But if you can believe it, before I got breakfast ready, while he was a wipin’ his hands to the sink on the roller towel, he broke out agin as fresh seemingly in debate as ever. If I had mistrusted it ahead I should have made extra preparation for breakfast, for the purpose of quellin’ him down, but I hadn’t dreamed of his resoomin’ it agin; and I only got my common run of brekfasses, though it wuz very good and appetizin’. I had some potatoes warmed up in cream, and some lamb-chops broiled brown and yet juicy, some hot muffins light as a feather, and some delicious coffee—it wuz good enough for a King or a Zar—but then it wuzn’t one of my choice efforts, for principle’s sake, which I often have to make in the cookin’ line, and—good land!—which every other human woman has to make who has a man to deal with. We can’t vote, and we have to do sunthin’ or other to get our own way. Wall, as I wuz a sayin’, he broke out anew, and sez he: “I am sick as a dog of all this talk about the Race Problem.” And then agin I uttered them wise words I had spoken the night before; they wuz jest heavy with wisdom if he had only known it; and sez I: “What makes you keep a bringin’ it up, then and a talkin’ about it?” And agin he sez, “He done it to let me know how he felt about it.” And agin I sez, “I knew it before.” And I silently but smoothly poured my sweet cream over my sliced potatoes, and turned my lamb-chops and drawed my coffee forwards so it would come to a bile. And he repeated, “I believe in lettin’ things alone that don’t consarn us; it hain’t none of our bizness.” And seein’ he wuz bound on talkin’ on it, why, I felt a feelin’ that I must roust up and set him right where I see he wuz wrong; I see it was my duty as a devoted pardner. And so, after we had got down to the table, and he sez agin in more powerful and even high-headed axents, “that it wuz none of our bizness,” then I spunked up and sez, “It seems to me, Josiah Allen, that the cause of eternal truth is _always_ our bizness.” “Oh, wall! it hain’t best to meddle; that is my idee, and that is my practice. Don’t you know that when Ury had that fight with Sam Shelmadine, I said I wouldn’t either make nor break? I said I won’t meddle, and I didn’t meddle. It wuzn’t my bizness.” [Illustration: “WHEN URY HAD THAT FIGHT WITH SAM.”]