Well, how they all took on! They crowded around
the doctor and tried to quiet him down, and tried
to explain to him and tell him how Harvey ’d
showed in forty ways that he was Harvey, and knowed
everybody by name, and the names of the very dogs,
and begged and begged him not to hurt Harvey’s
feelings and the poor girl’s feelings, and all
that. But it warn’t no use; he stormed
right along, and said any man that pretended to be
an Englishman and couldn’t imitate the lingo
no better than what he did was a fraud and a liar.
The poor girls was hanging to the king and crying;
and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on them.
He says:
“I was your father’s friend, and I’m
your friend; and I warn you as a friend, and an honest
one that wants to protect you and keep you out of
harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel
and have nothing to do with him, the ignorant tramp,
with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew, as he calls it.
He is the thinnest kind of an impostor—has
come here with a lot of empty names and facts which
he picked up somewheres, and you take them for proofs,
and are helped to fool yourselves by these foolish
friends here, who ought to know better. Mary
Jane Wilks, you know me for your friend, and for your
unselfish friend, too. Now listen to me; turn
this pitiful rascal out—I beg you to
do it. Will you?”
Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she
was handsome! She says:
“Here is my answer.” She hove
up the bag of money and put it in the king’s
hands, and says, “Take this six thousand dollars,
and invest for me and my sisters any way you want
to, and don’t give us no receipt for it.”
Then she put her arm around the king on one side,
and Susan and the hare-lip done the same on the other.
Everybody clapped their hands and stomped on the
floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held up
his head and smiled proud. The doctor says:
“All right; I wash my hands of the matter.
But I warn you all that a time ’s coming when
you’re going to feel sick whenever you think
of this day.” And away he went.
“All right, doctor,” says the king, kinder
mocking him; “we’ll try and get ’em
to send for you;” which made them all laugh,
and they said it was a prime good hit.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Well, when they was all gone the king he asks
Mary Jane how they was off for spare rooms, and she
said she had one spare room, which would do for Uncle
William, and she’d give her own room to Uncle
Harvey, which was a little bigger, and she would turn
into the room with her sisters and sleep on a cot;
and up garret was a little cubby, with a pallet in
it. The king said the cubby would do for his
valley—meaning me.
