ancer grows
Until at last the surgeon with his knife
Alone can the distemper dire outroot.

SIR LA MUTT:
Count Louie, thou hast voiced my very thought!
Traitors who fellowship with filthy graft
And find one single virtue in the creed
Of these Republicans who long have ruled
These Islands with despotic, cruel hand,
Until their tyranny doth smell to Heav'n,
Indeed should find no place to lay their heads
Within the bounds of Democratic fold.

SIR OBREON:
Ah, lack-a-day! If thus we fail to rise
Above the narrow prejudice whose birth
Took place, alas, beneath warm southern skies,
Then we must be content to walk the plank
When two years hence the people seal our doom.
Success, indeed, should be our only aim;
Hence bury childish griefs deep in the grave.

A DEMOCRAT:
Enough, my friends, enough! But we did come
To mingle joy and grief o'er the results
That follow combat at the public polls:
Grief for the vanquished, joy for party spoils.

SIR LA MUTT:
But Sire, why should we mourn for those who fell?
Those turncoats of the money-loving North
Deserve the fate that traitor e'er should know.
We of the South did loyally uphold
Our honor in the combat, for but one
Did fall before the golden calf, and he
Deep in Louisiana's shades did dwell,
Where sugar sweet did blind the public eye.

SIR OBREON:
And can it be that thou dost not discern
That else we from the North do draw support,
Our party will, as in the dreary past,
From out the pale in vain with hungry eyes
Behold our enemies safely entrenched
Lapping with greedy tongue successe's broth
From out the flesh-pets, which we, fool-like, placed
Before them by our squabling party feuds.

COUNT LUIE:
Sir Obreon, methinks thy mental grasp
Of things politic is indeed but dim.
The "Constitution" is a weapon grand.
The Democratic party when in war,
To closer weld the bonds which held the slave,
E'en then did show earnest solicitude
Lest the cold-blooded North shou