The rapidity of mental operations is such that it frequently happens, if sleep be disturbed by external sounds, that the noise is instantly caught up by the ear, and incorporated with the subject of the dream—or perhaps a dream is instantaneously formed upon the nucleus suggested by the vibration of the tympanum. The bark of the dog had one of these effects upon Mr. Brush.
“Bow! wow! waugh!” said the dog.
“There’s a fellow making a speech against our side,” muttered Peter; “but it’s all talk—where’s your facts?—print your speech in pamphlet form, and I’ll answer it. Hurray for us!—everybody else is rascals—nothing but ruination when that fellow’s principles get the upper hand—our side for ever—we’re the boys!”
“Be still, Ponto!” said the gentleman. “Now, Sir, be pleased to get up, and carry yourself to some other place. I don’t know which side has the honour of claiming you, but you are certainly on the wrong side at present.”
“Don’t be official and trouble yourself about other people’s business,” said Brush, trying to open his eyes; “don’t be official, for it isn’t the genteel thing.”
“Not official! what do you mean by that? I shall be very official, and trundle you down the steps if you are not a little more rapid in your motions.”
“Oh, very well,” responded Brush, as he wheeled round in a sitting posture, and fronted the stranger—“very well; be as sassy as you please; I suppose you’ve got an office, by the way you talk—you’ve got one of the fishes, though perhaps it is but a minny, and I ain’t; but if I had, I’d show you a thing or two. Be sassy, be anything, Mr. Noodle-soup. I don’t know which side you’re on either, but I do know one thing; it isn’t saying much for your boss politicianer that he chose you when I must have been on his list for promotion; that’s all, though yon are so stiff, and think yourself pretty to look at. But them that’s pretty to look at ain’t always good ’uns to go, or you wouldn’t be poking here. Be off; there’s no more business before this meeting, and you may adjourn. It’s moved, seconded, and carried—pay the landlord for the use of the room as you go.”
The stranger, now becoming somewhat amused, felt a disposition to entertain himself a little with Peter.
“How does it happen,” said he, “that such a public-spirited individual as you appear to be should find himself in this condition? You’ve had a little too much of the stimulantibus, I fear.”
“I don’t know Greek, but I guess what you mean,” was the answer. “It’s owing to the weather—part to the weather, and part because republics is ungrateful; that’s considerable the biggest part. Either part is excuse enough, and both together makes it a credit. When it’s such weather as this, it takes the electerizing fluid out of you; and if you want to feel something like; do you know what ‘something like’ is? it’s cat-bird, jam up; if you want to feel so, you must pour a little of the electerizing fluid into you. In this kind of weather you must tune yourself up, and get, rosumed, or you ain’t good for much, tuned up to concert pitch. But all that’s a trifle; put not your trust in politicianers.”