"Lord Frank Vanecourt," said Dickiefield.
"Lord Frank Vanecourt, sir, how do you do, sir?—proud to make your acquaintance, sir," said Mr Wog.
"The same to you, sir," said I. "Pray, where were you raised?" I wanted to show Mr Wog that I was not such a barbarian as he might imagine, and knew how to ask a civil question or two.
"Well, sir, I'm a Missouri man," he replied. "I was a captain under Frank Blair, till I was taken bad with chills and fever; then I gave up the chills and kept the fever—'oil-fever' they call it down to Pithole—you've heard of Pithole?"
"Yes," I said, I had heard of that magical city.
"Well, just as I struck oil, one of your English lords came over there for the purpose of what he called 'getting up petroleum' and we were roommates in the same hotel for some time, and got quite friendly; and when he saw my new kerosene lamp, and found I was coming to have it patented in this country, he promised to help me to get up a Patent Lamp Company, and gave me letters to some of your leading aristocracy; so, before leaving, I saw the President, and told him I would report on the state of feeling in your highest circles about our war. We know what it is in your oppressed classes, but it aint every one has a chance, like me, of finding out how many copperheads there are among your lords. My father, sir, you may have heard of by name—Appollonius T. Wog, the founder, and, I may say, the father of the celebrated 'Pollywog Convention,' which was named after him, and which unfortunately burst up just in time to be too late to save our country from bursting up too."
I expressed to Mr Wog my condolences on the premature decease of the Pollywog Convention, and asked him how long he had been in England, and whom he had seen.
"Well, sir," he said, "I have only been here a few days, and I have seen considerable people; but none of them were noblemen, and they are the class I have to report upon. The Earl of Broadhem, here, is the first with whom I have conversed, and he informs me that he has just come from one of your universities, and that the sympathies of the great majority of your rising youth are entirely with the North."
"You may report to your Government that the British youth of the present day, hot from the university, are very often prigs."
"Most certainly I will," said Mr Wog; "the last word, however, is one with which I am not acquainted."