Known as a Socialist, isn't it?"
"If, Sir," said Mr. Hopewell, with much earnestness, "if
instead of ornamenting your conversation with cant terms,
and miserable slang, picked up from the lowest refuse of
our population, both east and west, you had cultivated
your mind, and enriched it with quotations from classical
writers, you would have been more like an Attache, and
less like a peddling clockmaker than you are."
"Minister," said Mr. Slick, "I was only in jeest, but
you are in airnest. What you have said is too true for
a joke, and I feel it. I was only a sparrin'; but you
took off the gloves, and felt my short ribs in a way that
has given me a stitch in the side. It tante fair to kick
that way afore you are spurred. You've hurt me
considerable."
"Sam, I am old, narvous, and irritable. I was wrong to
speak unkindly to you, very wrong indeed, and I am sorry
for it; but don't teaze me no more, that's a good lad;
for I feel worse than you do about it. I beg your pardon,
I--"
"Well," said Mr. Slick, "to get back to what we was a
sayin', for you do talk like a book, that's a fact;
'_noscitur a sociis_,' says you."
"Ay, 'Birds of a feather flock together,' as the old
maxim goes. Now, Sam, who supported the Whigs?"
"Why, let me see; a few of the lords, a few of the gentry,
the repealers, the manufacturin' folks, the independents,
the baptists, the dissentin' Scotch, the socialists, the
radicals, the discontented, and most of the lower orders,
and so on.
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