Then three wimmen giggled, and the waiters began to look mad and troubled.

“English rifles”—­wall, I shouldn’t have thought they would have tried that agin.  No, trifles,” sez he, a-lookin’ closer at it.

“English trifles!—­lions’ tails and coronets, mebby—­English trifles and tutty-frutty.  Do have some tutty-frutty, Samantha, it has such a stylish sound to it, so different from good pork and beans and roast beef; I believe you would enjoy it dearly.

“Waiter,” sez he, “bring on some tutty-frutty to once.”

The waiter approached cautiously, and made a motion to me, and touched his forehead.

He thought he wuz crazy, and he whispered to me, “Is it caused by drinkin’? or is it nateral and come on sudden—­”

Josiah heard it, and answered out loud, “It wuz caused by style, by bein’ fashionable; my only aim has been to git my wife a fashionable dinner, but I see it has overcome her.”

The waiter wuz a good-hearted-lookin’ man—­a kind heart beat below that white necktie (considerable below it on the left side), and sez he to me—­

“Shall I bring you a dinner, Mom, without takin’ the order?”

And I replied gratefully—­

“Yes, so do;” and so he brung it, a good enough dinner for anybody—­good roast beef, and potatoes, and lemon pie, and tea, and Josiah eat hearty, and had to quiet down some, though he kept a-mournin’ all through the meal about its not bein’ carried on fashionable and stylish, and that it wuz my doin’s a-breakin’ it up, and etc., etc., and the last thing a-wantin’ tutty-frutty, and etc., etc.

And I paid for the meal out of my own pocket; the waiter thought I had to on account of my companion’s luny state, and he gin the bill to me.

And Josiah a-chucklin’ over it, as I could see, for savin’ his money.

And I got him out of that place as quick as I could, the bystanders, or ruther the bysetters, a-laughin’ or a-lookin’ pitiful at me, as their naters differed.

And as we wended off down the broad path on the outside, I sez, “You have disgraced us forever in the eyes of the nation, Josiah Allen.”

And he sez, “What have I done?  You can’t throw it in my face, Samantha, that I hain’t tried to cut style—­that I didn’t try to git you a stylish meal.”

I wouldn’t say a word further to him, and I never spoke to him once that night—­not once, only in the night I thought there wuz a mouse in the room, and I forgot myself and called on him for help.

And for three days I didn’t pass nothin’ but the compliments with him; he felt bad—­he worships me.  He did it all to keep me from goin’ to a costly place—­I know what his motives wuz—­but he had mortified me too deep.

CHAPTER XV.

Wall, this mornin’ I said that I would go to see the Palace of Art if I had to go on my hands and knees.