"I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told me to. They all told me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she'd like it. They all said it--every one of them. But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it no more --I won't, honest."

     "You won't, won't you? Well, I sh'd RECKON you won't!"

     "No'm, I'm honest about it; I won't ever do it again--till you ask me."

     "Till I ASK you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I lay you'll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask you --or the likes of you."

     "Well," he says, "it does surprise me so. I can't make it out, somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But--" He stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman's, and says, "Didn't YOU think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?"

     "Why, no; I--I--well, no, I b'lieve I didn't."

     Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:

     "Tom, didn't YOU think Aunt Sally 'd open out her arms and say, 'Sid Sawyer--'"