"Yaysir," says Mr. Murphy, "it's that I am, intirely. Be the same token, I was raised and born in the swate South—the South of Ireland."
"Are you Chivalry?" says Villiam, thoughtfully.
"Is it Chivalry!—ah, but it's that I am, and me father before me, and me childers that's afther me. If Chivalry was praties I could furnish a dinner to all the wur-ruld, and have enough left to fade the pigs."
"Murphy is a French name," says Villiam, drawing a copy of Vattel on International Law from his pocket and glancing at it, "but I will not dispute what you say. You must do without your contraband, however; for slavery and martial law don't agree together in the United States of America."
"Mr. Black," says Villiam, gravely, turning to the emancipated African, "you have come to the right shop for freedom. You are from henceforth a freeman and a brother-in-law. You are now your own master," says Villiam, encouragingly, "and no man has a right to order you about. You are in the full enjoyment of Heving's best gift—Freedom! Go and black my boots."
The moral grandeur of this speech, my boy, so affected the Southern planter that he at once became a Union man, took the Oath with the least bit of water in it, and asked permission to have his own boots blacked.
I have been deeply touched of late, my boy, by the reception of a present from the ladies of Alexandria. It is a beautiful little dog, named Bologna (the women of America think that Bologna is the goddess of war, my boy), shaped like a door-mat rolled up, and elegantly frescoed down the sides in white and yellow. The note accompanying the gift was all womanly.
"Accept," it said, "this slight tribute, as an index of the feelings with which the American women regards the noble volunteer. Wear this gift next your heart when the fierce battle rages; but, in the meantime, give him a bone."
Bologna is a pointer, my boy—a Five-Pointer.
As a dead poet expresses it, Woman is "Heaven's noblest, best, and last good gift to man;" and I assure, you, my boy, that she is just the last gift he cares about.