—Mean right? I should think I do. I am right. Only in talking of thieves, I am using the language of thieves. They simply wanted to keep their places and go on plundering the people.
Speaking about General Grant, what kind of a President was he?
—The best judge of whiskey, cigars and horses that ever stepped into the White House.
Heavens! how dull you are! I'm not talking about whiskey and cigars, I mean what were his gifts?
—Gifts? to whom? I never heard that he made any gifts. He took everything offered him from a brownstone front downwards, until it got to a bull-pup with the expressage unpaid—there he stopped.
Shall I ever get you to understand me? I mean had he any good qualities?
—Yes; he had. He wore a padlock on his mouth, was a rattling fighter, and stuck to his friends. In fact, he was generally bull-headed, as it were.
Good enough! But these are not the qualities I am speaking of. I mean qualities that the people look for in a President. Perhaps "sticking to his friends" may have been one. What do you mean by that?
—What do I mean? Why, screening and protecting a set of rascals not half as honest as nine-tenths of the men in jail for robbery.
Do you mean me to understand by screening that he did what they do with coal, sift out the little ones and keep in the big ones?