“But as yet, commodore, your evolutions are altogether too general to admit of the chance selection of patriots, since patriotism is usually a monopoly.”
“Very true, Sir John; I shall therefore come to the main point without delay. Thus far, it is pretty much an affair of the whole population, as you say; few refusing to toe the mark, or to throw the necessary flap-jacks, as you have ingeniously termed them. The lines, as you may perceive, cross each other at right angles; and there is consequently some crowding, and occasionally, a good deal of jostling, at and near the point of junction. We begin to term a monikin a patriot when he can perform this evolution.”
Here the commodore threw his heels into the air with such rapidity that I could not very well tell what he was about, though it was sufficiently apparent that he was acting entirely on the rotatory principle. I observed that he alighted, with singular accuracy, on the very spot where he had stood before, toeing the mark with beautiful precision.
“That is what we call gyration 3d, or position No. 4. He who can execute it is considered an adept in our politics; and he invariably takes his position near the enemy, or at the junction of the hostile lines.”
“How, sir, are these lines, then, manned as they are with citizens of the same country, deemed hostile?”
“Are cats and dogs hostile, sir?—Certainly. Although standing, as it might be, face to face, acting on precisely the same principle, or the rotatory impulse, and professing to have exactly the same object in view, viz., the common good, they are social, political, and I might almost say, the moral antipodes of each other. They rarely intermarry, never extol, and frequently refuse to speak to one another. In short, as the brigadier could tell you, if he were so disposed, they are antagonist, body and soul. To be plain, sir, they are enemies.”
“This is very extraordinary for fellow-citizens!”
“’Tis the monikin nature,” observed Mr. Downright; “no doubt, sir, men are much wiser?”
As I did not wish to divert the discourse from the present topic, I merely bowed to this remark, and begged the judge to proceed.
“Well, sir,” continued the latter, “you can easily imagine that they who are placed near the point where the two lines meet, have no sinecures. To speak the truth, they blackguard each other with all their abilities, he who manifests the most inventive genius in this high accomplishment, being commonly thought the cleverest fellow. Now, sir, none but a patriot could, in the nature of things, endure this without some other motive than his country’s good, and so we esteem them.”