“‘A good deal!’ sais he, ‘why it’s every thing. But I didn’t rest on that alone; I propounded this maxim to myself. Every man, sais I, is bound to sarve his fellow citizens to his utmost. That’s true; ain’t it, Mr. Slick?’
“‘Guess so,’ sais I.
“‘Well then, I asked myself this here question: Can I sarve my fellow citizens best by bein’ minister to Peach settlement, ‘tendin’ on a little village of two thousand souls, and preachin’ my throat sore, or bein’ special minister to Saint Jimses, and sarvin’ our great Republic and its thirteen millions? Why, no reasonable man can doubt; so I give up preachin’.’
“‘Well,’ sais I, ‘Abednego, you are a Socdolager, that’s a fact; you are a great man, and a great scholard. Now a great scholard, when he can’t do a sum the way it’s stated, jist states it so—he can do it. Now the right way to state that sum is arter this fashion: “Which is best, to endeavour to save the souls of two thousand people under my spiritual charge, or let them go to Old Nick and save a piece of wild land in Maine, get pay for an old steamer burnt to Canada, and uphold the slave trade for the interest of the States.’
“‘That’s specious, but not true,’ said he; ‘but it’s a matter rather for my consideration than your’n,’ and he looked as a feller does when he buttons his trowsers’ pocket, as much as to say, you have no right to be a puttin’ of your pickers and stealers in there, that’s mine. ‘We will do better to be less selfish,’ said he, ‘and talk of our great nation.’
“‘Well,’ says I, ‘how do we stand here in Europe? Do we maintain the high pitch we had, or do we sing a note lower than we did?’
“Well, he walked up and down the room, with his hands onder his coat-tails, for ever so long, without a sayin’ of a word. At last, sais he, with a beautiful smile that was jist skin deep, for it played on his face as a cat’s-paw does on the calm waters, ‘What was you a sayin.’ of, Mr. Slick?’ saw he.
“‘What’s our position to Europe?’ sais I, ‘jist now; is it letter A, No. 1?’
“‘Oh!’ sais he, and he walked up and down agin, cypherin’ like to himself; and then says he, ‘I’ll tell you; that word Socdolager, and the trade of preachin’, and clockmakin’, it would be as well to sink here; neither on ‘em convene with dignity. Don’t you think so?’
“‘Sartainly,’ sais I; ‘it’s only fit for talk over a cigar, alone. It don’t always answer a good, purpose to blart every thing out. But our position,’ says I, among the nations of the airth, is it what our everlastin’ Union is entitled to?’