第50章 CHAPTER XV.(4)

"When the conductor came along we had to pay the fare of them two lunertics, besides our own, for neither of 'em had a cent about 'em. When we got to town we went to a smallish hotel, near the ferry, where Jone knowed the man who kep' it, who wouldn't bother about none of us havin' a scrap of baggage, knowin' he'd get his money all the same, out of either Jone or his father. The General an' his sister looked a kind o' funny in their little straw hats an' green carpet-slippers, an' the clerk didn't know whether he hadn't forgot how to read writin' when the big man put down the names of General Tom Thumb and Mrs. ex-President Andrew Jackson, which he wasn't ex-President anyway, bein' dead; but Jone he whispered they was travelin' under nommys dess plummys (I told him to say that), an' he would fix it all right in the mornin'. An'

then we got some supper, which it took them two lunertics a long time to eat, for they was all the time forgettin' what particular kind o' business they was about, an' then we was showed to our rooms. They had two rooms right across the hall from ours. We hadn't been inside our room five minutes before Mrs. General Jackson come a-knockin' at the door.

"'Look a-here,' she says to me, 'there's a unforeseen contingency in my room. An' it smells.'

"So I went right in, an' sure enough it did smell, for she had turned on all the gases, besides the one that was lighted.

"'What did you do that for?' says I, a-turnin' them off as fast as I could.

"'I'd like to know what they're made for,' says she, 'if they isn't to be turned on.'

"When I told Jone about this he looked real serious, an' jus' then a waiter came upstairs an' went into the big man's room. In a minute he come out an' says to Jone an' me, a-grinnin':

"'We can't suit him no better in this house.'

"'What does he want?' asks Jone.

"'Why, he wants a smaller bed,' says the waiter. 'He says he can't sleep in a bed as big as that, an' we haven't none smaller in this house, which he couldn't get into if we had, in my opinion,' says he.

"'All right,' says Jone. 'Jus' you go downstairs, an' I'll fix him.' So the man goes off, still a-grinnin'. 'I tell you what it is,' says Jone, 'it wont do to let them two lunertics have rooms to themselves. They'll set this house afire or turn it upside down in the middle of the night, if they has. There's nuthin' to be done but for you to sleep with the woman an' for me to sleep with the man, an' to keep 'em from cuttin' up till mornin'.'

"So Jone he went into the room where General Tom Thumb was a-settin' with his hat on, a-lookin' doleful at the bed, an' says he:

"'What's the matter with the bed?'

"'Oh, it's too large entirely,' says the General. 'It wouldn't do for me to sleep in a bed like that. It would ruin my character as a genuine Thumb.'

"'Well,' says Jone, 'it's nearly two times too big for you, but if you an' me was both to sleep in it, it would be about right, wouldn't it?'

"'Oh yes,' says the General. An' he takes off his hat, an' Jone says good-night to me an' shuts the door. Our room was better than Mrs. General Jackson's, so I takes her in there, an' the fust thing she does is to turn on all the gases.

"'Stop that!' I hollers. 'If you do that again,--I'll--I'll break the United States Bank tomorrow!'

"'How'll you do that?' says she.

"'I'll draw out all my capital,' says I.

"'I hope really you wont,' says she, 'till I've been there,' an'

she leans out of the open winder to look into the street, but while she was a-lookin' out I see her left hand a-creepin' up to the gas by the winder, that wasn't lighted. I felt mad enough to take her by the feet an' pitch her out, as you an the boarder," said Pomona, turning to me, "h'isted me out of the canal-boat winder."This, by the way, was the first intimation we had had that Pomona knew how she came to fall out of that window.

"But I didn't do it," she continued, "for there wasn't no soft water underneath for her to fall into. After we went to bed I kep'

awake for a long time, bein' afraid she'd get up in the night an'

turn on all the gases and smother me alive. But I fell asleep at last, an' when I woke up, early in the mornin', the first thing Idid was to feel for that lunertic. But she was gone!".