Let him try it, that's all. But
our great nation,' sais I, 'tell me, hante that noble
stand we made on the right of sarch, raised us about the
toploftiest?'
"'Oh,' says he 'right of sarch! right of sarch! I've been
tryin' to sarch my memory, but can't find it. I don't
recollect that sarmont about Hope pitchin' her tent on
the hill. When was it?'
"'It was afore the juvenile-united-democratic-republican
association to Funnel Hall,' sais I.
"'Oh,' says he, 'that was an oration--it was an oration
that.'
"Oh!" sais I, "we won't say no more about that; I only
meant it as a joke, and nothin' more. But railly now,
Abednego, what is the state of our legation?"
"'I don't see nothin' ridikilous,' sais he, 'in that are
expression, of Hope pitchin' her tent on a hill. It's
figurativ' and poetic, but it's within the line that
divides taste from bombast. Hope pitchin' her tent on a
hill! What is there to reprehend in that?'
"Good airth and seas,' sais I, 'let's pitch Hope, and
her tent, and the hill, all to Old Nick in a heap together,
and talk of somethin' else. You needn't be so perkily
ashamed of havin' preached, man. Cromwell was a great
preacher all his life, but it didn't spile him as a
Socdolager one bit, but rather helped him, that's a fact.
How 'av we held our footin' here?'
"'Not well, I am grieved to say,' sais he; 'not well.
The failure of the United States' Bank, the repudiation
of debts by several of our States, the foolish opposition
we made to the suppression of the slave-trade, and above
all, the bad faith in the business of the boundary question
has lowered us down, down, e'en a'most to the bottom of
the shaft.
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