RE-GILDING THE GOLDEN EAGLE.
["The amount subscribed in England for the United States Loan was £120,000,000, or twenty times the sum reserved for London."—Daily Paper.]
"Why, I was a thinking, Sir," returned Mark Tapley, "that if I was a painter, and was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it?"
"Paint it as like an Eagle as you could, I suppose."
"No," said Mark. "That wouldn't do for me, Sir. I should want to draw it like a Bat, for its short-sightedness; like a Bantam, for its bragging; like a Magpie, for its honesty; like a Peacock, for its vanity; like an Ostrich, for its putting its head in the sand, and thinking nobody sees it——"
"And like a Phœnix, for its power of springing from the ashes of its faults and vices, and soaring up anew into the sky!" said Martin.
Martin Chuzzlewit.
Brother Jonathan loquitur:—