as glad when I told him I had two free tickets in my pocket for a show
in the evenin.'

"As we was a-walkin' down to the ferry, after supper, says he:

"'Suppose you let me have a look at them tickets.'

"So I hands 'em to him. He reads one of 'em, and then he reads the
other, which he needn't 'a' done, for they was both alike, an' then he
turns to me, an' says he:

"'What kind of a man is your boarder-as-was?'

"It wasn't the easiest thing in the world to say jus' what he was, but I
give Jone the idea, in a general sort of way, that he was pretty lively.

"'So I should think,' says he. 'He's been tryin' a trick on us, and
sendin' us to the wrong place. It's rather late in the season for a show
of the kind, but the place we ought to go to is a potato-field.'

"'What on earth are you talkin' about?' says I, dumbfoundered.

"'Well,' says he, 'it's a trick he's been playin'. He thought a bridal
trip like ours ought to have some sort of a outlandish wind-up, an' so
he sent us to this place, which is a meetin' of chaps who are agoin'
to talk about insec's,--principally potato-bugs, I expec'--an' anything
stupider than that, I s'pose your boarder-as-was couldn't think of,
without havin' a good deal o' time to consider.'

"'It's jus' like him,' says I. 'Let's turn round and go back,' which we
did, prompt.

"We gave the tickets to a little boy who was sellin' papers, but I don't
believe he went.

"'Now then,' says Jone, after he'd been thinkin' awhile, 'there'll be no
more foolin' on this trip. I've blocked out the whole of the rest of it,
an' we'll wind up a sight better than that boarder-as-was has any idea
of. To-morrow we'll go to father's an' if the old gentleman has got any
money on the crops, which I expec' he has, by this time, I'll take up
a part o' my share, an' we'll have a trip to Washington, an' see the
President, an' Congress, an' the White House, an' the lamp always
a-burnin' before the Supreme Court, an'--'

"'Don't say no more, says I, 'it's splendid!'

"So, early the nex' day, we goes off jus' as fast as trains would take
us to his father's, an' we hadn't been there mor'n ten minutes, before
Jone found out he had been summoned on a jury.

"'When must you go?' says I, when he come, lookin' a kind o' pale, to
tell me this.

"'Right off,' says he. 'The court meets this mornin'. If I don't hurry
up, I'll have some of 'em after me. But I wouldn't cry about it. I don't
believe the case'll last more