“No. Must be did,” replied his friend decisively. “Now there are two ways to do this thing. We can be as literary and as deliciously select in our dialogue as Mr. Howells and Professor Boyesen were, or we can be wild and woolly. How would it do to be as wild and woolly as those Eastern fellers expect us to be?”
“All right,” said Field, taking his seat well upon the small of his back. “What does it all mean anyway? What you goin’ to do?”
“I’m goin’ to take notes while we talk, and I’m goin’ to put this thing down pretty close to the fact, now, you 196 bet,” said Garland, sharpening a pencil.
“Where you wan’to begin?”
“Oh, we’ll have to begin with your ancestry, though it’s a good deal like the introductory chapter to the old-fashioned novels. We’ll start early, with your birth for instance.”
“Well, I was born in St. Louis.”
THE OLD HOMESTEAD AT FAYETTEVILLE, VERMONT.
“Is that so?” the interviewer showed an unprofessional surprise. “Why, I thought you were born in Massachusetts?”