hy, those chaps that are setting folks on to burn us all up in our
beds. Political firebugs we call 'em up our way. Want to substitoot the
match-box for the ballot-box. Scare all our old women half to death.

--Oh--ah--yes--to be sure. I don't believe they say what the papers put
in their mouths any more than that a friend of mine wrote the letter
about Worcester's and Webster's Dictionaries, that he had to disown the
other day. These newspaper fellows are half asleep when they make up
their reports at two or three o'clock in the morning, and fill out the
speeches to suit themselves. I do remember some things that sounded
pretty bad,--about as bad as nitro-glycerine, for that matter. But I
don't believe they ever said 'em, when they spoke their pieces, or if
they said 'em I know they did n't mean 'em. Something like this, wasn't
it? If the majority didn't do something the minority wanted 'em to, then
the people were to burn up our cities, and knock us down and jump on our
stomachs. That was about the kind of talk, as the papers had it; I don't
wonder it scared the old women.

--The Member was wide awake by this time.

--I don't seem to remember of them partickler phrases, he said.

--Dear me, no; only levelling everything smack, and trampling us under
foot, as the reporters made it out. That means FIRE, I take it, and
knocking you down and stamping on you, whichever side of your person
happens to be uppermost. Sounded like a threat; meant, of course, for a
warning. But I don't believe it was in the piece as they spoke
it,--could n't have been. Then, again, Paris wasn't to blame,--as much
as to say--so the old women thought--that New York or Boston would n't be
to blame if it did the same thing. I've heard of political gatherings
where they barbecued an ox, but I can't think there 's a party in this
country that wants to barbecue a city. But it is n't quite fair to
frighten the old women. I don't doubt there are a great many people
wiser than I am that would n't be hurt by a hint I am going to give them.
It's no matter what you say when you talk to yourself, but when you talk
to other people, your business is to use words with reference to the way
in which those other people are like to understand them. These pretended
inflammatory speeches, so reported as to seem full of combustibles, even
if they were as threatening as they have been represented, would do no
harm if read or declaimed in a man's stud