The next time we met with the ex-envoy, he was in mourning for some political backsliding that I never comprehended. He had submitted to a fresh amputation of the bob, and had so thoroughly humbled the seat of reason, that it was not possible for the most envious and malignant disposition to fancy he had a particle of brains left. He had, moreover, caused every hair to be shaved off his body, which was as naked as the hand, and altogether he presented an edifying picture of penitence and self-abasement. I afterwards understood that this purification was considered perfectly satisfactory, and that he was thought to be, again, within the limits of the most patriotic patriots.
In the meantime the Bivouacker had approached me, and was introduced as Mr. Gilded Wriggle.
“Count Poke de Stunnin’tun, my good sir,” said the brigadier, who was the master of ceremonies on this occasion, “and the Mogul Goldencalf—both noblemen of ancient lineage, admirable privileges, and of the purest water; gentlemen who, when they are at home, have six dinners daily, always sleep on diamonds, and whose castles are none of them less than six leagues in extent.”
“My friend General Downright has taken too much pains, gentlemen,” interrupted our new acquaintance, “your rank and extraction being self-evident. Welcome to Leaplow! I beg you will make free with my house, my dog, my cat, my horse, and myself. I particularly beg that your first, your last, and all the intermediate visits, will be to me. Well, Mogul, what do you really think of us? You have now been on shore long enough to have formed a pretty accurate notion of our institutions and habits. I beg you will not judge of all of us by what you see in the streets—”
“It is not my intention, sir.”
“You are cautious, I perceive? We are in an awful condition, I confess; trampled on by the vulgar, and far—very far from being the people that, I dare say, you expected to see. I couldn’t be made the assistant alderman of my ward, if I wished it, sir—too much jacobism; the people are fools, sir; know nothing, sir; not fit to rule themselves, much less their betters, sir. Here have a set of us, some hundreds in this very town, been telling them what fools they are, how unfit they are to manage their own affairs, and how fast they are going to the devil, any time these twenty years, and still we have not yet persuaded them to entrust one of us with authority! To say the truth, we are in a most miserable condition, and, if anything COULD ruin this country, democracy would have ruined it just thirty-five years ago.”
Here the wailings of Mr. Wriggle were interrupted by the wailings of Count Poke de Stunnin’tun. The latter, by gazing in admiration at the speaker, had inadvertently struck his toe against one of the forty-three thousand seven hundred and sixty inequalities of the pavement (for everything in Leaplow is exactly equal, except the streets and highways), and fallen forwards on his nose. I have already had occasion to allude to the sealer’s readiness in using opprobrious epithets. This contre-temps happened in the principal street of Bivouac, or in what is called the Wide-path, an avenue of more than a league in extent; but notwithstanding its great length, Noah took it up at one end and abused it all the way to the other, with a precision, fidelity, rapidity and point, that excited general admiration. “It was the dirtiest, worst paved, meanest, vilest, street he had ever seen, and if they had it at Stunnin’tun, instead of using it as a street at all, they would fence it up at each end, and turn it into a hog-lot.” Here Brigadier Downright betrayed unequivocal signs of alarm. Drawing us aside, he vehemently demanded of the captain if he were mad, to berate in this unheard-of manner the touchstone of Bivouac sentiment, nationality, taste, and elegance! This street was never spoken of except by the use of superlatives; a usage, by the way, that Noah himself had by no means neglected. It was commonly thought to be the longest and the shortest, the widest and the narrowest, the best built and the worst built avenue in the universe. “Whatever you say or do,” he continued, “whatever you think or believe, never deny the superlatives of the Wide-path. If asked if you ever saw a street so crowded, although there be room to wheel a regiment, swear it is stifling; if required to name another promenade so free from interruption, protest, by your soul, that the place is a desert! Say what you will of the institutions of the country—”
“How!” I exclaimed; “of the sacred rights of monikins?”
“Bedaub them, and the mass of the monikins, too, with just as much filth as you please. Indeed, if you wish to circulate freely in genteel society, I would advise you to get a pretty free use of the words, ‘jacobins,’ ‘rabble,’ ‘mob,’ ‘agrarians,’ ‘canaille’ and ‘democrats’; for they recommend many to notice who possess nothing else. In our happy and independent country it is a sure sign of lofty sentiment, a finished education, a regulated intellect, and a genteel intercourse, to know how to bespatter all that portion of your fellow-creatures, for instance, who live in one-story edifices.”
“I find all this very extraordinary, your government being professedly a government of the mass!”