rusting
the heels of the beams to anybody. Good lashings were what were wanted,
and then the people might go about their private affairs, and not fear
the work would fall. That the king of Leaphigh had no memory, he could
testify from bitter experience; nor did he believe that he had any
conscience; and, chiefly he desired to know if we, when we got up into
our places on the top of the three inverted beams, among the other
Bobees, were to make war on the Great Sachem and the Riddles, or whether
we were to consider the whole affair as a good thing, in which the
wisest course would be to make fair weather of it?

To all these remarks and questions I answered as well as my own limited
experience would allow; taking care to inform my friend that he had
conceived the whole matter a little too literally, as all that he had
been reading about the great political beams, the tripods, and the
legislative boxes, was merely an allegory.

"And pray, then, Sir John, what may an allegory be?"

"In this case, my good sir, it is a constitution."

"And what is a constitution?"

"Why, it is sometimes as you perceive, an allegory."

"And are we not to be mast-headed, then, according to the book?"

"Figuratively, only."

"But there are actually such critters as the Great Sachem, and Riddles,
and above all, the Bobees!--We are boney fie-diddle-di-dee elected?"

"Boney fie-diddle-di-dee."

"And may I take the liberty of asking, what it is our duty to do?"

"We are to act practically--according to the literality of the legal,
implied, figurative, allegorical significations of the Great National
Compact under a legitimate construction."

"I fear we shall have to work doubletides, Sir John, to do so much in so
short a time! Do you mean that, in honest truth, there is no beam?"

"There is, and there is not."

"No fore, main, and mizzen tops, according to what is here written
down?"

"There is not, and there is."

"Sir John, in the name of God, speak out! Is all this about eight
dollars a day, no better than a take in?"

"That, I believe is strictly literal."

As Noah now seemed a little mollified, I seized the opportunity to
tell him he must beware how he attempted to stop Bob from attending the
council. Members were privileged, going and coming; and unless he was
guarded in his course, he might have some unpleasant collision with the
sergeant-at-arms. Besides, it was unbecoming the dignity of a legislator
to be wrangling a