Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/187

Rh 'em the Count and Countess of Milwaukee, and we kep' on a-meanderin'. Pretty soon he gets tired an' says he was agoin' back to the house to have a smoke, because he thought it was time to have a little fun which weren't all imaginations, an' I says to him to go along, but it would be the hardest thing in this world for me to imagine any fun in smokin'. He laughed an' went back, while I walked on, makin'-believe a page, in blue puffed breeches, was a-holdin' up my train, which was of light green velvet trimmed with silver lace. Pretty soon, turnin' a little corner, I meets the Count and Countess of Milwaukee, She was a small lady, dressed in black, an' he was a big fat man about fifty years old, with a greyish beard. They both wore little straw hats, exac'ly alike, an' had on green carpet slippers.

"They stops when they sees me, an' the lady she bows and says 'good-mornin',' an' then she smiles, very pleasant, an' asks if I was a-livin' here, an' when I said I was, she says she was too, for the present, and what was my name. I had half a mind to say the Earl-ess Random, but she was so pleasant and sociable that I didn't like to seem to be makin' fun, an' so I said I was Mrs. De Henderson. "'An' I,' says she, 'am Mrs. General Andrew Jackson, widow of the ex-President of the United States. I am staying here on business connected with the United States Bank. This is my brother,' says she, pointin' to the big man.

"'How d'ye do?' says he, a-puttin' his hands together, turnin' his toes out, an' makin' a funny little bow. 'I am General Tom Thumb,' he says, in a deep, gruff voice, 'an' I've been before all the crown-ed heads of Europe, Asia, Africa, America, an' Australia—all a's but one—an' I'm waitin' here for