ake it, by and large, stock,
lock, and barrel, and it's the dandy, that's a fact. Don't it cost
money, that's all? Sumtotalize it then, and see what it all comes to.
It would make your hair stand on eend, I know. If it was all put into
figure, it would reach clean across the river; and if it was all put
into dollars, it would make a solid tire of silver, and hoop the world
round and round, like a wheel.

"If you want to give a man an idea of England, Squire, tell him of
Ascot; and if you want to cram him, get old Multiplication-table Joe H--
to cast it up; for he'll make it come to twice as much as it railly is,
and that will choke him. Yes, Squire, _stick to Ascot_."

CHAPTER IV. THE GANDER PULLING.

A cunning man is generally a suspicious one, and is as often led into
error himself by his own misconceptions, as protected from imposition by
his habitual caution.

Mr. Slick, who always acted on a motive, and never on an impulse, and
who concealed his real objects behind ostensible ones, imagined that
everybody else was governed by the same principle of action; and,
therefore, frequently deceived himself by attributing designs to others
that never existed but in his own imagination.

Whether the following story of the gander pulling was a fancy sketch of
the Attache, or a narrative of facts, _I_ had no means of ascertaining.
Strange interviews and queer conversations he constantly had with
official as well as private individuals, but as he often gave his
opinions the form of an anecdote, for the purpose of interesting his
hearers, it was not always easy to decide whether his stories were facts
or fictions.

If, on the present occasion, it was of the latter description, it is
manifest that he entertained no very high opinion of the constitutional
changes effected in the government of the colonies by the Whigs,
during their long and perilous rule. If of the former kind, it is to
be lamented that he concealed his deliberate convictions under an
allegorical piece of humour. His disposition to "humbug" was so great,
it was difficult to obtain a plain straightforward reply from him; but
had the Secretary of State put the question to him in direct terms, what
he thought of Lord Durham's "Responsible government," and the
practical working of it under Lord Sydenham's and Sir Charles Bagot's
administration, he would have obtained a plain and intelligible answer.
If the interview to which he alludes ever did take place