“Oh, keep a askin', and a naggin'! That is what wears out us public men,--wimmin's questionin'. It hain't so much the public duties we have to perform that ages us, and wears us out before our time,--it is woman's weak curiosity on public topics, that her mind is too feeble to grasp holt of. It is wearin',” says he haughtily. Says I, “Specially when they don't know what to answer.” Says I, “Josiah Allen, you don't know this minute what tariff means, or revenue.” “Wall, I know what starvation means, and I know what vittles means, and I know I am as hungry as a bear.” Instinctively I hung on the teakettle. And as Josiah see me pare the potatoes, and grind the coffee, and pound the steak, he grew very pleasant again in his demeanor; and says he,-- “There will be some abuses reformed when I get to Washington, D.C.; and you and the nation will see that there will. Now, there is the civil-service law: Uncle Nate and I wus a talkin' about it yesterday. It is jest what we need. Why, as uncle Nate said, hired men hain't civil at all, nor hired girls either. You hire 'em to serve you, and to serve you civil; and they are jest as dumb uppish and impudent as they can be. And hotel-clerks--now, they don't know what civil-service means.” “Why, uncle Nate said when he went to the Ohio, last fall, he stayed over night to Cleveland, and the hotel-clerk sassed him, jest because he wanted to blow out his light: he wanted uncle Nate to turn it off. “And uncle Nate jest spoke right up, smart as a whip, and said, 'Old-fashioned ways was good enough for him: blows wus made before turners, and he should blow it out.' And the hotel-clerk sassed him, and swore, and threatened to make him leave. “And ruther than have a fuss, uncle Nate said he turned it out. But it rankled, uncle Nate says it did, it rankled deep. And he says he wants to vote for that special. He says he'd love to make that clerk eat humble-pie. “Uncle Nate is a sound man: his head is level. “And good, sound platforms, that is another reform, uncle Nate said we needed the worst kind, and he hoped I would insist on it when I got to be senator. He said there was too much talk about 'em in the papers, and too little done about 'em. Why, Elam Gowdey, uncle Nate's youngest boy, broke down the platform to his barn, and went right down through it, with a load of hay. And nothin' but that hay saved his neck from bein' broke. It spilte one of his horses. “Uncle Nate had been urgin' him to fix the platform, or build a new one; but he was slack. But, as uncle Nate says, if such things are run by law, they will _have_ to be done. “And then, there is another thing uncle Nate and I was talkin' about,” says he, lookin' very amiable at me as I rolled out my cream biscuit--almost spooney. [Illustration: UNCIVIL SERVICE.] “I shall jest run every poor Irishman and Chinaman out of the country that I can.” “What has the Irishmen done, Josiah Allen?” says I.