“My first party to-night wus a conversation one; that is for them that could talk; as for me I couldn’t talk a bit, and all I could think was, ‘how infarnal hot it is! I wish I could get in!’ or, ‘oh dear, if I could only get out!’ It was a scientific party, a mob o’ men. Well, every body expected somebody would be squashed to death, and so ladies went, for they always go to executions. They’ve got a kinder nateral taste for the horrors, have women. They like to see people hanged or trod to death, when they can get a chance. It was a conversation warn’t it? that’s all. I couldn’t understand a word I heard. Trap shale Greywachy; a petrified snail, the most important discovery of modern times. Bank governor’s machine weighs sovereigns, light ones go to the right, and heavy ones to the left.
“‘Stop,’ says I, ‘if you mean the sovereign people here, there are none on ‘em light. Right and left is both monstrous heavy; all over weight, every one on ‘em. I’m squeezed to death.’
“‘Very good, Mr. Slick. Let me introduce you to ——,’ they are whipt off in the current, and I don’t see ‘em again no more. ‘A beautiful shew of flowers, Madam, at the garden: they are all in full blow now. The rhododendron—had a tooth pulled when she was asleep.’ ‘Please to let me pass, Sir.’ ‘With all my heart, Miss, if I could; but I can’t move; if I could I would down on the carpet, and you should walk over me. Take care of your feet, Miss, I am off of mine. Lord bless me! what’s this? why as I am a livin’ sinner, it’s half her frock hitched on to my coat button. Now I know what that scream meant.’
“‘How do you do, Mr. Slick? When did you come?’ ‘Why I came—’ he is turned round, and shoved out o’ hearin.’ ‘Xanthian marbles at the British Museum are quite wonderful; got into his throat, the doctor turned him upside down, stood him on his head, and out it came—his own tunnel was too small.’ ‘Oh, Sir, you are cuttin’ me.’ ‘Me, Miss! Where had I the pleasure of seein’ you before, I never cut a lady in my life, could’nt do so rude a thing. Havn’t the honour to recollect you.’ ‘Oh, Sir, take it away, it cuts me.’ Poor thing, she is distracted, I don’t wonder. She’s drove crazy, though I think she must have been mad to come here at all. ‘Your hat, Sir.’ ‘Oh, that cussed French hat is it? Well, the rim is as stiff and as sharp as a cleaver, that’s a fact, I don’t wonder it cut you.’ ‘Eddis’s pictur—capital painting, fell out of the barge, and was drowned.’ ‘Having been beat on the shillin’ duty; they will attach him on the fourpence, and thimble rigg him out of that.’ ‘They say Sugden is in town, hung in a bad light, at the Temple Church.’——‘Who is that?’ ‘Lady Fobus; paired off for the Session; Brodie operated.’——Lady Francis; got the Life Guards; there will be a division to-night.’——That’s Sam Slick; I’ll introduce you; made a capital speech in the House of Lords, in answer to Brougham—Lobelia—voted for the bill—The Duchess is very fond of——Irish Arms—’
“Oh! now I’m in the entry. How tired I am! It feels shockin’ cold here, too, arter comin’ out o’ that hot room. Guess I’ll go to the grand musical party. Come, this will do; this is Christian-like, there is room here; but the singin’ is in next room, I will go and hear them. Oh! here they are agin; it’s a proper mob this. Cuss, these English, they can’t live out of mobs. Prince Albert is there in that room; I must go and see him. He is popular; he is a renderin’ of himself very agreeable to the English, is Prince: he mixes with them as much as he can; and shews his sense in that. Church steeples are very pretty things: that one to Antwerp is splendiriferous; it’s everlastin’ high, it most breaks your neck layin’ back your head to look at it; bend backward like a hoop, and stare at it once with all your eyes, and you can’t look up agin, you are satisfied. It tante no use for a Prince to carry a head so high as that, Albert knows this; he don’t want to be called the highest steeple, cause all the world knows he is about the top loftiest; but he want’s to descend to the world we live in.
“With a Queen all men love, and a Prince all men like, royalty has a root in the heart here. Pity, too, for the English don’t desarve to have a Queen; and such a Queen as they have got too, hang me if they do. They ain’t men, they hante the feelin’s or pride o’ men in ‘em; they ain’t what they used to be, the nasty, dirty, mean-spirited, sneakin’ skunks, for if they had a heart as big as a pea—and that ain’t any great size, nother—cuss ‘em, when any feller pinted a finger at her to hurt her, or even frighten her, they’d string him right up on the spot, to the lamp post. Lynch him like a dog that steals sheep right off the reel, and save mad-doctors, skary judges, and Chartist papers all the trouble of findin’ excuses. And, if that didn’t do, Chinese like, they’d take the whole crowd present and sarve them out. They’d be sure to catch the right one then. I wouldn’t shed blood, because that’s horrid; it shocks all Christian people, philosophisin’ legislators, sentimental ladies, and spooney gentlemen. It’s horrid barbarous that, is sheddin’ blood; I wouldn’t do that, I’d jist hang him. A strong cord tied tight round his neck would keep that precious mixtur, traitor’s blood, all in as close as if his mouth was corked, wired, and white-leaded, like a champagne bottle.
“Oh dear! these are the fellers that come out a travellin’ among us, and sayin’ the difference atween you and us is ‘the absence of loyalty.’ I’ve heard tell a great deal of that loyalty, but I’ve seen precious little of it, since I’ve been here, that’s a fact. I’ve always told you these folks ain’t what they used to be, and I see more and more, on ‘em every day. Yes, the English are like their hosses, they are so fine bred, there is nothin’ left of ‘em now but the hide, hair, and shoes.
“So Prince Albert is there in that room; I must get in there and see him, for I have never sot eyes on him since I’ve been here, so here goes. Onder, below there, look out for your corns, hawl your feet in, like turtles, for I am a comin’. Take care o’ your ribs, my old ‘coons, for my elbows are crooked. Who wants to grow? I’ll squeeze you out as a rollin’-pin does dough, and make you ten inches taller. I’ll make good figures of you, my fat boys and galls, I know. Look out for scaldin’s there. Here I am: it’s me, Sam Slick, make way, or I’ll walk right over you, and cronch you like lobsters. ‘Cheap talkin’, or rather thinkin’, sais I; for in course I couldn’t bawl that out in company here; they don’t understand fun, and would think it rude, and ongenteel. I have to be shockin’ cautious what I say here, for fear I might lower our great nation in the eyes of foreigners. I have to look big and talk big the whole blessed time, and I am tired of it. It ain’t nateral to me; and, besides braggin’ and repudiatin’ at the same time, is most as bad as cantin’ and swearin’. It kinder chokes me. I thought it all though, and said it all to myself. ‘And,’ sais I, ‘take your time, Sam; you can’t do it, no how, you can fix-it. You must wait your time, like other folks. Your legs is tied, and your arms is tied down by the crowd, and you can’t move an inch beyond your nose. The only way is, watch your chance, wait till you can get your hands up, then turn the fust two persons that’s next to you right round, and slip between them like a turn stile in the park, and work your passage that way. Which is the Prince? That’s him with the hair carefully divided, him with the moustaches. I’ve seed him; a plaguy handsum man he is, too. Let me out now. I’m stifled, I’m choked. My jaws stick together, I can’t open ‘em no more; and my wind won’t hold out another minute.
“I have it now, I’ve got an idea. See if I don’t put the leake into ‘em. Won’t I do them, that’s all? Clear the way there, the Prince is a comin’, and so is the Duke. And a way is opened: waves o’ the sea roll hack at these words, and I walks right out, as large as life, and the fust Egyptian that follers is drowned, for the water has closed over him. Sarves him right, too, what business had he to grasp my life-preserver without leave. I have enough to do to get along by my own wit, without carry in’ double.
“‘Where is the Prince? Didn’t they say he was a comin’? Who was that went out? He don’t look like the Prince; he ain’t half so handsum, that feller, he looks, like a Yankee.’ ‘Why, that was Sam Slick.’ ‘Capital, that! What a droll feller he is; he is always so ready! He desarves credit for that trick.’ Guess I do; but let old Connecticut alone; us Slickville boys always find a way to dodge in or out embargo or no embargo, blockade or no blockade, we larnt that last war.