ny hours."

"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her?"

I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says:

"Mumps."

"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the mumps."

"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with THESE mumps. These
mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said."

"How's it a new kind?"

"Because it's mixed up with other things."

"What other things?"

"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and
yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don't know what all."

"My land! And they call it the MUMPS?"

"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."

"Well, what in the nation do they call it the MUMPS for?"

"Why, because it IS the mumps. That's what it starts with."

"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take
pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains
out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull
up and say, 'Why, he stumped his TOE.' Would ther' be any sense in that?
NO. And ther' ain't no sense in THIS, nuther. Is it ketching?"

"Is it KETCHING? Why, how you talk. Is a HARROW catching--in the dark?
If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another, ain't
you? And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the whole
harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow,
as you may say--and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to
get it hitched on good."

"Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip. "I'll go to Uncle Harvey
and--"

"Oh, yes," I says, "I WOULD. Of COURSE I would. I wouldn't lose no
time."

"Well, why wouldn't you?"

"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles
obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you
reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that
journey by yourselves? YOU know they'll wait for you. So fur, so good.
Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is a PREACHER
going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a SHIP CLERK?
--so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now YOU know he
ain't. What WILL he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a great pity, but
my church matters has got to get along the best way they can; for my
niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's
my bounden duty t