to behold made of stuns as big as your hand and all shapes.
That ambition must be squenched. Josiah breathed this aspiration to me
as we went through the Hall of the Emperors. And they didn't look no
better nor so well as the bretheren in the Jonesville meetin'-house
would if they wuz sculped and Josiah said so; though, of course, as I
told him, they wuz dressed up more fancy. And he said: "Any decent
woman would lend her nightgown for her pardner to be sculped in and
handkerchief pins and lace under-sleeves and things."

Poppea Sabina, the second wife of Mr. Nero, wuz a beautiful-lookin'
woman, though I don't spoze she wuz what she should be. Her husband
kicked her to death some time ago. He ort to been kicked himself; I'd
been willin' to hire the mule myself to done it, I wuz that put out
thinkin' on't.

Josiah said "Poppy Sabriny wuz the best-lookin' figger there."

Arvilly said she most knew he'd been drinkin', it wuz so fashionable
for drinkin' men to kick their wives, and sez she: "Oh, how I wish I
could have canvassed Nero for the 'Twin Crimes' before he done it."

And I sez: "It might have been a good thing for Mr. Nero and for
Poppy, but I don't know how it would have been with you, Arvilly; a
man that would kick his wife to death wouldn't be apt to brook a
book-agent."

"Yes," sez Josiah, "anybody that would kick Poppy Sabriny would do
anything."

Sez I: "It would look just as well, Josiah, for a perfessor not to
talk so much about another woman besides his pardner, even if she is a
stun woman."

"Jealous of a statter!" sez Josiah skornfully.

"Not at all," sez I. "But Poppea Sabina wuz a pagan, and no better
than she should be, and her folks wuzn't likely and----"

"Jest like a woman!" sez Josiah, "a man can't praise up another
female, dead or alive, without his pardner picking flaws in 'em."

Well, I drawed his attention off onto the Caesars, Augustus and
Domitian, and quite a few on 'em. Nero's bust I despised lookin'
at--brutal tyrant--as Josiah truly said anybody that would kill his
wife and grandmother would do anything and wuz too mean to be looked
at. If I could covered up his face I'd been willin' to used my best
crape veil that I mourned for Mother Allen in. Nero's grandma, she
that wuz Agrepina Agrippa, wuz good featured but broken-hearted
lookin'. No wonder, havin' such a grandson in the family. Arvilly said
as she looked at it, that she believed if old Miss Nero, his grandma,
and his