The Attache | Page 4

on the -- of
May, 184-, for England.
The motto prefixed to this work
(Greek Text)
sufficiently explains its character. Classes and not individuals have
been selected for observation. National traits are fair subjects for satire
or for praise, but personal peculiarities claim the privilege of exemption
in right of that hospitality, through whose medium they have been
alone exhibited. Public topics are public property; every body has a
right to use them without leave and without apology. It is only when we
quit the limits of this "common" and enter upon "private grounds," that
we are guilty of "a trespass." This distinction is alike obvious to good
sense and right feeling. I have endeavoured to keep it constantly in
view; and if at any time I shall be supposed to have erred (I say
"supposed," for I am unconscious of having done so) I must claim the

indulgence always granted to involuntary offences.
Now the patience of my reader may fairly be considered a "private
right." I shall, therefore, respect its boundaries and proceed at once with
my narrative, having been already quite long enough about "uncorking
a bottle."
CHAPTER II.
A JUICY DAY IN THE COUNTRY.
All our preparations for the voyage having been completed, we spent
the last day at our disposal, in visiting Brooklyn. The weather was
uncommonly fine, the sky being perfectly clear and unclouded; and
though the sun shone out brilliantly, the heat was tempered by a cool,
bracing, westwardly wind. Its influence was perceptible on the spirits
of every body on board the ferry-boat that transported us across the
harbour.
"Squire," said Mr. Slick, aint this as pretty a day as you'll see atween
this and Nova Scotia?--You can't beat American weather, when it
chooses, in no part of the world I've ever been in yet. This day is a
tip-topper, and it's the last we'll see of the kind till we get back agin, I
know. Take a fool's advice, for once, and stick to it, as long as there is
any of it left, for you'll see the difference when you get to England.
There never was so rainy a place in the univarse, as that, I don't think,
unless it's Ireland, and the only difference atween them two is that it
rains every day amost in England, and in Ireland it rains every day and
every night too. It's awful, and you must keep out of a country-house in
such weather, or you'll go for it; it will kill you, that's sartain. I shall
never forget a juicy day I once spent in one of them dismal old places.
I'll tell you how I came to be there.
"The last time I was to England, I was a dinin' with our consul to
Liverpool, and a very gentleman-like old man he was too; he was
appointed by Washington, and had been there ever since our glorious
revolution. Folks gave him a great name, they said he was a credit to us.
Well, I met at his table one day an old country squire, that lived

somewhere down in Shropshire, close on to Wales, and says he to me,
arter cloth was off and cigars on, 'Mr. Slick,' says he, 'I'll be very glad
to see you to Norman Manor,' (that was the place where he staid, when
he was to home). 'If you will return with me I shall be glad to shew you
the country in my neighbourhood, which is said to be considerable
pretty.'
"'Well,' says I, 'as I have nothin' above particular to see to, I don't care
if I do go.'
"So off we started; and this I will say, he was as kind as he cleverly
knew how to be, and that is sayin' a great deal for a man that didn't
know nothin' out of sight of his own clearin' hardly.
"Now, when we got there, the house was chock full of company, and
considerin' it warn't an overly large one, and that Britishers won't stay
in a house, unless every feller gets a separate bed, it's a wonder to me,
how he stowed away as many as he did. Says he, 'Excuse your quarters,
Mr. Slick, but I find more company nor I expected here. In a day or two,
some on 'em will be off, and then you shall be better provided.'
"With that I was showed up a great staircase, and out o' that by a
door-way into a narrer entry and from that into an old T like looking
building, that stuck out behind the house. It warn't the common
company sleepin' room, I expect, but kinder make shifts, tho' they was
good enough too for the matter o' that; at all events I don't want no
better.
"Well, I had hardly