Some of the auditors—intelligent visitors from the hotels, and other well-informed people, saw the joke and humored it. Others, prepared for almost any item of startling news, and not too well up in national affairs, took it all for sober earnest. John Bull was completely mystified.
"Good heavens!" he said. "Can this be possible?"
"I must hurry back!" said Leslie, warming into broader mischief, and pulling out his watch. "Non-intercourse between the two countries may be proclaimed at any moment, and in that case I should be a prisoner!"
"God bless me" said the Englishman. "In that case I had better get over to the International and look after getting part of my baggage that is there, over on this side of the river!"
"I should advise you to do so at once," answered Leslie, quite as gravely as before. "I wonder whether we shall be stopped on our way back, or not? However, it is a matter of not much consequence. If any of us should be taken prisoners and kept over here, it would not be for long. Our people will of course overrun Canada within a week, and annex it to the Northern States."
"Oh, they couldn't do that, you know!" said John Bull, who might believe anything else, but who could not possibly be brought to believe anything against the power of the British Government or its colonies, when in arms.
"I believe that you are an Englishman by birth? Am I mistaken?" asked Leslie, in a tone of ministerial gravity and dignity.
"Not at all mistaken, sir," said the Englishman, proudly. "John Hazelton Butts, Leakington, Monmouthshire."
"John Thompson, Jr., late Secretary of Legation to the Duchy of Parma," said Leslie, picking up the first names that happened to come into mind, and bowing in return. "You seem, Mr. Butts, to be a highly intelligent gentleman—"
"Thank you, Mr. Secretary," said the Englishman, who had at least caught the fictitious title.