Page:Traveler from Altruria, Howells, 1894.djvu/248

242 what a dear you are." I knew she had got that word from some English people who had been in the hotel; and she was working it rather wildly, but it was not my business to check her. "Well, then, all you have got to do is to leave the whole thing to me, and not bother about it a bit till I send and tell you we are ready to listen. There comes Reuben with his ox-team! Thank you so much, Mr. Homos. No one need be ashamed to enter the house of God"—she said Gawd, in an access of piety—"after we get that paint and paper on it; and we shall have them on before two Sabbaths have passed over it."

She wrung the Altrurian's hand; I was only afraid she was going to kiss him.

"There is but one atipulation [sic] I should like to make," he began.

"Oh, a thousand," she cut in.

"And that is, there shall be no exclusion from my lecture on account of occupation or condition. That is a thing that I can in no wise countenance, even in America; it is far more abhorrent to me even than money-making, though they are each a part and parcel of the other."

"I thought it was that!" she retorted joyously.