“‘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?’
“‘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?’