“Where?” I asked. “I see no turkey; indeed, I have seen none on board. What do you mean?”
“Why that slight, pale-faced, student-like Britisher; he is a turkey, that feller. He has been all over the Union, and he is a goin’ to write a book. He was at New York when we left, and was introduced to me in the street. To make it liquorish, he has got all the advertisements about runaway slaves, sales of niggers, cruel mistresses and licentious masters, that he could pick up. He is a caterer and panderer to English hypocrisy. There is nothin’ too gross for him to swaller. We call them turkeys; first because they travel so fast—for no bird travels hot foot that way, except it be an ostrich—and second, because they gobble up every thing that comes in their way. Them fellers will swaller a falsehood as fast as a turkey does a grasshopper; take it right down whole, without winkin’.
“Now, as we have nothin’ above particular to do, ‘I’ll cram him’ for you; I will show you how hungry he’ll bite at a tale of horror, let it be never so onlikely; how readily he will believe it, because it is agin us; and then, when his book comes out, you shall see that all England will credit it, though I swear I invented it as a cram, and you swear you heard it told as a joke. They’ve drank in so much that is strong, in this way, have the English, they require somethin’ sharp enough to tickle their palates now. Wine hante no taste for a man that drinks grog, that’s a fact. It’s as weak as Taunton water. Come and walk up and down deck along with me once or twice, and then we will sit down by him, promiscuously like; and as soon as I get his appetite sharp, see how I will cram him.”
“This steam-boat is very onsteady to-day. Sir,” said Mr. Slick; “it’s not overly convenient walking, is it?”
The ice was broken. Mr. Slick led him on by degrees to his travels, commencing with New England, which the traveller eulogised very much. He then complimented him on the accuracy of his remarks and the depth of his reflections, and concluded by expressing a hope that he would publish his observations soon, as few tourists were so well qualified for the task as himself.
Finding these preliminary remarks taken in good part, he commenced the process of “cramming.”
“But oh, my friend,” said he, with a most sanctimonious air, “did you visit, and I am ashamed as an American citizen to ask the question, I feel the blood a tannin’ of my cheek when I inquire, did you visit the South? That land that is polluted with slavery, that land where the boastin’ and crackin’ of freemen pile up the agony pangs on the corroding wounds inflicted by the iron chains of the slave, until natur can’t stand it no more; my heart bleeds like a stuck critter, when I think of this plague spot on the body politic. I ought not to speak thus; prudence forbids it, national pride forbids it; but genuwine feelings is too strong for polite forms. ‘Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh.’ Have you been there?”
“Turkey” was thrown off his guard, he opened his wallet, which was well stocked, and retailed his stories, many of them so very rich, that I doubted the capacity of the Attache to out-Herod him. Mr. Slick received these tales with evident horror, and complimented the narrator with a well simulated groan; and when he had done, said, “Ah, I see how it is, they have purposely kept dark about the most atrocious features of slavery. Have you never seen the Gougin’ School?”
“No, never.”
“What, not seen the Gougin’ School?”