human
I've done my best,
gpt
You'd think he was making his last will and testament from the way he's talking,
human
Maybe I be, Clemmie. Maybe I be.
gpt
What's the cause for all this dejection?
human
Cause enough, Mack.... I'll be going back to the city to-morrow. I hate to leave you to the wiles of the menagerie, for if I ain't terrible mistook they're out for your blood, and they think they've got a whiff of it. But I cal'late they've got their ropes crossed. They've got the idea they're h'isting the mains'l, but it ain't nothing but the spanker. If I was going to stay aboard I'd give 'em a few lessons the next few days that they'd not forget all the rest of their lives.
gpt
You're certainly mixing your figures in great shape this morning,
human
Well, if mixing figures is like mixing drinks, making 'em more elevating to the thoughts, I cal'late I'd best do a little more mixing. There's going to be a squall right soon that'll test the ribs of the old salvation ark to the cracking p'int. If I was you I'd furl my sails a mite, and stand by, Mack.
gpt
We're so accustomed to trouble now that----
human
Trouble? This is going to be hell, that is, unless luck or Providence takes a hand and steers her through. Your Elder thinks he's on the home stretch to winning his laurels, but if I was going to hang round here he'd wake up right sudden one of these fine mornings to find his wreath missing.
gpt
Josiah, you're as wicked as you can be this morning. What on earth has come over you?
human
You'd feel wicked, too, if you was dealing with that kind. But that there Elder puts me in mind of a tramp printer that come to work for Adoniah one time. Adoniah was a brother of mine, he explained in answer to a quizzing look from the minister.
gpt
Adoniah was managing a country paper down the line then, and being short on help he took this tramp printer on. He gave him something to set up that the editor had writ,--you couldn't tell one of the letters of that editor from t'other, hardly,--and that feller had a time with it. The piece was about some chap that was running for office, and it closed up with something like this: 'Dennis, my boy, look well to your laurels.' When that tramp got through with it, it come back to the editor like this: 'Dammit, my boy, bark well at your barrels.'
human
Josiah Pott! she said at last.
gpt
I'd think you'd be ashamed telling such things!
human
It ain't nothing more than what Adoniah told, and it happened just as I spun it. You used to think what Adoniah said was all right.
gpt
But it ain't right defaming the dead like that.
human
I ain't defaming no one. Don't get mad, Clemmie. Adoniah told the yarn himself.
gpt
Well, it ain't to his credit, and I ain't so sure he told it with that bad word in it.
human
He sartin did. That's what makes it funny.
gpt
If you wasn't so anxious to use them words you'd not be telling such stories, and, of all people, to the minister.
human
He's heerd me say lots worse ones than that. I was telling it for illustration. You see, Jim has got the idea that he's looking to his laurels, and he ain't doing nothing but barking at his barrels, and empty ones at that.
gpt
You'd best not try to illustrate if you can't use words decent enough to listen to,