The Monikins

by James Fenimore Cooper

“Spare your thanks and your commendations, I beg of you, good Sir John,” returned the brigadier, as we walked back towards my lodgings. “We did as well as circumstances would allow; though our whole defence would have been upset, had not the chief-justice very luckily been unable to read his own handwriting. As for the principles and forms of the monikin law—for in these particulars Leaplow is very much like Leaphigh—as you have seen them displayed in these two suits, why, they are such as we have. I do not pretend that they are faultless; on the contrary, I could point out improvements myself—but we get on with them as well as we can: no doubt, among men, you have codes that will better bear examination.”

CHAPTER XXII.
A NEOPHYTE IN DIPLOMACY—DIPLOMATIC INTRODUCTION—A CALCULATION—A SHIPMENT OF OPINIONS—HOW TO CHOOSE AN INVOICE, WITH AN ASSORTMENT.

I now began seriously to think of sailing for Leaplow; for, I confess, I was heartily tired of being thought the governor of His Royal Highness Prince Bob, and pined to be restored once more to my proper place in society. I was the more incited to make the change by the representations of the brigadier, who assured me that it was sufficient to come from foreign parts to be esteemed a nobleman in Leaplow, and that I need not apprehend in his country any of the ill-treatment I had received in the one in which I now was. After talking over the matter, therefore, in a familiar way, we determined to repair at once to the Leaplow legation, in order to ask for our passports, and to offer, at the same time, to carry any dispatches that Judge People’s Friend might have prepared for his government—it being the custom of the Leaplowers to trust to these godsends in carrying on their diplomatic correspondence.

We found the judge in undress, and a very different figure he cut, certainly, from that which he made when I saw him the previous night at court. Then he was all queue; now he was all bob. He seemed glad to see us, however, and quite delighted when I told him of the intention to sail for Leaplow, as soon as the wind served. He instantly asked a passage for himself, with republican simplicity.

There was to be another turn of the great and little wheels, he said, and it was quite important to himself to be on the spot; for, although everything was, beyond all question, managed with perfect republican propriety, yet, somehow (and yet he did not know exactly how, but SOMEHOW), those who are on the spot always get the best prizes. If I could give him a passage, therefore, he would esteem it a great personal favor; and I might depend on it, the circumstance would be well received by the party. Although I did not very well understand what he meant by this party, which was to view the act so kindly, I very cheerfully told the judge that the apartments lately occupied by my lord Chatterino and his friends were perfectly at his disposal. I was then asked when I intended to sail; and the answer was, the instant the wind hauled, so we could lay out of the harbor. It might be within half an hour. Hereupon Judge People’s Friend begged I would have the goodness to wait until he could hunt up a charge d’affaires. His instructions were most peremptory never to leave the legation without a charge d’affaires; but he would just brush his bob, and run into the street, and look up one in five minutes, if I would promise to wait so long. It would have been unkind to refuse so trifling a favor, and the promise was given. The judge must have run as fast as his legs would carry him; for, in about ten minutes, he was back again, with a diplomatic recruit. He told me his heart had misgiven him sadly. The three first to whom he offered the place had plumply refused it, and, indeed, he did not know but he should have a quarrel or two on his hands; but, at last, he had luckily found one who could get nothing else to do, and he pinned him on the spot.

So far everything had gone on swimmingly; but the new charge had, most unfortunately, a very long cauda, a fashion that was inexorably proscribed by the Leaplow usages, except in cases when the representative went to court; for it seems the Leaplow political ethics, like your country buck, has two dresses—one for every-day wear, and one for Sundays. The judge intimated to his intended substitute, that it was absolutely indispensable he should submit to an amputation, or he could not possibly confer the appointment, queues being proscribed at home by both public opinions, the horizontal and the perpendicular. To this the candidate objected, that he very well knew the Leaplow usages on this head, but that he had seen his excellency himself going to court with a singularly apparent brush; and he had supposed from that, and from sundry other little occurrences he did not care to particularize, that the Leaplowers were not so bigoted in their notions but they could act on the principle of doing at Rome as is done by the Romans. To this the judge replied, that this principle was certainly recognized in all things that were agreeable, and that he knew, from experience, how hard it was to go in a bob, when all around him went in cauda; but that tails were essentially anti-republican, and, as such, had been formally voted down in Leaplow, where even the Great Sachem did not dare to wear one, let him long for it as much as he would; and if it were known that a public charge offended in this particular, although he might be momentarily protected by one of the public opinions, the matter would certainly be taken up by the opposition public opinion, and then the people might order a new turn of the little wheel, which heaven it knew! occurred now a great deal oftener than was either profitable or convenient.

Hereupon the candidate deliberately undid the fastenings and removed the queue, showing, to our admiration, that it was false, and that he was, after all neither more nor less than a Leaplower in masquerade; which, by the way, I afterwards learned, was very apt to be the case with a great many of that eminently original people, when they got without the limits of their own beloved land. Judge People’s Friend was now perfectly delighted. He told us this was exactly what he could most have wished for. “Here is a bob,” said he, “for the horizontals and perpendiculars, and there is a capital ready-made cauda for his majesty and his majesty’s first-cousin! A Leaphighized Leaplower, more especially if there be a dash of caricature about him, is the very thing in our diplomacy.” Finding matters so much to his mind, the judge made out the letter of appointment on the spot, and then proceeded to give his substitute the usual instructions.

“You are on all occasions,” he said, “to take the utmost care not to offend the court of Leaphigh, or the meanest of the courtiers, by advancing any of our peculiar opinions, all of which, beyond dispute, you have at your finger-ends; on this score, you are to be so particular that you may even, in your own person, pro tempore, abandon republicanism—yea, sacred republicanism itself!—knowing that it can easily be resumed on your return home again. You are to remember there is nothing so undiplomatic, or even vulgar, as to have an opinion on any subject, unless it should be the opinion of the persons you may happen to be in company with; and, as we have the reputation of possessing that quality in an eminent degree, everywhere but at home, take especial heed to eschew vulgarity—if you can. You will have the greatest care, also, to wear the shortest bob in all your private, and the longest tail in all your public relations, this being one of the most important of the celebrated checks and balances of our government. Our institutions being expressly formed by the mass, for the particular benefit of all, you will be excessively careful not to let the claims of any one citizen, or even any set of citizens, interfere with that harmony which it is so necessary, for the purposes of trade, to maintain with all foreign courts; which courts being accustomed themselves to consider their subjects as cattle, to be worked in the traces of the state, are singularly restive whenever they hear of any individual being made of so much importance. Should any Leaplower become troublesome on this score, give him a bad name at once; and in order to effect that object with your own single-minded and right-loving countrymen, swear that he is a disorganizer, and, my life on it, both public opinions at home will sustain you; for there is nothing on which our public opinions agree so well as the absolute deference which they pay to foreign public opinions—and this the more especially, in all matters that are likely to affect profits, by deranging commerce. You will, above all things, make it a point to be in constant relations with some of the readiest paragraph-writers of the newspapers, in order to see that facts are properly stated at home. I would advise you to look out some foreigner, who has never seen Leaplow, for this employment; one that is also paid to write for the journals of Leapup, or Leapdown, or some other foreign country; by which means you will be sure to get an impartial agent, or one who can state things in your own way, who is already half paid for his services, and who will not be likely to make blunders by meddling with distinctive thought. When a person of this character is found, let him drop a line now and then in favor of your own sagacity and patriotism; and if he should say a pleasant thing occasionally about me, it will do no harm, but may help the little wheel to turn more readily. In order to conceal his origin, let your paragraph-agent use the word OUR freely; the use of this word, as you know, being the only qualification of citizenship in Leaplow. Let him begin to spell the word O-U-R, and then proceed to pronounce it, and be careful that he does not spell it H-O-U-R, which might betray his origin. Above all things, you will be patriotic and republican, avoiding the least vindication of your country and its institutions, and satisfying yourself with saying that the latter are, at least, well suited to the former, if you should say this in a way to leave the impression on your hearers, that you think the former fitted for nothing else, it will be particularly agreeable and thoroughly republican, and most eminently modest and praiseworthy. You will find the diplomatic agents of all other states sensitive on the point of their peculiar political usages, and prompt to defend them; but this is a weakness you will rigidly abstain from imitating, for our polity being exclusively based on reason, you are to show a dignified confidence in the potency of that fundamental principle, nor in any way lessen the high character that reason already enjoys, by giving any one cause to suspect you think reason is not fully able to take care of itself. With these leading hints, and your own natural tendencies, which I am glad to see are eminently fitted for the great objects of diplomacy—being ductile, imitative, yielding, calculating, and, above all, of a foreign disposition—I think you will be able to get on very cleverly. Cultivate, above all things, your foreign dispositions, for you are now on foreign duty, and your country reposes on your shoulders and eminent talents the whole burden of its foreign interests in this part of the world.”

Here the judge closed his address, which was oral, apparently well satisfied with himself and with his raw-hand in diplomacy. He then said—

“That he would now go to court to present his substitute, and to take leave himself; after which he would return as fast as possible, and detain us no longer than was necessary to put his cauda in pepper, to protect it against the moths; for heaven knew what prize he might draw in the next turn of the little wheel!”