He looked pitiful and meek, and sot demute for a couple of minutes.  I see that I had convinced him about the Equinomical Counsel; he see that it wouldn’t do, and he wouldn’t make no more show than a underlin’.

But anon, or about that time, he spoke out in pitiful axents—­

“Samantha, if I can’t show off any at the Equinomical Counsel, I’d love to see them male law-makers a-settin’ in the Capitol at Washington, D.C.  I’d love to mingle with ’em, Samantha.  You know, and I know, too, that I am one of ’em.  Wuzn’t I chose arbitrator in Seth Meezik’s quarrel with his father-in-law?  Hain’t I sot on juries in the past, and hain’t I liable to set?

“I want to see them male law-makers, Samantha.  I want to be intimate with ’em.”

I almost trembled.  I can withstand my pardner’s angry or excited moods, but here I see pleadin’ and longin’; I see I had a hard job in front of me.  I hate to dissapint him.  I hate to, like a dog.  But duty nerved me, and I sez—­

“Josiah, less talk it over before you decide to go.  Less bring up some of the laws them males have made, or allow to go on.

“I want to talk to you about ’em, Josiah,” sez I, “before I let you depart to be intimate with ’em.”  Sez I, “Do you remember the old adage, a dog is known by the company he keeps?  Before you go to be one of them dogs, Josiah Allen, and be known as one of ’em, less recall some of the lawful incidents of a few months back.”  Sez I, “We won’t raise our skirts and wade back into history to any great depth, and hove out a large quantity of ’em, but will keep in the shaller water of a few short fleetin’ months, and pick up one or two of the innumerable number of ‘em; and then, if you want to go, why—­” sez I, in the tremblin’ axents of fond affection—­“why, I will pack your saddle-bags.”

Then I went on calmly and brung up a few laws and laid ’em down before him.

I brung up the Indians doin’s, the Mormons, the Chinese, all on ’em flagrant.

But still he had that longin’ look on his face.

Then I brung up the rotten political doin’s, the unjust laws prevailin’ in regard to female wimmen, and also the onrighteousness of the liquor laws and the abomination of the license question; I talked powerful and eloquent on them awful themes, but as I paused a minute for needed breath, he murmured—­

“I want to be intimate with ’em, Samantha.”

And then, bein’ almost at my wits’ end, I dropped the general miscellaneous way I had used, and begun to bring up little separate instances of the injustices of the Law.  And I see he begun to be impressed.

How true it is that, from the Bible down to Josiah Allen’s Wife, you have to talk in stories in order to impress the masses!  You have to hold up the hammer of a personal incident to drive home the nail of Truth and have it clench and hold fast.

But mine wuz some different—­mine wuz facts, every one of ’em.