thund'rin' raps of the knocker, presents the legation ticket, and was
admitted to where ambassador was. He is a very pretty man all up his
shirt, and he talks pretty, and smiles pretty, and bows pretty, and he
has got the whitest hand you ever see, it looks as white, as a new bread
and milk poultice. It does indeed.

"'Sam Slick,' sais he, 'as I'm alive. Well, how do you do, Mr. Slick? I
am 'nation glad to see you, I affection you as a member of our legation.
I feel kinder proud to have the first literary man of our great nation
as my Attache.'

"'Your knowledge of human natur, (added to your'n of soft sawder,' sais
I,) 'will raise our great nation, I guess, in the scale o' European
estimation.'

"He is as sensitive as a skinned eel, is Layman, and he winced at that
poke at his soft sawder like any thing, and puckered a little about
the mouth, but he didn't say nothin', he only bowed. He was a Unitarian
preacher once, was Abednego, but he swapt preachin' for politics, and a
good trade he made of it too; that's a fact.

"'A great change,' sais I, 'Abednego, since you was a preachin' to
Connecticut and I was a vendin' of clocks to Nova Scotia, ain't it?
Who'd a thought then, you'd a been "a Socdolager," and me your "pilot
fish," eh!'

"It was a raw spot, that, and I always touched him on it for fun.

"'Sam,' said he, and his face fell like an empty puss, when it gets a
few cents put into each eend on it, the weight makes it grow twice as
long in a minute. 'Sam,' said he, 'don't call me that are, except when
we are alone here, that's a good soul; not that I am proud, for I am
a true Republican;' and he put his hand on his heart, bowed and smiled
hansum, 'but these people will make a nickname of it, and we shall never
hear the last of it; that's a fact. We must respect ourselves, afore
others will respect us. You onderstand, don't you?'

"'Oh, don't I,' sais I, 'that's all? It's only here I talks this way,
because we are at home now; but I can't help a thinkin' how strange
things do turn up sometimes. Do you recollect, when I heard you
a-preachin' about Hope a-pitchin' of her tent on a hill? By gosh,
it struck me then, you'd pitch, your tent high some day; you did it
beautiful.'

"He know'd I didn't like this change, that Mr. Hopewell had kinder
inoculated me with other guess views on these matters, so he began to
throw up bankments and to picket in the ground, all round for defence
like.

"'Hope,' sais he, 'is