"And very properly, sir," observed John Effingham, "as probably without you, there would have been no people at all."
"What may be the population of Dodgetown, sir?" asked the persevering captain, on this hint.
"At the census of January, it was seventeen; but by the census of March, there were eighteen. I have made a calculation that shows, if we go on at this rate, or by arithmetical progression, it will be a hundred in about ten years, which will be a very respectable population for a country place. I beg pardon, sir, the people six or eight weeks afterwards, altered the name to Dodgeborough; but a new family coming in that summer, a party was got up to change it to Dodge-ville, a name that was immensely popular, as ville means city in Latin; but it must be owned the people like change, or rotation in names, as well as in office, and they called the place Butterfield Hollow, for a whole month, after the new inhabitant, whose name is Butterfield. He moved away in the fall; and so, after trying Belindy, (Anglice Belinda,) Nineveh, Grand Cairo, and Pumpkin Valley, they made me the offer to restore the ancient name, provided some addendum more noble and proper could be found than town, or ville, or borough; it is not yet determined what it shall be, but I believe we shall finally settle down in Dodgeople, or Dodgeopolis."
"For the season; and a very good name it will prove for a short cruise, I make no question. The Butterfield Hollow was a little like rotation in office, in truth, sir."
"I didn't like it, captain, so I gave Squire Butterfield to understand, privately; for as he had a majority with him, I didn't approve of speaking too strongly on the subject. As soon as I got him out of the tavern, however, the current set the other way."
"You fairly uncorked him!"
"That I did, and no one ever heard of him, or of his hollow, after his retreat. There are a few discontented and arrogant innovators, who affect to call the place by its old name of Morton; but these are the mere vassals of a man who once owned the patent, and who has now been dead these forty years. We are not the people to keep his old musty name, or to honour dry bones."
"Served him right, sir, and like men of spirit! If he wants a place called after himself, let him live, like other people. A dead man has no occasion for a name, and there should be a law passed, that when a man slips his cables, he should bequeath his name to some honest fellow who has a worse one. It might be well to compel all great men in particular, to leave their renown to those who cannot get any for themselves."
"I will venture to suggest an improvement on the name, if Mr. Dodge will permit me," said Mr. Sharp, who had been an amused listener to the short dialogue. "Dodgeople is a little short, and may be offensive by its brusquerie. By inserting a single letter, it will become Dodge-people; or, there is the alternative of Dodge-adrianople, which will be a truly sonorous and republican title. Adrian was an emperor, and even Mr. Dodge might not disdain the conjunction."
By this time, the editor of the Active Inquirer began to be extremely elevated--for this was assailing him on his weakest side--and he laughed and rubbed his hands as if he thought the joke particularly pleasant. This person had also a peculiarity of judgment that was singularly in opposition to all his open professions, a peculiarity, however, that belongs rather to his class than to the individual member of it. Ultra as a democrat and an American, Mr. Dodge had a sneaking predilection in favour of foreign opinions. Although practice had made him intimately acquainted with all the frauds, deceptions, and vileness of the ordinary arts of paragraph-making, he never failed to believe religiously in the veracity, judgment, good faith, honesty and talents of anything that was imported in the form of types. He had been weekly, for years, accusing his nearest brother of the craft, of lying, and he could not be altogether ignorant of his own propensity in the same way; but, notwithstanding all this experience in the secrets of the trade, whatever reached him from a European journal, he implicitely swallowed whole. One, who knew little of the man, might have supposed he feigned credulity to answer his own purposes; but this would be doing injustice to his faith, which was perfect, being based on that provincial admiration, and provincial ignorance, that caused the countryman, who went to London for the first time, to express his astonishment at finding the king a man. As was due to his colonial origin, his secret awe and reverence for an Englishman was in proportion to his protestations of love for the people, and his deference for rank was graduated on a scale suited to the heart-burning and jealousies he entertained for all whom he felt to be his superiors. Indeed, one was the cause of the other; for they who really are indifferent to their own social position, are usually equally indifferent to that of others, so long as they are not made to feel the difference by direct assumptions of superiority.