most, Frenchmen by adoption. That ancestry whose deeds will
live when the present poor representative of its name is departed drew
from this martial land its blood and genius."

(Loud cries of "Gammon" from Freckle, and disapprobation from Simp.)

"From the past to the present, my friends, is a short transition. I
found you in Paris a month ago, poor and dejected. You are here
to-night, with that luxury which was your heritage. And how has it been
restored?"

("'At's so!" earnestly, from Pisgah.)

"By hard, grovelling work? Never! No contact with vulgar clay has soiled
these aristocratic hands. The cavalier cannot be a mudsill! You are not
like the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin. You
have not toiled, gentlemen, but you have spun!"

(Great awakening, doubt, and bewilderment.)

"You have spun the roulette ball, and you have won!"

(Ferocious and unparalleled cheering.)

"And it has occurred to me, my friends, that ou-ah cause, in the present
tremendous struggle, has been well symbolized by these, its foreign
representatives. Calamity came upon the South, as upon you. It had
indebtedness, as you have had. Shall I say that you, like the South,
repudiated? No! that is a slander of our adversaries. But the parallel
holds good in that we found ourselves abandoned by the world. Nations
abroad gave us no sympathy; our neighbors at home laughed at our
affliction. They would wrest from us that bulwark of our liberties, the
African."

"Capital, gentlemen, capital!" from Pisgah.

"They demanded that we should toil for ourselves. Did we do so? Never!
We appealed to the chances, as you have done; we would fight the Yankee,
but we would not work. You would fight the bank, but you would not
slave; and as you have won at Wisbaden, so have we, in a thousand
glorious contests. Fill, then, gentlemen, to the toast which your
chairman has announced:

"'The Mother Country and the Colony--good luck to both!'"

The applause which ensued was of such a nature that the proprietors
below endeavored to hasten the conclusion of the dinner by sending up
the bill. Pisgah and the _blanchisseuse_ were embracing in a spirited
way, and Simp was holding back Freckle, who--persuaded that Hugenot's
remarks were in some way derogatory to himself--wished to toss down his
gauntlet.

"The next toast, gentlemen of the Colony," said Andy Plade, "is to be
dispatched immediately by the waiter, whom you see upon my right hand,