hear so much about it as Josiah did, naturally there are things
that are talked of more amongst men than women. Night after night
he would come home and tell me how fashionable it wuz, and pretty
soon I could see that he kinder wanted to follow the fashion.

I told him from the first on't that he'd better let it entirely
alone. Says I, "Josiah Allen, you wouldn't never carry it through
successful if you should undertake it -- and then think of the
wickedness on't."

But he seemed sot. He said "it wuz more fashionable amongst
married men and wimmen, than the more single ones," he said "it
wuz dretful fashionable amongst pardners."`

"Wall," says I, "I shall have, nothin' to do with it, and I advise
you, if you know when you are well off, to let it entirely alone."

"Of course," says he, fiercely, "You needn't have nothin' to do
with it. It is nothin' you would want to foller up. And I would
ruther see you sunk into the ground, or be sunk myself, than to
see you goin' into it. Why," says he, savagely, "I would tear a
man lim from lim, if I see him a tryin' to flirt with you."
(Josiah Allen worships me.) "But," says he, more placider like,
"men have to do things sometimes, that they know is too hard for
their pardners to do -- men sometimes feel called upon to do
things that their pardners don't care about -- that they haint
strong enough to tackle. Wimmen are fragile creeters anyway."

"Oh, the fallacy of them arguments -- and the weakness of 'em.