to increase the inducement, as the host thought,
he was told that a general officer had once slept in that bed. "Who,
pray?" asked the colonel. "General Hull." "Then you must not take
offense," said the colonel, buttoning up his coat, "but, really, no
coward's bed, for me, however comfortable." Accordingly he took up with
valor's bed--a cold one on the ground.

"'At one time the colonel was a member of the territorial council of
Illinois, ands at the formation of the state government, was pressed to
become candidate for governor, but begged to be excused. And, though he
declined to give his reasons for declining, yet by those who best knew
him the cause was not wholly unsurmised. In his official capacity he
might be called upon to enter into friendly treaties with Indian tribes,
a thing not to be thought of. And even did no such contingecy arise, yet
he felt there would be an impropriety in the Governor of Illinois
stealing out now and then, during a recess of the legislative bodies,
for a few days' shooting at human beings, within the limits of his
paternal chief-magistracy. If the governorship offered large honors,
from Moredock it demanded larger sacrifices. These were incompatibles.
In short, he was not unaware that to be a consistent Indian-hater
involves the renunciation of ambition, with its objects--the pomps and
glories of the world; and since religion, pronouncing such things
vanities, accounts it merit to renounce them, therefore, so far as this
goes, Indian-hating, whatever may be thought of it in other respects,
may be regarded as not wholly without the efficacy of a devout
sentiment.'"

Here the narrator paused. Then, after his long and irksome sitting,
started to his feet, and regulating his disordered shirt-frill, and at
the same time adjustingly shaking his legs down in his rumpled
pantaloons, concluded: "There, I have done; having given you, not my
story, mind, or my thoughts, but another's. And now, for your friend
Coonskins, I doubt not, that, if the judge were here, he would pronounce
him a sort of comprehensive Colonel Moredock, who, too much spreading
his passion, shallows it."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MOOT POINTS TOUCHING THE LATE COLONEL JOHN MOREDOCK.

"Charity, charity!" exclaimed the cosmopolitan, "never a sound judgment
without charity. When man judges man, charity is less a bounty from our
mercy than just allowance for the insensible lee-way of human
fallibility. God forbid that my