"Then what did you want to get him for?" he says.

"We didn't," says Jonadab. "We wanted to get rid of him. We don't want
to see him no more."

You could tell that the manager was puzzled, but he laughed.

"All right," says he. "If I know anything about Maggie--that's Mrs.
Schmults--he won't get loose ag'in."

We only saw Montague to talk to but once that day. Then he peeked out
from under the winder shade at the hotel and asked us if we'd told
anybody where he'd been. When he found we hadn't, he was thankful.

"You tell Petey," says he, "that he's won the whole pot, kitty and all.
I don't think I'll visit him again, nor Belle, neither."

"I wouldn't," says I. "They might write to Maudina that you was a
married man. And old Stumpton's been praying for something alive to
shoot at," I says.

The manager gave Jonadab and me a couple of tickets, and we went to the
show that night. And when we saw Booth Hank Montague parading about the
stage and defying the slave hunters, and telling 'em he was a free man,
standing on the Lord's free soil, and so on, we realized 'twould have
been a crime to let him do anything else.

"As an imitation poet," says Jonadab, "he was a kind of mildewed
article, but as a play actor--well, there may be some that can beat him,
but _I_ never see 'em!"