My tone kinder hung on to him, and stiddied him down some. And he lost some of his wild and excited mean. And he stopped onbuttonin' his vest--he had onbuttoned his shirt-collar and took his old necktie off on his way from the gate--so ardent and impulsive is my dear pardner, and so anxious to start. "Why," sez he, "I told you, didn't I? I am goin' to Washington to tend to that Equinomical Counsel. Five hundred male men are a-goin' to git together to counsel together on the best ways of bein' equinomical. And here at last"--sez he proudly--"here at last is the chance I have always been a-lookin' out for. Here is the opportunity for me to show off, and be somebody." And here he begun agin to onbutton his shirt-sleeves and loosen his collar. But I sez slowly and firmly, and as much like a heavy weight as I could-- "It is three hours to train time. Set down and act like a human bein' and a Methodist, and tell me what it is you want to do." He glanced up at the clock onto the mantlery-piece, and he see I wuz right about the time. And he sot down, and sez he-- "That is jest how I want to act, like a Methodist, and a equinomical counsellor." "What for?" sez I. "What do you want to do?" "Why, to teach 'em," sez he. "To show myself off. To counsel 'em." "To counsel 'em about what?" sez I heavily, bein' bound to come to the bottom of the matter, and the sense on't, if sense there wuz in it. "Why," sez he, "they are havin' a counsel there to see if there are any new ways for men and Methodists to be equinomical. And I'll be dumned if there is a man or a Methodist from Maine to Florida that can counsel 'em better about bein' equinomical than I can. "Why, you have always said so," sez he. "You have called it tightness, but I have always known that it wuz pure economy; and now," sez he, "has come the chance of a lifetime, for me to rise up and show myself off before the nation. To git the high, lofty name that I ort to have, and do good." I dropped my choppin' knife out of my hand, and rested my elbow on the table, and leaned my head on my hand in deep thought. I see he had more sense on his side than I thought he had. I recollected the different and various ways in which he had showed his equinomical tightness sence our married life begun, and I trembled for the result. I ruminated over our early married life, and how, in spite of his words of almost impassioned tenderness and onwillingness for me to harm and strain myself by approachin' the political pole--still how he had let me wrestle with weighty hop-poles and draw water out of a deep well with a cistern pole for more'n fourteen years. I remembered how he had nearly flooded out his own precious and valuable insides at Saratoga by his wild efforts to git the full worth of the five cents he had advanced to the Spring-tender.