That very day in goin' about the place he found in a store an old tin lantern, a relic of the past someone had left there to be sold. It wuz a lantern that used to be in vogue before Josiah Allen wuz born, a anteek tin lantern with holes in the sides, and one candle power. He had bought it greedily, sayin' it wuz jest like one his grandpa had when he wuz a child. He had left it in the office, and had lit that lantern and wuz now hangin' along in the rear of that gay procession, with that mummy-like figger, a jest, a byword and a sneer, for laughter riz up round 'em and sneers follered 'em as they swep' onwards. As they come nigh me I riz up almost wildly and ketched holt of my pardner and sez I: "Desist! Josiah Allen, stop to once!" The aged female looked at me in surprise and feeble remonstrance, and sez she: "Can it be that you're jealous?" [Illustration: _"As they come nigh me I riz up almost wildly and ketched holt of my pardner and sez I: 'Desist! Josiah Allen, stop to once!' The aged female looked at me in surprise." (See page 131)_] Even in that awful moment my powers of deep reasonin' didn't desert me and I said: "If I wuz goin' to be jealous I wouldn't be of a animated mummy, or livin' skeleton!" And to my companion I sez, "Josiah Allen, if you don't set down here by me, I will part with you to once before the first Square or Justice I can ketch!" He see determination on my eye-brow, and as they wuz in the extreme rear of the line, and it didn't break up nothin', I ketched the lantern out of his hand and blowed it out, and put it under his chair as he sot down in it. And then to her I sez with a almost frozen politeness: "I'd advise you, mom, to soak your feet and go to bed." She vanished. But to my pardner my voice lost that icy coldness and become het up with indignation, and I sez, "What tempted you, Josiah Allen, to make a perfect fool of yourself--a show for hollow worldlings to sneer at!" "Fool!" sez he in bitter axents, "you call me that when I wuz strictly actin' out what you've always ordered me to do. You've always told me to be good to females, to put myself out and make a martyr of myself if necessary for their good. But it is the last time!" sez he bitterly, "the very last time I will ever have anything to do with your sect in any way, shape or manner. I get no thanks from you for anything I do, and the worm may jest as well turn first as last." "Do you pretend to say, Josiah, that you did this to please me?" "Yes mom, I do! I did it to please you, and to take that woman's part. You hearn her say she wanted to dance, but no man wuz forthcomin'." "Dance!" sez I, "dance at ninety years old!" "She hain't much more'n eighty," sez he, "I don't believe. But anyway, you won't git me into such a scrape agin. Your sect may be trod on for all that I care. They may set round till they grow to their chairs and be trompled down into the ground--and I jest as soon tromple on a few myself," sez he recklessly.