Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/206

Rh some sort of a outlandish wind-up, an' so he sent us to this place, which is a meetin' of chaps who are a-goin' 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' a while, '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 an' 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 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'n a day.' "The old man harnessed up an' took Jone to the court-house, an' I went too, for I might as well keep up the idea of a bridal trip as not, I went up into