OUR PORTFOLIO.
DEAR PUNCHINELLO: Having been appointed by the Committee of the "American Universal Protection Society," of which you are chairman, to call upon our honored Secretary of State, with the view of obtaining protection for the interests of our merchants who are now endeavoring to create a trade in ant-eaters with the inhabitants of the Chickadiddle Islands in the South Sea, I have the honor to submit the following synopsis of what took place at the interview:
I found Mr. FISH in a state of partial exhaustion, owing to the unusual heat of the weather, and the perusal of a fresh batch of compliments forwarded to him by his particular friend in New York, the Hon. C. ANDERSON DANA.
Three negresses stood about him with palm-leaf fans, endeavoring to accelerate the movement of the atmosphere in the very close room to which the privacy of his feelings sometimes drives him. He was reclining upon a sofa when I entered, but immediately arose and motioned me to take a seat. I had scarcely occupied a comfortable looking stuffed back-piece of furniture, when a pricking sensation in the region of my coat-tails caused me to resume the perpendicular with amazing rapidity, and, upon looking down, I observed the point of a pin protruding through the cushion of the chair. The Secretary did not lose his gravity, but very heartily apologized for what he called the "little contretemps." The smarting sensation made me a little lax in speech, so that I did not choose my words with that regard for the majesty of a Premier which I came there at first disposed to do. He listened to my recital of the application with perfect equanimity, until I mentioned the name of PUNCHINELLO. At this point he colored slightly, bit his nether lip, and exclaimed, with evident vexation:
"What! the editor of a sheet that has dared to speak of me as a "scaly" fellow, and hold my policy up to the laughter of the nation?"
"Pardon me, Mr. Secretary," I interposed, with all the courtesy of manner I could muster, "but I think you mistake the motive of Mr. PUNCHINELLO in applying that description to a person so august."
"Fire and fiddlesticks, sir! do you take me for a fool?"
I pressed my hand in the vicinity of the fifth rib on my left side, and solemnly asseverated that I did not.
"It makes no difference," added the great man, in an excited tone. "I can entertain no application coming from such a quarter."
"But will you permit me to explain what Mr. PUNCHINELLO intended by the epithet 'scaly'? It was only his peculiar way of saying that an officer appointed to administer the responsible duties of your august office could not impartially do so without the 'Scales'—of Justice."
"Nonsense!" shouted the petulant old mackerel; and now I began to feel "sassy."
"But you must admit, Mr. Secretary, that there is a great deal of sense in Mr. PUNCHINELLO'S nonsense. He shoots folly as it flies, and yet it's a great pity that he can't shoot all the fools."
"I am impressed with the truth of that remark, from the fact of his sending you here," was the reply, delivered with an air and tone intended to be witheringly sarcastic. That was enough for me, so I dropped my gloves (metaphorically speaking) and went for him.
"Old man!" says I, "you were lifted out of the quiet of a happy home and placed here, not so much by the act of our illustrious President as by the dispensation of a mysterious Providence. 'Way down in Skewdunk they held prayer-meetings when they heard that news, and a good many of them haven't stopped praying yet. But only last week, let me tell you, Deacon DRYASDUST wrote to General GRANT'S father, saying: 'JESSE, old boy, there's no use praying for that venerable porgy any longer; he's worser nor ever, and bound to drag LYSSES down to the bottom with him.' The kind old man wrote back to the Deacon 'That's so, GILL, as sure as pickled souse ain't pickled salmon.' And now, Mr. Secretary, I come to the point. What old GILL DRYASDUST and JESSE GRANT think of you is what the people think; and when PUNCHINELLO shoots at you an arrow now and then, dipped in fun, and winged with satire, he does it in no spirit of surly bitterness or spleen, but with a heart full of hope and charity, and as much as says to the people of the United States, in your hearing: 'My good friends, keep on praying for brother FISH, and don't give him up because some think him a "scaly" fellow.'"
Thus finishing this mingled admonition and explanation, I dropped a single tear upon the figure worked in the carpet, and gloomily quitted the apartment.
The next morning I found a letter upon the table, at my lodgings, bearing the imprint of the Department of State, and couched in these terms:
Dear Sir: Instructions have been sent from this Department to Admiral POOR, commanding U. S. Squadron in Cuban waters to extend to American merchants engaged in establishing a trade in ant-eaters with the inhabitants of the South Sea Chickadiddle Islands, every protection consistent with his remaining where he now is.
Very Respect'y,
HAMILTON FISH.
All of which is respectfully submitted.