My daughter went out of the room in very short meeter, takin' the artist with her, and from the emphatical manner in which the door slam'd, I concluded she was summat disgusted at my remarks. She closed the door, I may say, in ITALICS. I went into the closet and larfed all alone by myself for over half an hour. I larfed so vi'lently that the preserve jars rattled like a cavalry offisser's sword and things, which it aroused my BETSY, who came and opened the door pretty suddent. She seized me by the few lonely hairs that still linger sadly upon my bare-footed hed, and dragged me out of the closet, incidentally obsarving that she didn't exactly see why she should be compelled, at her advanced stage of life, to open a assylum for sooperanooated idiots.
My wife is one of the best wimin on this continent, altho' she isn't always gentle as a lamb, with mint sauce. No, not always.
But to return to the war meetin'. It was largely attended. The Editor of the "Bugle" arose and got up and said the fact could no longer be disguised that we were involved in a war. "Human gore," said he, "is flowin'. All able-bodied men should seize a musket and march to the tented field. I repeat it sir, to the tented field."
A voice—"Why don't you go yourself, you old blowhard?"
"I am identified, young man, with a Arkymedian leaver which moves the world," said the Editor, wiping his auburn brow with his left coat-tail; "I allude, young man, to the press: Terms, two dollars a year, invariably in advance. Job printing executed with neatness and dispatch!" And with this brilliant bust of elekance the Editor introduced Mr. J. Brutus Hinkins, who is suffering from an attack of College in a naberin' place. Mr. Hinkins said Washington was not safe. Who can save our national capeetle?
"DAN SETCHELL," I said. "He can do it afternoons. Let him plant his light and airy form onto the Long Bridge, make faces at the hirelin' foe, and they'll skedaddle! Old SETCH can do it."
"I call the Napoleon of Showmen," said the Editor of the "Bugle,"—"I call that Napoleonic man, whose life is adorned with so many noble virtues, and whose giant mind lights up this warlike scene—I call him to order."
I will remark, in this connection, that the Editor of the
"Bugle" does my job printing.
"You," said Mr. Hinkins, "who live away from the busy haunts of men do not comprehend the magnitood of the crisis. The busy haunts of men is where people comprehend this crisis. We who live in the busy haunts of men—that is to say, we dwell, as it were, in the busy haunts of men."
"I really trust that the gen'l'man will not fail to say suthin' about the busy haunts of men before he sits down," said I.