'
"So I hands 'em to him. He reads one of 'em, and then he reads the
other, which he needn't 'a' done, for they was both alike, an' then
he turns to me, an' says he:
"'What kind of a man is your boarder-as-was?'
"It wasn't the easiest thing in the world to say jus' what he was,
but I give Jone the idea, in a general sort of way, that he was
pretty lively.
"'So I should think,' says he. 'He's been tryin' a trick on us,
and sendin' us to the wrong place. It's rather late in the season
for a show of the kind, but the place we ought to go to is a
potato-field.'
"'What on earth are you talkin' about?' says I, dumbfoundered.
"'Well,' says he, 'it's a trick he's been playin'. He thought a
bridal trip like ours ought to have some sort of a outlandish wind-
up, an' so he sent us to this place, which is a meetin' of chaps
who are agoin' to talk about insec's,--principally potato-bugs, I
expec'--an' anything stupider than that, I s'pose your boarder-as-
was couldn't think of, without havin' a good deal o' time to
consider.'
"'It's jus' like him,' says I. 'Let's turn round and go back,'
which we did, prompt.
"We gave the tickets to a little boy who was sellin' papers, but I
don't believe he went.
"'Now then,' says Jone, after he'd been thinkin' awhile, 'there'll
be no more foolin' on this trip. I've blocked out the whole of the
rest of it, an' we'll wind up a sight better than that boarder-as-
was has any idea of. To-morrow we'll go to father's an' if the old
gentleman has got any money on the crops, which I expec' he has, by
this time, I'll take up a part o' my share, an' we'll have a trip
to Washington, an' see the President, an' Congress, an' the White
House, an' the lamp always a-burnin' before the Supreme Court, an'--'
"'Don't say no more, says I, 'it's splendid!'
"So, early the nex' day, we goes off jus' as fast as trains would
take us to his father's, an' we hadn't been there mor'n ten
minutes, before Jone found out he had been summoned on a jury.
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