I jest put my hands down in my pockets sort of puzzled, and stood a looking at the critter to see what I could make on it. Arter I'd took a good squint at the consarn, up one side, down t'other, and down the middle, right and left, I purty much made up my mind that it was one of them new-fashioned side-saddles, that I'd heard tell on, and I took a notion into my head that I'd buy one and send it to marm. So when the leetle old maid cum back from the door, I jest pinted at the saddle, and sez I, "What's the charge for that are thing?" "Why, that pair," sez she, a sticking her head on one side, and a burying her hands, that looked like a hawk's claws, down in the pocket of her cunning short apron, "I'll put them to you at twelve dollars; they're French-made, 'lastic shoulder straps, stitched beautifully in the front, chuck full of whalebone--and they set to the shape like the skin to a bird." Lord a massey, how the little stuck up critter did set off the talk! I couldn't shove in a word edgeways, till she stopped to git breath, and then sez I, "I s'pose you throw in the martingales, sirsingle, and so on, don't you?" "The what," says she, a stepping back, and squinting up in my face sort of cross, as if she didn't like to throw in the whole harnessing at that price. "The martingale," sez I, "and the sirsingle; but mebby you have some other name for 'em down here in York. I mean the straps that come down in front to throw the chest out, and give the neck a harnsome bend, and the thing to girt up in the middle with. Marm wont know how to use this new-fashioned thing if I don't send all the tackle with it." "Oh," sez the milliner, "I didn't understand; you want the laces and the steel in front; sartinly we give them in. The steel is kivered with kid, and the laces are of the strongest silk." "Wal," sez I, "I never heard of a steel martingale, and I should be afeard they wouldn't be over pliable." "Oh," sez she, "you can bend 'em double, they give so." "How you talk," says I, "it raly is curious what new inventions people du have, but somehow it sort of seems to me that a silk girt might be a leetle too slimpsey, don't you think so marm?" "Lor, no sir," sez she, "they are strong enough, I can tell you; jest take a look at the Broadway ladies, they never use anything else, and they girt tight enough, I'm sure." I hadn't the least idee what the critter was a diving at; she see that I looked sort of puzzled, and I s'pose she begun to think that I shouldn't buy the saddle. "Look a here," sez she, a putting her hands on both sides of her leetle stuck up waist; "I've got 'em on myself, so you can judge how tight they can be fitted."