'I am General Tom Thumb,'
he says in a deep, gruff voice, 'an' I've been before all the
crown-ed heads of Europe, Asia, Africa, America an' Australia,--all
a's but one,--an' I'm waitin' here for a team of four little milk-
white oxen, no bigger than tall cats, which is to be hitched to a
little hay-wagon, which I am to ride in, with a little pitch-fork
an' real farmer's clothes, only small. This will come to-morrow,
when I will pay for it an' ride away to exhibit. It may be here
now, an' I will go an' see. Good-bye.'
"'Good-bye, likewise,' says the lady. 'I hope you'll have all
you're thinkin' you're havin', an' more too, but less if you'd like
it. Farewell.' An' away they goes.
"Well, you may be sure, I stood there amazed enough, an' mad too
when I heard her talk about my bein' all I was a-thinkin' I was. I
was sure my husband--scarce two weeks old, a husband--had told all.
It was too bad. I wished I had jus' said I was the Earl-ess of
Random an' brassed it out.
"I rushed back an' foun' him smokin' a pipe on a back porch. I
charged him with his perfidy, but he vowed so earnest that he had
not told these people of our fancies, or ever had spoke to 'em,
that I had to believe him.
"'I expec',' says he, 'that they're jus' makin'-believe--as we are.
There aint no patent on make-believes.'
"This didn't satisfy me, an' as he seemed to be so careless about
it I walked away, an' left him to his pipe. I determined to go
take a walk along some of the country roads an' think this thing
over for myself.
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