anxiously.

"Yes," sez I.

"And paper?" sez he.

Agin I sez, "Yes."

"Wall, then, when there's ink and paper, what's to hender Our writin'
it?"

"Our!" "We!" Agin them words entered my soul like lead arrows and
gaulded me, but agin I looked up, and the clear light of affection that
shone from my pardner's eyes melted them arrows, and I suffered and wuz
calm. But anon I sez--

"Don't great emotions rise up in your soul, Josiah Allen, when you think
of Columbus and the World's work? Don't the mighty waves of the past and
the future dash up aginst your heart when you think of Christopher, and
what he found, and what is behind this nation, and what is in front of
it, a-bagonin' it onwards?"

"No," sez he calmly; "I look at it with the eye of a business man, and
with that eye," sez he, "I say less write the book."

He ceased his remarks, and agin silence rained in the room.

But to me the silence wuz filled with voices that he couldn't
hear--deep, prophetic voices that shook my soul. Eyes whose light the
dust fell on four hundred years ago shone agin on me in that quiet room