Jake always paused at this point and shook his head sorrowfully, and then continued dolefully: "But 'twas no use; he was caught and took away; some says it was to see the pictures in the White House, and some says it was to a reception given by the Relief Corps to the officers elect of the Ladies' Aid, where he was pawed over by a lot of old girls who says, 'Yes, I'm so glad--what name please--oh, --McHurdie, surely not _the_ McHurdie; O dear me--Sister McIntire, come right here, this is _the_ McHurdie--you know I sang your song when I was a little girl'--which was a lie, unless Watts wrote it for the Mexican War, and he didn't. And then some one else comes waddling up and says, 'O dear me, Mr. McHurdie--you don't know how glad I am to see the author of "Home, Sweet Home,"' and Watts blinks his eyes and pleads not guilty; and she says, 'O dear, excuse the mistake; well, I'm sure you wrote something?' And Watts, being sick of love, as Solomon says in his justly celebrated and popular song, Watts looks through his Sunday glasses and doesn't see a blame thing, and smiles and says calmly, 'No, madam, you mistake--I am a simple harness maker.' And she sidles off looking puzzled, to make room for the one from Massachusetts, who stares at him through her glasses and says, 'So you're Watts McHurdie--who wrote the--' 'The same, madam,' says Watts, courting favour. 'Well,' says the high-browed one, 'well--you are not at all what I imagined.' And 'Neither are you, madam,' returns Watts, as sweet as a dill pickle; and she goes away to think it over and wonder if he meant it that way. No--that's where Nellie made her mistake. It wouldn't have hurt him--just once. But what's done's done, and can't be undone, as the man said when he fished his wife out of the lard vat."