第52章 CHAPTER XVI.(2)

"'Oh no, it isn't,' says he. 'An' it wont cost you a cent, but the ferry. They couldn't have them shows in the city, for, if the creatures was to get loose, there's no knowin' what might happen.

So take 'em, an' have as much fun as you can for the rest of your trip. Good-bye!' An' off he went.

"Well, we kep' straight on to the doctor's, an' glad we was when we got there, an' mad he was when we lef' Mrs. Jackson an' the General on his hands, for we wouldn't have no more to do with 'em, an' he couldn't help undertaking' to see that they got back to the asylum.

I thought at first he wouldn't lift a finger to get us our trunk;but he cooled down after a bit, an' said he hoped we'd try some different kind of institution for the rest of our trip, which we said we thought we would.

"That afternoon we gawked around, a-lookin' at all the outside shows, for Jone said he'd have to be pretty careful of his money now, an' he was glad when I told him I had two free tickets in my pocket for a show in the evenin.'

"As we was a-walkin' down to the ferry, after supper, says he:

"'Suppose you let me have a look at them tickets.'

"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, Iexpec'--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 Idon'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.

"'When must you go?' says I, when he come, lookin' a kind o' pale, to tell me this.

"'Right off,' says he. 'The court meets this mornin'. If I don't hurry up, I'll have some of 'em after me. But I wouldn't cry about it. I don't believe the case'll last more'n a day.'

"The old man harnessed up an' took Jone to the court-house, an' Iwent too, for I might as well keep up the idea of a bridal-trip as not. I went up into the gallery, and Jone, he was set among the other men in the jury-box.