The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth | Page 6

the small,--which was the doing all Mr. President Pierce's thinking. Therefore, be it known that, with a full knowledge of this sad state of affairs, did I write down:--'Mr. Solomon Smooth, from Cape Cod:' which, when down, looked like the footprints of a hen that, having dipped her claws in an inkstand, had waddled across the page. Thus ended my induction at the National.
CHAPTER II.
MR. SMOOTH SUPS, AND GOES TO BED.
"At length, Uncle Sam, I found myself somebody; and while looking about me on the many well-dressed and very good-natured gentlemen who subsisted on the hope of your generosity, could not avoid the contemplation of what a glorious world this of ours must be, possessing as it does so many good hearted souls like yourself, so rich--but as indifferent to their own best interests. 'You will take supper, Mr. Smooth?' inquired the man behind the mahogany. Before I had time to speak, he pulled a bell that jingled like Jehu. And then there came scampering in a school of negroes, so tidy, trim, and intelligent. One bowed--another smiled--a third waited with a salutation my commands. 'Take care of Mister Smooth!' again spoke the man behind the mahogany, as with an effort to be commanding in accent. That they might know more emphatically (as Uncle Tom Benton says) that Mr. Smooth was none of your common citizen, I turned my eyes on the darkies, and stared at them until they turned pale. Then one possessed himself of my bundle: moving off with a scientific motion, and a bow a la cabinet, he bid me follow. Obeying his summons, onward we went, through a long, dark passage, and into a spacious hall up stairs, where he said they eat their people. No sooner was I bowed to a seat than a dozen gentlemen darkies set upon me in good earnest; so fast did they beset me with eatables that I begun to think they had mistaken me for a thanksgiving turkey about to be fatted for the table of the secretary of the treasury. The fixins, as Mr. Samuel Slick would say, made one feel quite at home; not so with the darkies: they recognizing my home spun, soon became sassy; whereupon I turned round and set upon them with the broadest grin I could summon. Nor could I withhold a laugh at seeing them laugh. 'Reckon how mas'r's on big business to Washington wid Mr. General Pierce,' says one, whose face was black, and bright, and full of the quizzical; while another, with a flat crooked nose gave a cunning wink out of his left eye. This being detected by a superior, in the brisk person of a son of the Emerald Isle, who stood well six feet in his boots, a 'soucer' with the broad front of his knuckle bones, between the colored gentleman's two eyes, was the rejoinder--a most striking remonstrance, that laid him measuring the floor. Troth! an' it's myself 'd stop yer botheration. Sure, ye dark spalpeens, is it by the same token ye'd trate the gintleman? (Here the honest son of sweet Erin showed signs of his Doneybrook getting the better of him.) 'Myself 'll take care of Mr. Smooth--doesn't he belong to the self same party, the know-nothings? The divil a such a country, as Hamirike: an' it's the boys from Donegal that 'ud be taking her dignity in care.' Saying this, Mr. Patrick (for such was his name) stretched the whole length of his important self over the table, and says:--I'm yers to the buckle of my shoe, Mr. Smooth! It's a divil a one but yerself I'll vote for at the next helection. Sure, an' didn't mysel jine the native Hamerikan party, with Tom Connolly, afore we'd been two months on the beloved soil an', sure, it's Tom and myself that's goin to put through the nonothin for ye.' Here Mr. Patrick anxiously paused for a reply. To never say a bad thing when I could not think of a good, ever has been my motto; so I returned his good nature with saying:--'Give us yer hand, Mr. Patrick--we will forget the two, and yet be one! and that our faith may be made strong, we will together do brown the patriotism of these United States.
"'Ye better believe that!' returns Mr. Patrick, with an exultation of happiness; and concluding with: 'I'd kill every nager in the land, be the pipers I would! an' it's the boys from old Ireland what does be keeping the bright face on pure Hamirikan principles. Sure an' warn't it the brave boys that halicted Gineral Pierce and his cumrades?' Here Mr. Patrick again paused, and with a wise look, shook his head. 'We put the broad staunch face on the democracy,' again he interjaculated with a mutter. Indeed,