The Grinder Papers — page 122: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE GRINDER PAPERS. 117 yer weppins until the last minnit, but hev ‘em ready for imme- diate use.” | | I heerd every word, and I screeched and danced up and down on the barril, and in a minnit in went the head and me and my ruffled dimity nightgownd and the kerosene ile lamp intu as full a barril o’ pickled pork as ever was put up. “Murder!” sezI. ‘‘ Bow-wow,” sez the dog, and in marches the perlice, and out they drags me, drippin’. | ‘‘It is a ghost,” sez Biddy. ‘‘It’s the divil,” sez Pat. ‘‘Has nobody got a bit of a howly-bone or the like fora poor boy to howld on by. Sind for the praste. Sind for the sisthers. It’s the divil himself in a nightcap. ‘ | : , ‘This is a pretty thing tu call us out for,” sez a perlice. ‘This ain’t nuthin’ but petty larceny.” _ ** Probably the others has escaped,” sez the doctor. ,3 ‘‘T ain’t a petty larcenee,” sez I. ‘‘lam Miss Grinder, from Peekskill, onto a visit tu York. Oh! spare my money and take my life—I mean t’other way. Don't send me to the Tombs, nor sing Sing. . How ye like tu be hung yerself, beside being shot at and bit by a Dutch mad dog, and up tu yer neck in souse?” “Is she out of her mind?” sez the perlice. ‘* Plainly,” sez the doctor. ‘* It's all pretense to evade arrest,” sez the lawyer. And as Biddy had never seen me, bein’ gone out when I come, I dunno what might hev happened ef just then Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins Barker hadn't come hum. They told who I be, of course,and reskied of me. The minnit the house was clear I Eomicboo cS €oO