CHAPTER II.
Now Jefferson, whose surname should have been Brick, but that it was not, seeing that it was Davis.
Saw the counsel that it was good.
And having seen it, and set his eyes upon the egg which their wisdom had hatched, and pronounced it a good egg;
Chose him of his chief men two, whereof the like were not to be found—no, not in all the North, and in the South was not their equal.
Whereof the first was a Mason, the like of whom was not known, not in the land of Huram of old, nor among the Hittites or the dwellers by the sea.
For he was like unto a turkey-cock, stuck up and of excessive pride, spreading himself and strutting vehemently from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same; ineffably great in his own conceit, swelling in vanity, puffed up like a bladder even nigh unto bursting;
So that the little ones in the market-place cried after him, 'Big Injiun, heap big!'
And the other was a 'little' New Yorker, even a renegade of the North, one who had backslidden from the ways of his fathers, and that right ill. Wherefore he was called Slide-ill. Howbeit some termed him Sly-deal, from his dealings both with cards and with men.
But it came to pass that they called him Slidell, forasmuch as that he was one who naturally took the whole ell, whether one gave him an inch or no.
Now they packed their trunks, and took unto them 'poor Eustis,' and many others equally talented and important.
Not forgetting their wives, neither their man-servants nor their maid-servants, their wines nor their cigars.
Howbeit they took not with them the bonds of the Confederacy, lest the Paris shop-keepers should say, 'Go to—it is naught;'
But divers eagles and dimes, stolen afore-time from Uncle Sam, took they. Likewise bills of exchange and circular letters of credit upon certain of the Jews.
And so they went down unto the sea in ships,—even in a steam-ship,—sailing to the Havana, where she was unladed of her burden.
CHAPTER III.
[THE SONG OF REJOICING.]
Now when the ambassadors, and they which bore the words of the king, had sailed.
Lo, there was great rejoicing in all Secessia,—there was naught heard save the voices of renegade Northern editors,—[for that the Southerners know not to write],—
Saying, 'Come, let us be glad; laugh, O thou my soul.
'For they have gone, they have escaped, they have got away, they have dodged, they have cut stick, they have vamosed the ranch.
'They have ripped it full chisel, they are off licketty-split, they have slid, they have made tracks, they have mizzled—they have absquatulated and clipped it; abiit, evasit, crupit! Hurrah for us!
'Lo, the Yankees are brought low—the nasty, mercenary, low-born, infernal mudsills are defiled, and become as a vain thing. Gloria!
'For our messengers are on the high seas; they are O. K.; they shall deliver us from the pit. Victoria!
'They will drive things chuck to the hub in slasher-gaff style; our foes shall become even as dead birds in the pit; they shall be euchred, and discounted, and we will rake down the pot.
'Come, let us take drinks, for who shall stand against us?'