"Says I, to the lady of the house, as I got up to help
myself, for I was hungry enough to make beef ache I know.
'Aunty,' sais I, 'you'll excuse me, but why don't you
put the eatables on the table, or else put the tea on
the side-board? They're like man and wife, they don't
ought to be separated, them two.'

"She looked at me, oh what a look of pity it was", as
much as to say, 'Where have you been all your born days,
not to know better nor that?--but I guess you don't know
better in the States--how could you know any thing there?'
But she only said it was the custom here, for she was a
very purlite old woman, was Aunty.

"Well sense is sense, let it grow where it will, and I
guess we raise about the best kind, which is common sense,
and I warn't to be put down with short metre, arter that
fashion. So I tried the old man; sais I, 'Uncle,' sais
I, 'if you will divorce the eatables from the drinkables
that way, why not let the servants come and tend. It's
monstrous onconvenient and ridikilous to be a jumpin' up
for everlastinly that way; you can't sit still one blessed
minit.'

"'We think it pleasant,' said he, 'sometimes to dispense
with their attendance.'

"'Exactly,' sais I, 'then dispense with sarvants at
dinner, for when the wine is in, the wit is out.' (I said
that to compliment him, for the critter had no wit in at