“Wall,” says I, “then what be you?”
“I am a fool,” says he bitterly, “a dumb fool.”
“Wall,” says I encouragingly, “you no need to have laid on plans, and I needn't have gone off on no towers of discovery, to have found that out. But now,” says I in softer axents, for I see he did indeed look agitated and melancholy,—
“Tell your Samantha all about it.”
Says he mournfully, “I have got to find 'The Gimlet.'”
“The Gimlet!” I sithed to myself; and the wild and harrowin' thought went through me like a arrow,—that my worst apprehensions had been realized, and that man had been a writing poetry.
But then I remembered that he had promised me years ago, that he never would tackle the job agin. He begun to make a poem when we was first married; but there wuzn't no great harm done, for he had only wrote two lines when I found it out and broke it up.