"But," sez I, spruntin' up, "if you talk in that way any more to me I'll holler to Miss Plank! "Pardner or no pardner, I hain't a-goin' to be imposed upon this time of night!" Sez I, "I should be ashamed if I wuz in your place, the father and grandfather of a family, and the deacon in a meetin'-house, to be up at midnight a-posin' for statutes and actin'." "But," sez he, "I didn't know but they would want to sculp me while I wuz here in Chicago, and I thought I'd git a attitude all ready. You never know what may happen, and it's always well to be prepared, and attitudes are dretful hard to catch onto at a minute's notice." Sez I, "Do you come back to bed, Josiah Allen. What would they want of you for a statute?" "Wall," sez he, reluctantly relinquishin' his toga, or, in other words the flannel blanket and bedspread-- "I see many a statute to-day with not half my good looks, and if Chicago wanted me to ornament it, I wanted to be prepared." I sithed aloud, and sez I-- "Here I be waked up for good, as tired as I wuz, all for your vanity and actin'." "Wall," sez he, "Samantha, my mind wuz all so stirred up and excited by seein' so many ile paintin's and statutes to-day, that I felt dretful." And as he sez this my madness all died away, as the way of pardners is, and a great pity stole into my heart. I do spoze he wuz half delirous with seein' too much. Like a man who has oversot himself and come down on the floor. That man had been led round too much that day, for my own pleasure; to gratify my own esthetik taste I had almost ruined the pardner of my youth and middle age. His mind had been stretched too fur, for the size on't, so I sez soothin'ly-- "Wall, wall, Josiah, come back to bed and go to sleep, and to-morrow we'll go and see some live stock and some plows and things." So at last I got him quieted down, though he did murmur once or twice in his sleep--Apollo! Hercules! etc., so I see what his inward state wuz. But towards mornin' he seemed to git into a good sound sleep, and I did too, and we waked up feelin' quite considerable rested and refreshed. And it wuzn't till I had a sick-headache bad, and he wuz more than good to me, and I see that he repented deep of it, that I forgive him fully. But of course it broke up our goin' to fashionable places agin to eat--he come out conqueror, after all--men are deep. CHAPTER XVI. Wall, this mornin'--it bein' kind of a muggy and cloudy one, I proposed that we should go and visit the Fishery Department. And I d'no why I should a thought on it this mornin' more'n another one--only it wuz jest such a day as Josiah and Thomas Jefferson always took for goin' a-fishin' in the creek back of Jonesville. And then we had fish for breakfast too--siscoes--mebby that put me in mind on it some. But anyway, I wuz always interested in the subject of fishin', and the hull world is. For what wuz the Postles? Fishers. For what did the Great Master name His beloved? Fishers of men.