s he, a colourin' up, 'that's technical. I leave these
matters to my law officers.'

"I larnt that little matter of law from brother Eldad, the lawyer, but
I guess I was wrong there. I don't think I had ought to have given him
that sly poke; but I didn't like his talkin' that way to me. Whenever a
feller tries to pull the wool over your eyes, it's a sign he don't think
high of your onderstandin'. It isn't complimental, that's a fact. 'One
is a serious offence, I mean, sais he; 'the other is not. We don't want
to sarch; we only want to look a slaver in the face, and see whether
he is a free and enlightened American or not. If he is, the _flag of
liberty_ protects him and _his slaves_; if he ain't, it don't protect
him, nor them nother.'

"Then he did a leadin' article on slavery, and a paragraph on
non-intervention, and spoke a little soft sawder about America, and
wound up by askin' me if he had made himself onderstood.

"'Plain as a boot-jack,' sais I.

"When that was over, he took breath. He sot back on his chair, put one
leg over the other, and took a fresh departur' agin.

"'I have read your books, Mr. Slick,' said he, 'and read 'em, too, with
great pleasure. You have been a great traveller in your day. You've been
round the world a'most, haven't you?'

"'Well,' sais I, 'I sharn't say I hante.'

"'What a deal of information a man of your observation must have
acquired.' (He is a gentlemanly man, that you may depend. I don't know
when I've see'd one so well mannered.)

"'Not so much, Sir, as you would suppose,' sais I.

"'Why how so?' sais he.

"'Why,' sais I, 'the first time a man goes round the world, he is plaguy
skeered for fear of fallin' off the edge; the second time he gets used
to it, and larns a good deal.'

"'Fallin' off the edge!' sais he; 'what an original idea that is. That's
one of your best. I like your works for that they are original. We have
nothin' but imitations now. Fallin' off the the edge, that's capital. I
must tell Peel that; for he is very fond of that sort of thing.'

"He was a very pretty spoken man, was Mr. Tact; he is quite the
gentleman, that's a fact. I love to hear him talk; he is so very
perlite, and seems to take a likin' to me parsonally."

Few men are so open to flattery as Mr. Slick; and although "soft sawder"
is one of the artifices he constantly uses in his intercourse with
others, he is often thrown off of his guard by it himself. How much
easier it is to disco