The speaker said: "How are you, old boots? (A voice: 'Thank you for your compliment.') We're the boys to give the Rebels comfort and cheers. (A voice: 'We are here to-night to stand by the Constitution!') What's old Abe about? Locking up good Democrats in Fort Lafayette! Well; it's our own fault, you know; we deserve worse treatment and hisses. (A voice: 'We abhor these Rebels as much as the Black Republicans!') We can give the Rebels what they want and applause. (A voice: 'But we also hate home tyranny!' 'Why was the idolized General of the Mackerel Brigade removed?') To please the Rebels we have licked the Black Republicans in New York; we've done the Rebels good. (A voice: 'To spite us, that's so, boys!') And we'll make them love us yet! The New York election tickles them, and cheers. (A voice: 'Whose good was he removed for?') For Jeff Davis three cheers, boys, and great enthusiasm. (A voice: 'Let history show!') We'll make him President in 1864! (A voice: 'Good night!')"
You see, my boy, this horrible twistification was the result of the reporter's getting confused about who was the speaker—him on the hotel balcony or the talkative chaps in the street. If our excellent national Democratic Organization would have less talking during their public speeches, my boy, there need be no such inhuman mistakes as that which has calumniated and utterly prostrated the Venerable Gammon.
On Wednesday I took a trot on the war-path upon the architectural street, Pegasus, and found the veteran Mackerel Brigade back at Paris again. They had made a great march from the Blue Ridge, my boy, and when I reached the front I found a scientific chap from Cincinnati taking observations. He stuck a tall stick into the ground, and scratched a long line on the damp sod, from the foot of this stick to the extreme right of the spectacled Brigade, letting the toes of the front rank of the Mackerels just touch it. Then he attached a powerful magnifying-glass to about the centre of the upright stick, and commenced looking through it very intently all along the line he had drawn.
I observed him attentively, and says I: "What is the nature of your contract with the Government, my serious friend?"
He rubbed the glass with his blue silk pocket-handkerchief, and says he: "I have invented this useful arrangement to ascertain whether or not the Army of Accomac is really advancing. I closely watch the line to which the toes of the front rank of the army are already very near, and could almost swear that the forward movement is still going on. The average speed of this army," says the scientific chap, calculatingly, "has hitherto been six miles in six weeks; but now that the war is about to commence in earnest, I think that the troops are making better time."
And so they were, my boy, so they were; for the heel of the first rank's boots were almost on the line in less than an hour,—no Confederacies being in sight.
Noticing a circle of Mackerel Officers a short distance in my rear, I dismounted from Pegasus and walked thither for greater speed, discovering that the brilliant staff were admiring the great equestrian gambols of the new General of the Mackerel Brigade.
The new General is a dignified, middle-aged chap, my boy, with a face which expresses many whiskers, and an eye to look you through and through when your meaning is transparent. He is not quite two yards high, has a head which looks like a lustrous apple-dumpling, dropped into the middle of a window-brush, and graduates downward into his boots without seeming to be either growing out of them, or running through them.
And he is none of your military popinjays, my boy, all plastered with buttons and gold lace, but an earnest, hardworking soldier. His dress for the field is characterized by genuine republican simplicity, and consists of hardworking corduroy breeches, sternly patched; an earnest pea-jacket, resolutely out at the elbows; a pair of straightforward slippers, unflinchingly ragged around the toes, and an untrifling silk hat, determinedly mashed-in at various points. You feel as you look at him, my boy, that he means hard work, and is indifferent to good clothes as long as he can save his distracted country.
On the majestic brow of a true hero, a shocking bad hat is a far nobler, more glittering crown, than the circle of filthy lucre which surmounts the head of Europe's bloated despot. Grander, far grander is the nightcap of a Washington, than any style of army cap I have yet seen.