“What will throw me? and when?” says I.
“Why,” says he, “you can't never ride it! How should I feel to see you on one of 'em! It skairs me most to death to see a boy ride 'em; and at your age, and with your rheumatiz, you'd get throwed, and get your neck broke, the first day.” Says he, “If you have got to have something more stylish, and new-fangled than the old mair, I'd ruther buy you a philosopher. They are easier-going than a encyclopedia, anyway.”
“A philosopher?” says I dreamily.
“Yes, such a one as Tom Gowdey has got.”
Says I, “You mean a velocipede!”
“Yes, and I'll get you one ruther than have you a ridin' round the country on a encyclopedia.”
His tender thoughtfulness touched my heart, and I explained to him all about 'em. He thought it was some kind of a bycicle. And he brightened up, and didn't make no objections to my gettin' one.
Wall, that very afternoon he went to Jonesville, and come home, as I said, all rousted up about bein' a senator. I s'pose Elburtus'es bein' there, and talkin' so much on politics, had kinder sot him to thinkin' on it. Anyway, he come home from Jonesville perfectly rampant with the idee of bein' United-States senator. “He said he had been approached on the subject.”
He said it in that sort of a haughty, high-headed way, such as men will sometimes assume when they think they have had some high honors heaped onto 'em.
Says I, “Who has approached you, Josiah Allen?”