Says he, “There would be better laws regarding copyright, if it wuzn't for selfishness on both sides of the pond.”
“Wall,” says I, “selfishness don't pay in the long-run.” And then, thinkin' mebby if I made myself agreable and entertainin', he would change the law quicker, I made a effort, and related a little interestin' incident that I had seen take place jest before my former departure from Jonesville, on a tower.
“No, selfishness don't pay. I have seen it tried, and I know. Now, Bildad Henzy married a wife on a speculation. She was a one-legged woman. He was attached at the time to a woman with the usual number of feet; but he was so close a calculator, that he thought it would be money in his pocket to marry this one, for he wouldn't have to buy but one shoe and stockin'. But she had to jump round on that one foot, and step heavy; so she wore out more shoes than she would if she was two-footed.” Says I, “Selfishness don't pay in private life or in politics.”
And he said “He thought jest so,” and he jest about the same as promised me he would change the law.
I hope he will. It makes me feel so strange every time I think out, as strange as strange can be.
Why, I told Sally after we went out, and I spoke about “the man lookin' human, and jest like anybody else;” and she said “it was a clerk;” and I said “I knew better, I knew it was the man himself.”
And says I agin, “It beats all, how anybody in human shape can make such a law as that copyright law.”
And she said “that was so.” But I knew by her mean, that she didn't understand a thing about it; and I knew it would make me so sort o' light-headed and vacant if I went to explain it to her, that I never said a word, and fell in at once with her proposal that we should go and see the Treasury, and the Corcoran Art Gallery, and the Smithsonian Institute, one at a time.
And I found the Treasury wuz a sight to behold. Such sights and sights of money they are makin' there, and a countin'. Why, I s'pose they make more money there in a week, than Josiah and I spend in a year.
I s'pose most probable they made it a little faster, and more of it, on account of my bein' there. But they have sights and sights of it. They are dretful well off.