Bridget has become a thought, and serves us a great deal faster than the sticky lightning of the submarine par vagum, as the Professor calls it.—Pepper for Kansas, Bridget.—A sandwich for Cincinnati.—Rolls and sardines for Washington.—A bit of the Cape Ann turkey for Boston.—South Carolina prefers dark meat.—Fifty thousand glasses of eau sucrée at once, and the rest simultaneously.—Now give us the nude mahogany, that we may talk over it.—Bridget becomes as a mighty wind and peels off the immeasurable table-cloth as a northwester strips off the leafy damask from the autumn woods.
[At this point of the entertainment the Reporter of the "Oceanic Miscellany" was introduced, and to his fluent and indefatigable pen we owe the further account of the proceedings.—Editors of the "Oceanic Miscellany."]
—The liberal and untiring editors of the "Oceanic Miscellany" commissioned their special reporter to be present at the Great Breakfast given by the personage known as the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, furnishing him with one of the caput-mortuum tickets usually distributed on such occasions.
The tables groaned with the delicacies of the season, provided by the distinguished caterers whose names are familiar in our mouths as household words. After the usual contest for places,—a proceeding more honored in the breach than the observance,—the band discoursed sweet music. The creature comforts were then discussed, consisting of the various luxuries that flesh is heir to, together with fish and fowl, too numerous to mention. After the material banquet had cloyed the hungry edge of appetite, began the feast of reason and the flow of soul. As, take him for all in all, the bright particular star of the evening was the distinguished individual who played the part of mine host, we shall make no apology for confining our report to the
SPEECH OF THE AUTOCRAT.
I think on the whole we have had a good time together, since we became acquainted. So many pleasant looks and words as have passed between us must mean something. For one person who speaks well or ill of us we may safely take it for granted that there are ten or a hundred, or an indefinite number, who feel in the same way, but are shy of talking.
Now the first effect of being kindly received is unquestionably a pleasing internal commotion, out of which arises a not less pleasing secondary sensation, which the unthinking vulgar call conceit, but which is in reality an increased consciousness of life, and a most important part of the mechanism by which a man is advertised of his ability to serve his fellows, and stirred up to use it.
In the present instance, the immediate effects of the warm general welcome received were the following demonstrations:—
1. The purchase of a glossy bell-crowned hat, which is worn a little inclined to one side, at the angle of self-reliance,—this being a very slight dip, as compared to the outrageous slant of country dandies and the insolent obliquity indulged in by a few unpleasantly conspicuous city-youth, who prove that "it takes three generations to make a gentleman."
2. A movement towards the acquisition of a pair of pantaloons with a stripe running down the leg; also of a slender canary-colored cane, to be carried as formerly in the time when Mr. Van Buren was President.—[A mild veto from the schoolmistress was interposed.]