him to withdraw, though he looked back longingly at the tumblers
and murmured even after I had got him to the door, that it wuz a
dumb pity when anybody got a chance to get the worth of their
money, which wuzn't often, to think they couldn't take advantage
on it.

And I sez back to him in low deep axents, "There is such a thing
as bein' too graspin', Josiah Allen." Sez I, "The children of
Israel used to want to lay up more manny than they wanted or
needed, and it spilte on their hands." And sez I, "you see if it
haint jest so with you; you have been in too great haste to enrich
yourself, and you'll be sorry for it, you see if you haint."

And he was. Though he uttered language I wouldn't wish to repeat,
about the children of Israel and about me for bringin' of 'em up.
But the man wuz dethly sick. Why he had drinked 11 tumblers full,
and I trembled to think what would have follered on, and ensued,
if I hadn't interfered. As it wuz, he wuz confined to our abode
for the rest of the day.

But I wouldn't have Josiah Allen blamed more than is due for this
little incedent, for it only illustrates a pervailin' trait in
men's nater, and sometimes wimmen's - a too great desire to amass
sudden riches, and when opportunity offers, burden themselves with
useless and wearysome and oft-times painful gear.

They don't need it but seeing they have a chance to get it cheap,
"dog cheap " as the poet observes, why they weight themselves down
with it, and then groan under the burden of unnecessary and wearin'
wealth. This is a deep subject, deep as the well from which my