“You were saying that there were more things to be seen in London than in the country.”
“Exactly; now I have it. I’ve got the thread agin. So there is.
“There’s England’s Queen, and England’s Prince, and Hanover’s King, and the old Swordbelt that whopped Bony; and he is better worth seem’ than any man now livin’ on the face of the univarsal airth, let t’other one be where he will, that’s a fact. He is a great man, all through the piece, and no mistake. If there was—what do you call that word, when one man’s breath pops into ‘nother man’s body, changin’ lodgins, like?”
“Do you mean transmigration?”
“Yes; if there was such a thing as that, I should say it was old Liveoak himself, Mr. Washington, that was transmigrated into him, and that’s no mean thing to say of him, I tell you.
“Well now, there’s none o’ these things to the country; and it’s so everlastin’ stupid, it’s only a Britisher and a nigger that could live in an English country-house. A nigger don’t like movin’, and it would jist suit him, if it warn’t so awful wet and cold.
“Oh if I was President of these here United States,
I’d suck sugar candy and swing upon de gates;
And them I didn’t like, I’d strike ‘em off de docket,
And the way we’d go ahead, would be akin to Davy Crockit.
With my zippy dooden, dooden dooden, dooden dooden dey,
With my zippy dooden, dooden dooden, dooden dooden dey.
“It might do for a nigger, suckin’ sugar candy and drinkin’ mint-julep; but it won’t do for a free and enlightened citizen like me. A country house—oh goody gracious! the Lord presarve me from it, I say. If ever any soul ever catches me there agin, I’ll give ‘em leave to tell me of it, that’s all. Oh go, Squire, by all means; you will find it monstrous pleasant, I know you will. Go and spend a week there; it will make you feel up in the stirrups, I know. Pr’aps nothin’ can exceed it. It takes the rag off the bush quite. It caps all, that’s a fact, does ‘Life in the Country.’”