"Hurra for Fog!" again rose in hoarse reduplications on the air.
"And now, fellow-countrymen, one and all—men of Quodlibet, men of Bickerbray—and especially men of Old Tumbledown, long my home, and never absent from my heart—I have exposed to you frankly, freely, unhesitatingly my principles and professions.—You see me as I am—naked, guileless, and robed in the simplicity of my nature.—Flan, another glass of that stuff, my boy. I do not imitate my friend Andy Grant—for he is my friend—we can differ in politics and break no scores!—I do not, like him and the Whigs, entertain you with frothy declamation, appealing to your passions or your prejudices—I scorn such stratagems.—No, I address myself solely and severely, sternly, without a flower, prosaically, without a figure, soberly, without a flight, to your cool, temperate, and unseduced capacity of logical deduction. Yes, gentlemen, I, a poor man, do battle against the hosts of the rich. I, the friend of honest labor, struggle against the huge monopoly of hoarded wealth, hoarded by grinding the faces of our sterling but destitute laboring men—alone, I strive against these banded powers—will you desert me in the strife?"
"Never!" cried Flan Sucker, Ben Inky, and six more of Fog's principal men—-"Never, never!"
"Then I am content. Come weal, come woe, here is a heart that will never—or rather, gentlemen, let me say in the words of the poet—(it now became quite obvious that Theodore was beginning to be very seriously affected by the frequent refreshment which Flan Sucker had administered during his speech,)
'Come one, come all, this rock shall fly
From his firm base as soon as I.'
"In conclusion, all I have to say is this—We are about to part.—When you go to your homes, and with hearts enraptured by all a father's and a husband's failings—feelings—you take your seats beside the old family firesides, and with the partners of your bosoms getting supper, and your interesting progeny clustering on your knees,—in the midst of all these blessings pause to ask yourselves, what are they? Your hearts will answer, they are our Country! How then, you will inquire, is that country to be preserved, as a rich inheritance to these cherubs?—who by this time have climbed as high as your waistcoat pockets, into which they have, with the natural instinct of young New Lights, thrust their little fingers—the response will be ready—Go to the polls in October—go, determined to sustain the everlasting principles of the New-Light Quodlibetarian Democracy—go, with a firm resolve to support no Mandarin, no Middling, but to sustain an unadulterated True Grit:—go, to vote for Theodore Fog, and your country shall be forever great, prosperous and happy."
A wave of the hand and a bow showed that Theodore had uttered his last words—upon which several rounds of applause, resembling the simultaneous clapping of wings and crowing of an acre of cocks, more than anything else I can imagine, shook the firmament, and, as the old song has it, "made the welkin roar." A party of Tumbledownians, instigated by Cale Goodfellow—(a wag who follows sporting, and keeps a bank—I mean a faro bank—at Tumbledown, a most special friend of Theodore's)—rushed up to the platform, and, seizing the orator in their arms, bore him off in triumph to the spring, where they fell to celebrating their victory, in advance of the election, over a fresh supply of spirits produced by Cale Goodfellow for the occasion. The result was that Theodore was obliged to be taken home to Quodlibet in a condition which Mr. Handy, who is President of the Temperance Society, pronounced to be perfectly shocking.
Some speaking took place after this by several volunteers: but from the agitated condition of the assemblage, and the prevalence of uproar, nothing worthy of notice transpired, and by sundown nearly all who could get away had retired.
Quipes had been an attentive observer of the earlier scenes of the day, and as he had his drawing-book with him, we had reason to expect some spirited sketches of the crowd; but the poor fellow, being fatigued and thirsty, and of a singularly weak head, was overtaken by his drought, and was laid away in the afternoon in Abel Brawn's wagon, in which he was brought to Quodlibet, Neal Hopper undertaking to ride his horse back to the Borough.
The result of this day's proceedings was unfavorable to the regular nomination, and highly auspicious to Theodore Fog. It was very evident that The Split was going to do us a great deal of harm, and this gave much uneasiness to the club. The Whigs seemed to consider it a good omen, and old Mr. Grant and his party left the field in high spirits.