Oh! how that oath grated against my nerve! And how I hung back from this idee! I am one that looks ahead. And I says in firm tones,—
“You never would get the nomination, Josiah Allen! And if you did, you never would be elected.”
“Oh, yes, I should!” says he. But he continued dreamily, “There would have to be considerable wire-pullin'.”
“Where would the wires be?” says I sternly. “And who would pull 'em?”
“Oh, most anywhere!” says he, lookin' dreamily up onto the kitchen ceilin', as if wires wus liable to be let down anywhere through the plasterin'.
Says I, “Should you have to go to pullin' wires?”
“Of course I should,” says he.
“Wall,” says I, “you may as well make up your mind in the first ont, that I hain't goin' to give my consent to have you go into any thing dangerous. I hain't goin' to have you break your neck, at your age.”
Says he, “I don't know but my age is as good a age to break my neck in as any other. I never sot any particular age to break my neck in.”
“Make fun all you are a mind to of a anxious Samantha,” says I, “but I will never give my consent to have you plunge into such dangerous enterprizes. And talkin' about pullin' wires sounds dangerous: it sounds like a circus, somehow; and how would you, with your back, look and feel performin' like a circus?”