Which the shrill boy put in the paper next day; to Elijah Pogram's great
surprise.
'We will re-quest you, sir, if you please,' said Buffum, laying hands on
Mr Pogram as if he were taking his measure for a coat, 'to stand up with
your back agin the wall right in the furthest corner, that there may
be more room for our fellow citizens. If you could set your back right
slap agin that curtain-peg, sir, keeping your left leg everlastingly
behind the stove, we should be fixed quite slick.'
Mr Pogram did as he was told, and wedged himself into such a little
corner that the Pogram statue wouldn't have known him.
The entertainments of the evening then began. Gentlemen brought ladies
up, and brought themselves up, and brought each other up; and asked
Elijah Pogram what he thought of this political question, and what
he thought of that; and looked at him, and looked at one another, and
seemed very unhappy indeed. The ladies on the chairs looked at Elijah
Pogram through their glasses, and said audibly, 'I wish he'd speak.
Why don't he speak? Oh, do ask him to speak!' And Elijah Pogram looked
sometimes at the ladies and sometimes elsewhere, delivering senatorial
opinions, as he was asked for them.
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