“‘Because,’ sais he, ‘some day when I am asked out to dinner, some wag or another of a lord will call me parson, and ask me to crave a blessin’, jist to raise the larf agin me for havin’ been a preacher.’
“‘If he does,’ sais I,’ jist say, my Attache does that, and I’ll jist up first and give it to him atween the two eyes; and when that’s done, sais you, my Lord, that’s your grace afore meat; pr’aps your lordship will return thanks arter dinner. Let him try it, that’s all. But our great nation,’ sais I, ‘tell me, hante that noble stand we made on the right of sarch, raised us about the toploftiest?’
“‘Oh,’ says he ‘right of sarch! right of sarch! I’ve been tryin’ to sarch my memory, but can’t find it. I don’t recollect that sarmont about Hope pitchin’ her tent on the hill. When was it?’
“‘It was afore the juvenile-united-democratic-republican association to Funnel Hall,’ sais I.
“‘Oh,’ says he, ‘that was an oration—it was an oration that.’
“Oh!” sais I, “we won’t say no more about that; I only meant it as a joke, and nothin’ more. But railly now, Abednego, what is the state of our legation?”
“‘I don’t see nothin’ ridikilous,’ sais he, ‘in that are expression, of Hope pitchin’ her tent on a hill. It’s figurativ’ and poetic, but it’s within the line that divides taste from bombast. Hope pitchin’ her tent on a hill! What is there to reprehend in that?’
“Good airth and seas,’ sais I, ‘let’s pitch Hope, and her tent, and the hill, all to Old Nick in a heap together, and talk of somethin’ else. You needn’t be so perkily ashamed of havin’ preached, man. Cromwell was a great preacher all his life, but it didn’t spile him as a Socdolager one bit, but rather helped him, that’s a fact. How ‘av we held our footin’ here?’
“‘Not well, I am grieved to say,’ sais he; ‘not well. The failure of the United States’ Bank, the repudiation of debts by several of our States, the foolish opposition we made to the suppression of the slave-trade, and above all, the bad faith in the business of the boundary question has lowered us down, down, e’en a’most to the bottom of the shaft.’
“‘Abednego,’ sais I, ‘we want somethin’ besides boastin’ and talkin’ big; we want a dash—a great stroke of policy. Washington hanging Andre that time, gained more than a battle. Jackson by hanging Arbuthnot and Anbristher, gained his election. M’Kennie for havin’ hanged them three citizens will be made an admiral of yet, see if he don’t. Now if Captain Tyler had said, in his message to Congress, ‘Any State that repudiates its foreign debts, we will first fine it in the whole amount, and then cut it off from our great, free, enlightened, moral and intellectual republic, he would have gained by the dash his next election, and run up our flag to the mast-head in Europe. He would have been popular to home, and respected abroad, that’s as clear as mud,’