"
"What reply did you make?"
"What could I say? I didn't hear the first; and as to the second, I
couldn't bring reproach upon you, and so I said I had never had
one. You must own, Doctor, that I showed great tenderness for your
reputation."
"You certainly did me a kindness."
"Thank you, Doctor."
"I should raly like to know," said Uncle Josh, "what you are thanking
the Doctor for, I should."
"Well, go on."
"I went off," continued Bart. "The fact is, I thought that that
retreat of the sciences might hold that little learning, which is a
dangerous thing--as you used to not quote exactly--and I thought it
prudent to avoid that 'Pierian spring.'"
"What is the young man talking about now?" inquired Uncle Josh. "I
would raly like to know, I would."
"I must ask the Doctor to explain," answered Bart. "I was referring to
one of his old drinking-places, where, according to him, the more
one drank the soberer he grew. You would not fancy that tipple, would
you?"
"You see, Uncle Josh," said the Doctor, laughing, "what comes of a
young man's going a week to college."
"The young man didn't know anything at all, before," declared Uncle
Josh, "and he seems to know less now, amazingly."
This was Uncle Josh's sincere opinion, and was received with a shout
of laughter, in which Bart heartily joined. Indeed, it was his first
sincere laugh for many a day.
Johnson asked him "whether he went to the Ohio river," and being
answered in the affirmative, asked him "by what route he went, and
what he saw.
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