalted sentiments the hired man intruded with his frivolous remarks,—worse than frivolous.
He says agin something about “not knowin' whether the President would be ready to receive me.”
And I stepped down sudden from that lofty piller I had trod on in my mind, and says I,—
“I tell you agin, I don't care whether he is dressed up or not. I come on principle, and I shall look at him through that eye, and no other.”
“Wall,” says he, turnin' sort o' red agin (he was ashamed), “have you noticed the beauty of the didos?”
But I kep' my head right up in the air nobly, and never turned to the right or the left; and says I,—