abor-saving God-like, but he had found, on inquiry,
that he came from another part of the island, and that he didn't care a
straw which way his kite-tail (Noah's manner of pronouncing clientele)
voted. In short, he defied any one to say ought ag'in' him this time,
and he was not sorry the occasion had offered to show his independence,
for his enemies had not been backward in remarking that, for some days,
he had been little better than a speaking-trumpet to roar out anything
his God-like might wish to have proclaimed. He concluded by stating that
he could not hold out much longer without meat of some sort or other,
and by begging that I would second a resolution he thought of offering,
by which regular substantial rations were to be dealt out to all the
human part of the house. The inhumans might live upon nuts still, if
they liked them.

I remonstrated against the project of the rations, made a strong appeal
to his pride, by demonstrating that we should be deemed little better
than brutes if we were seen eating flesh, and advised him to cause
some of his nuts to be roasted, by way of variety. After a good deal of
persuasion, he promised further abstinence, although he went away with a
singularly carnivorous look about the mouth, and an eye that spoke pork
in every glance.

I was at home the next day, busy with my friend the brigadier, in
looking over the Great National Allegory, with a view to prevent
falling, unwittingly, into any more offences of quoting its opinions,
when Noah burst into the room, as rabid as a wolf that had been bitten
by a whole pack of hounds. Such, indeed, was, in some measure, his
situation; for, according to his statement, he had been baited that
morning, in the public streets even, by every monikin, monikina,
monikino, brat, and beggar, that he had seen. Astonished to hear that
my colleague had fallen into this disfavor with his constitutents, I was
not slow in asking an explanation.

The captain affirmed that the matter was beyond the reach of any
explanation it was in his power to give. He had voted in the affair of
the causeway, in strict conformity with the dictates of his conscience,
and yet here was the whole population accusing him of bribery--nay,
even the journals had openly flouted at him for what they called his
barefaced and flagrant corruption. Here the captain laid before us six
or seven of the leading journals of Bivouac, in all of which his late
vote was treated with quite