"It's a umbug," said the lan'lord; to which I replied that we'd
best go and see, and we went. We was late, on account of the
lan'lord's extensiv acquaintans with the public house keepers
along the road, and the hall was some two miles distant, but we
got there at last. The hall was about half full, and the Mejim
was just then assumin' to be Benjamin Franklin, who was speakin
about the Atlantic Cable.
He said the Cable was really a merrytorious affair, and that
messiges could be sent to America, and there was no doubt about
their gettin there in the course of a week or two, which he said
was a beautiful idear, and much quicker than by steamer or
canal-boat. It struck me that if this was Franklin a spiritooal
life hadn't improved the old gentleman's intellecks particly.
The audiens was mostly composed of rayther pale peple, whose eyes
I tho't rolled round in a somewhat wild manner. But they was
well-behaved, and the females kept saying, "How beautiful! What
a surblime thing it is," et cetry, et cetry. Among the females
was one who was a fair and rosy young woman. She sot on the same
seat we did, and the lan'lord of the Green Lion, whose frekent
intervoos with other lan'lords that evenin had been too much for
him, fastened his left eye on the fair and rosy young person, and
smilin lovinly upon her, said:
"You may give me, my dear, four-penny-worth of gin--cold gin. I
take it cold, because--"