And then there wuz all sorts of art work on enamel and metal, and all sorts of dazzlin’ jewelry that wuz ever made or thought on, and all the silverware that wuz ever hearn or drempt of—­why, jest one little service of seven pieces cost twenty thousand dollars.

In Tiffany’s gorgeous display wuz a case that illustrated the arts in Ireland in the fourteenth century.

They said that it contained a tooth of St. Patrick.  Mebbe it wuz his tooth; I can’t dispute it, never havin’ seen his gooms.

Then there wuz a Latin book of the eighth century, containin’ the four gospels; and in another wuz St. Peter’s cross, they said.  Mebby it wuz Peter’s!

And every kind of silk fabric that wuz ever made—­raw silk, jest as the worm left it when she sot up as a butterfly, and jest what man has done to it after that—­spinnin’, weavin’, dyein’—­up to the time when it appears in the finest ribbon, and glossiest silk, and crapes, and gauzes, and velvets, and knit goods of every kind, and etc., and so forth.

And every kind of cloth, and felt, and woollen, and carpets enough to carpet a path clear from Chicago to Jonesville for me and Josiah to go home in a triumphal procession, if they had felt like it.

In front of the French section I see another statute of the Republic.

She wuz a-settin’ down.  Poor creeter, she wuz tired; and then agin she had seen trouble—­lots of it.

Her left arm was a-restin’ firm on a kind of a square block, with “The Rights of Man” carved on it, and half hidin’ them words wuz a sword, which she also held in her left hand.

The rights of Man and a sword wuz held in one hand, jest as they always have been.

But, poor creeter! her right arm wuz gone—­her good right hand wuz nowhere to be seen.

I don’t like to talk too glib about the judgments of Providence.  The bad boys don’t always git drownded when they go fishin’ Sundays—­they often git home with long strings of trout, and lick the good boys on their way home from Sunday-school.  Such is real life, too oft.

But I couldn’t help sayin’ to Josiah—­

“Mebby if they had put onto that little monument she holds, ’The Rights of Man and Woman’—­mebby she wouldn’t had her arm took off.”

But anyway, judgment or not, anybody could see with one eye how one-sided, and onhandy, and cramped, and maimed, and everything a Republic is who has the use of only one of her arms.  Them that run could read the great lesson—­

“Male and female created He them.”

Both arms are needed to clasp round the old world, and hold it firm—­Justice on one side, Love on the other.

I felt sorry for the Republic—­sorry as a dog.

But that wuz the first time I see her.  The next time she had had her arm put on.

I guess Uncle Sam done it.  That old man is a-gittin’ waked up, and Eternal Right is a-hunchin’ him in the sides.