All that that I said was a novel I was thinking of writing out when I got my full growth, which I told you to pass the time away whiles this What's-his-name was busy.

I never wrote nothing!' "'Well,' she says, 'you don't look as if you had the sense to, so I guess you ain't lying now.' "But ma lit into me, and spent two hours, steady talk, convincing me I wasn't W.P.Mills, although every time she said I wasn't I said so, too.

The more I agreed that I wasn't the more she would fire up and take a fresh hold, and try to bear it home to me that I wasn't.

There was never in the world such a long fight, with both sides saying the same thing.

Ordinary persons couldn't have done it, but hat lady mother could, an' did, an' every now an' then she would dig into Sammy again.
An' all of it was right near to that enthusiastical stove.