“Faith, next mornin’ he was booked; and the first thing he see’d when he waked was another man a tryin’ on of his shoes, to see how they’d fit to march to the head of his regiment with. Fact, I assure you, and a fact too that shows what Englishmen has come to; I despise ‘em, I hate ‘em, I scorn such critters as I do oncarcumcised niggers.”
“What a strange perversion of facts,” I replied.
But he would admit of no explanation. “Oh yes, quite parvarted; not a word of truth in it; there never is when England is consarned. There is no beam in an Englishman’s eye; no not a smell of one; he has pulled it out long ago; that’s the reason he can see the mote in other folks’s so plain. Oh, of course it ain’t true; it’s a Yankee invention; it’s a hickory ham and a wooden nutmeg.
“Well, then, there was another feller got bagged t’other day, as innocent as could be, for givin’ his opinion when folks was a talkin’ about matters and things in gineral, and this here one in partikilar. I can’t tell the words, for I don’t know ‘em, nor care about ‘em; and if I did, I couldn’t carry ‘em about so long; but it was for sayin’ it hadn’t ought to have been taken notice of, considerin’ it jist popt out permiscuous like with the bottle-cork. If he hadn’t a had the clear grit in him, and showed teeth and claws, they’d a nullified him so, you wouldn’t have see’d a grease spot of him no more. What do you call that, now? Do you call that liberty? Do you call that old English? Do you call it pretty, say now? Thank God, it tante Yankee.”
“I see you have no prejudice, Mr. Slick,” I replied.
“Not one mite or morsel,” he replied. “Tho’ I was born in Connecticut, I have travelled all over the thirteen united univarsal worlds of ourn and am a citizen at large. No, I have no prejudice. You say I am mistaken; p’raps I am, I hope I be, and a stranger may get hold of the wrong eend of a thing sometimes, that’s a fact. But I don’t think I be wrong, or else the papers don’t tell the truth; and I read it in all the jarnals; I did, upon my soul. Why man, it’s history now, if such nasty mean doins is worth puttin’ into a book.
“What makes this Spy System to England wuss, is that these eaves-droppers are obliged to hear all that’s said, or lose what commission they hold; at least so folks tell me. I recollect when I was there last, for it’s some years since Government first sot up the Spy System; there was a great feed given to a Mr. Robe, or Robie, or some such name, an out and out Tory. Well, sunthin’ or another was said over their cups, that might as well have been let alone, I do suppose, tho’ dear me, what is the use of wine but to onloosen the tongue, and what is the use of the tongue, but to talk. Oh, cuss ‘em, I have no patience with them. Well, there was an officer of a marchin’ regiment there, who it seems ought to have took down the words and sent ‘em up to the head Gineral, but he was a knowin’ coon, was officer, and didn’t hear it. No sooner said than done; some one else did the dirty work for him; but you can’t have a substitute for this, you must sarve in person, so the old Gineral hawls him right up for it.
“‘Why the plague, didn’t you make a fuss?’ sais the General, ‘why didn’t you get right up, and break up the party?’
“‘I didn’t hear it,’ sais he.
“‘You didn’t hear it!’ sais Old Sword-belt, ‘then you had ought to have heerd it; and for two pins, I’d sharpen your hearin’ for you, so that a snore of a fly would wake you up, as if a byler had bust.’