t was an oration--it was an oration that.'

"Oh!" sais I, "we won't say no more about that; I only meant it as a
joke, and nothin' more. But railly now, Abednego, what is the state of
our legation?"

"'I don't see nothin' ridikilous,' sais he, 'in that are expression, of
Hope pitchin' her tent on a hill. It's figurativ' and poetic, but it's
within the line that divides taste from bombast. Hope pitchin' her tent
on a hill! What is there to reprehend in that?'

"Good airth and seas,' sais I, 'let's pitch Hope, and her tent, and the
hill, all to Old Nick in a heap together, and talk of somethin' else.
You needn't be so perkily ashamed of havin' preached, man. Cromwell was
a great preacher all his life, but it didn't spile him as a Socdolager
one bit, but rather helped him, that's a fact. How 'av we held our
footin' here?'

"'Not well, I am grieved to say,' sais he; 'not well. The failure of the
United States' Bank, the repudiation of debts by several of our States,
the foolish opposition we made to the suppression of the slave-trade,
and above all, the bad faith in the business of the boundary question
has lowered us down, down, e'en a'most to the bottom of the shaft.'

"'Abednego,' sais I, 'we want somethin' besides boastin' and talkin'
big; we want a dash--a great stroke of policy. Washington hanging Andre
that time, gained more than a battle. Jackson by hanging Arbuthnot and
Anbristher, gained his election. M'Kennie for havin' hanged them three
citizens will be made an admiral of yet, see if he don't. Now if Captain
Tyler had said, in his message to Congress, 'Any State that repudiates
its foreign debts, we will first fine it in the whole amount, and then
cut it off from our great, free, enlightened, moral and intellectual
republic, he would have gained by the dash his next election, and run up
our flag to the mast-head in Europe. He would have been popular to home,
and respected abroad, that's as clear as mud,'

"'He would have done right, Sir, if he had done that,' said Abednego,
'and the right thing is always approved of in the eend, and always
esteemed all through the piece. A dash, as a stroke of policy,' said he,
'has sometimes a good effect. General Jackson threatening France with a
war, if they didn't pay the indemnity, when he knew the King would make
'em pay it whether or no, was a masterpiece; and General Cass tellin'
France if she signed the right of sarch treaty, we would fight both her
and England to