“Why, it needs somebody it can lean on, and it needs somebody that can lean. I am a popular man,” says he. “And if I can help the nation, I will be glad to do it; and if the nation can help me, I am willin'. The change from Jonesville to Washington will be agreeable and relaxin', and I lay out to try it.”
Says I, in sarkastick tones, “It is a pity you hain't got your free pass to go on:—you remember that incident, don't you, Josiah Allen?”
“What of it?” he snapped out. “What if I do?”
“Wall, I thought then, that, when you got high-headed and haughty on any subject agin, mebby you would remember that pass, and be more modest and unassuming.”
He riz right up, and hollered at me,—
“Throw that pass in my face, will you, at this time of year?”
And he started for the barn, almost on the run.
But I didn't care. I wus bound to break up this idee of hisen at once. If I hadn't been, I shouldn't have mentioned the free pass to him. For it is a subject so gaulin' to him, that I never allude to it only in cases of extreme danger and peril, or uncommon high-headedness.
Now I have mentioned it, I don't know but it will be expected of me to tell about this pass of hisen. But, if I do, it mustn't go no further; for Josiah would be mad, mad as a hen, if he knew I told about it.
I will relate the history in another epistol.