But there wuz a look in his eyes that I hated to see, for I had seen it many times in the past, and it had always foreboded trials to me and humiliation to my pardner. How queer human critters be! what strange and mysterious tacts they will git on and how they will foller up them tacts and fads of theirn. But I d'no as human critters are any worse about follerin' up their tacts and fads and follerin' 'em blind, than old Mom Nater is. Now who hain't noticed her queer moods and how prolonged they be, and how sudden and onexpected they will come onto her? When she takes it into her head to have a pleasant spell of weather, how she'll foller it up, clear skies, pleasant days and nights for weeks and weeks. And if she takes it into her head to have it rain, how she will keep the skies drippin' right along for most all summer. And then when she has a dry spell, how dry she is! no matter how much the dwindlin' creeks and empty wells and springs complain, she has got to carry out her own idees till she gits ready to change. Josiah Allen, since I had been his pardner had took many a fad into his old head, which he had carried out as only Nater or a man can carry 'em, onreasonable, mysterious, out of season, but bound to let 'em run. Sometimes in the past it had been a desire for singin' base that had laid holt on him, base in every sense the word can be used. Then agin he had painful and prolonged spells of wantin' to be genteel and fashionable, then anon political ambition had rousted up his rusty old faculties and for months and months Coney Island had been his theme, and wuz now, and so on through a long roll of characters he had desired to play in the drama of life. But _dancin'!_ never did I expect to see that man with his age and his profession and his achin' old bones, wantin' to dance. But so it wuz, as will be seen in the follerin' pages. Queer as a dog folks are on this planet, and I d'no but the Marites and Jupiters and Saturnses are jest as queer. But to quit eppisodin' and resoom forwards agin.