u get these amaz'n pickles?" and all that kind
of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you
know.

And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen
off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up
the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and blest
if I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. She says:

"Did you ever see the king?"

"Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have--he goes to our church." I
knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says he goes
to our church, she says:

"What--regular?"

"Yes--regular. His pew's right over opposite ourn--on t'other side the
pulpit."

"I thought he lived in London?"

"Well, he does. Where WOULD he live?"

"But I thought YOU lived in Sheffield?"

I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken
bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says:

"I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. That's
only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the sea baths."

"Why, how you talk--Sheffield ain't on the sea."

"Well, who said it was?"

"Why, you did."

"I DIDN'T nuther."

"You did!"

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I never said nothing of the kind."

"Well, what DID you say, then?"

"Said he come to take the sea BATHS--that's what I said."

"Well, then, how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the
sea?"

"Looky here," I says; "did you ever see any Congress-water?"

"Yes."

"Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?"

"Why, no."

"Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a sea
bath."

"How does he get it, then?"

"Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water--in barrels. There
in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, and he wants his water
hot. They can't bile that amount of water away off there at the sea.
They haven't got no conveniences for it."

"Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and saved
time."

When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was
comfortable and glad. Next, she says:

"Do you go to church, too?"

"Yes--regular."

"Where do you set?"

"Why, in our pew."

"WHOSE pew?"

"Why, OURN--your Uncle Harvey's."

"His'n? What does HE want with a pew?"

"Wants it to set in. What did you RECKON he wanted with it?"

"Why, I thought