The Attache | Page 7

fully understood, it may be
necessary to request the reader to recollect that Mr. Slick is a Yankee, a
designation the origin of which is now not very obvious, but it has been
assumed by, and conceded by common consent to, the inhabitants of
New England. It is a name, though sometimes satirically used, of which
they have great reason to be proud, as it is descriptive of a most
cultivated, intelligent, enterprising, frugal, and industrious population,
who may well challenge a comparison with the inhabitants of any other
country in the world; but it has only a local application.
"The United States cover an immense extent of territory, and the
inhabitants of different parts of the Union differ as widely in character,
feelings, and even in appearance, as the people of different countries
usually do. These sections differ also in dialect and in humour, as much
as in other things, and to as great, if not a greater extent, than the
natives of different parts of Great Britain vary from each other. It is
customary in Europe to call all Americans, Yankees; but it is as much a
misnomer as it would be to call all Europeans Frenchmen. Throughout
these works it will be observed, that Mr. Slick's pronunciation is that of
the Yankee, or an inhabitant of the rural districts of New England. His
conversation is generally purely so; but in some instances he uses, as
his countrymen frequently do from choice, phrases which, though
Americanisms, are not of Eastern origin. Wholly to exclude these
would be to violate the usages of American life; to introduce them
oftener would be to confound two dissimilar dialects, and to make an

equal departure from the truth. Every section has its own characteristic
dialect, a very small portion of which it has imparted to its neighbours.
The dry, quaint humour of New England is occasionally found in the
west, and the rich gasconade and exaggerative language of the west
migrates not unfrequently to the east. This idiomatic exchange is
perceptibly on the increase. It arises from the travelling propensities of
the Americans, and the constant intercourse mutually maintained by the
inhabitants of the different States. A droll or an original expression is
thus imported and adopted, and, though not indigenous, soon becomes
engrafted on the general stock of the language of the country."--3rd
Series, p. 142.]
"I was ready to bile right over, when as luck would have it, the rain
stopt all of a sudden, the sun broke out o' prison, and I thought I never
seed any thing look so green and so beautiful as the country did.
'Come,' sais I, 'now for a walk down the avenue, and a comfortable
smoke, and if the man at the gate is up and stirrin', I will just pop in and
breakfast with him and his wife. There is some natur there, but here it's
all cussed rooks and chimbly swallers, and heavy men and fat women,
and lazy helps, and Sunday every day in the week.' So I fills my
cigar-case and outs into the passage.
"But here was a fix! One of the doors opened into the great staircase,
and which was it? 'Ay,' sais I, 'which is it, do you know?' 'Upon my
soul, I don't know,' sais I; 'but try, it's no use to be caged up here like a
painter, and out I will, that's a fact.'
"So I stops and studies, 'that's it,' sais I, and I opens a door: it was a
bedroom--it was the likely chambermaid's.
"'Softly, Sir,' sais she, a puttin' of her finger on her lip, 'don't make no
noise; Missus will hear you.'
"'Yes,' sais I, 'I won't make no noise;' and I outs and shuts the door too
arter me gently.
"'What next?' sais I; 'why you fool, you,' sais I, 'why didn't you ax the
sarvant maid, which door it was?' 'Why I was so conflastrigated,' sais I,

'I didn't think of it. Try that door,' well I opened another, it belonged to
one o' the horrid hansum stranger galls that dined at table yesterday.
When she seed me, she gave a scream, popt her head onder the clothes,
like a terrapin, and vanished--well I vanished too.
"'Ain't this too bad?' sais I; 'I wish I could open a man's door, I'd lick
him out of spite; I hope I may be shot if I don't, and I doubled up my
fist, for I didn't like it a spec, and opened another door--it was the
housekeeper's. 'Come,' sais I, 'I won't be balked no more.' She sot up
and fixed her cap. A woman never forgets the becomins.
'"Anything I can do for you, Sir?' sais she, and she raelly did look
pretty; all good natur'd people, it appears to