solemnly through the rain:

"Will you do Serepta's errents? Will you give her her rights? And will you
break the Whiskey Ring?"

He said he would love to do the errents, I had convinced him that it would
be just and right to do 'em, but the Constitution of the United States
stood up firm aginst 'em. As the laws of the United States wuz, he could
not make any move toward doin' either of the errents.

Sez I, "Can't the laws be changed?"

"Be changed? Change the laws of the United States? Tamper with the glorious
Constitution that our fore-fathers left us--an immortal sacred legacy."

He jumped up on his feet and his second-hand smile fell off. He kinder
shook as if he wuz skairt most to death and tremblin' with horrow. He did
it to skair me, I knew, but I knowed I meant well towards the Constitution
and our old forefathers; and my principles stiddied me and held me firm and
serene. And when he asked me agin in tones full of awe and horrow:

"Can it be that I heard my ear aright? Or did you speak of changin' the
unalterable laws of the United States--tampering with the Constitution?"

"Yes, that is what I said. Hain't they never been changed?"

He dropped that skairful look and put on a firm judicial one. He see that
he could not skair me to death; an' sez he, "Oh, yes, they've been changed
in cases of necessity."