The Southern delegates, some on em, wuznt so well pleased. “What in thunder,” sed one uv em, “did they mean by pilin on the agony over the the Yanks we killed? by pledgin us to give up the ijee uv seceshen, and by pledgin on us to pay the Nashnel Yankee debt?”
“’Sh!” sed I; “easy over the rough places. My friend, they didn’t mean it; or, ef they did, we didn’t. Is a oath so hard to break? Wood it trouble that eminent patriot Breckenridge, after all the times he swore to support the Constitution, to sware to it wunst more? and wood it trouble him to break it any more than it did in ’61? Nay, verily. Dismiss them gloomy thots. Vallandigham wuz kicked out; but a thousand mules, and all uv em old and experienced, cooden’t kick him out uv our service. Doolittle talked Northern talk, coz it’s a habit he got into doorin the war; but he’ll git over it. Raymond will be on our side this year, certain, for last year he was agin us; and by the time he is ready to turn agin, he’ll be worn to so small a pint that he won’t be worth hevin; and the Democrisy uv the North wuz alluz ourn, and ef they wuzzent, the offices Johnson hez in reserve will draw em like lode stun.
“My deer sir, I wunst knowd a Irishman, who wuz sense killed in a Fenian raid, employed as a artist in well diggin. It wuz his lot to go to the bottom uv the excavation and load the buckets with earth. The dinner horn sounded, and he, with the alacrity characteristic uv the race, sprang into the bucket, and told em to hist away; and they histed. But ez they histed, they amoozed themselves a droppin earth onto him. ‘Shtop!’ sed he; but they didn’t. ‘Shtop!’ sed he, ‘or, be gorra! I’ll cut the rope.’ My dear sir, Randall, and Doolittle, and Seward, and Johnson are a histin us out uv the pit we fell into in 1860. Their little talk about debts, and slavery, and sich, is the earth they’re droppin onto us for fun; but shel we, like ijeots, cut the rope? Nary! Let em hist; and when we’re safe out, and on solid ground, we kin, ef we desire, turn and chuck em into the hole.”
All went off satisfied: the Northern men, for they carried home with em their commishuns; I, feelin that my Post office wuz sekoor; for ef, with the show we’ve got, we can’t reëlect Johnson, the glory uv the Democracy hez departed indeed.
Petroleum V. Nasby, P.M.
(wich is Postmaster.)
XXX.
The Great Presidential Excursion to the Tomb of Douglas.—An Account of the Ride of the Modern John Gilpin, who went a Pleasuring and came Home with nothing but the Necks of His Bottles: by His Chaplain.—From Washington to Detroit.
At the Biddle House
(wich is in Detroit, Michigan),
September the 4th, 1866.
Step by step I am assendin the ladder uv fame; step by step I am climbin to a proud eminence. Three weeks ago I wuz summoned to Washinton by that eminently grate and good man, Androo Johnson, to attend a consultation ez to the proposed Western tour, wich wuz to be undertaken for the purpose uv arousin the masses uv the West to a sence uv the danger wich wuz threatnin uv em in case they persisted in centralizin the power uv the Government into the hands uv a Congress, instid uv diffusin it throughout the hands uv one man, wich is Johnson. I got there too late to take part in the first uv the discussion. When I arrove they hed everything settled cepting the appintment uv a Chaplain for the excursion. The President insisted upon my fillin that position, but Seward objected. He wanted Beecher, but Johnson wuz inflexibly agin him. “I am determined,” sez he, “to carry out my policy, but I hev some bowels left. Beecher hez done enuff already, considerin the pay he got. No, no! he shel be spared this trip; indeed he shel.”