m through; and arter that, the first shot is the one that's aimed at
the bird), 'to explain to you about this African Slave Treaty,' said he.
'Your government don't seem to comprehend me in reference to this Right
of Sarch. Lookin' a man in the face, to see he is the right man, and
sarchin' his pockets, are two very different things. You take, don't
you?'

"'I'm up to snuff, Sir,' sais I, 'and no mistake.' I know'd well enough
that warn't what he sent for me for, by the way he humm'd and hawed when
he began.

"'Taking up a trunk, as every hotel-keeper does and has a right to
do, and examinin' the name on the brass plate to the eend on't, is one
thing; forcin' the lock and ransackin' the contents, is another. One is
precaution, the other is burglary.'

"'It tante burglary,' sais I, 'unless the lodger sleeps in his trunk.
It's only--'

"'Well,' says he, a colourin' up, 'that's technical. I leave these
matters to my law officers.'

"I larnt that little matter of law from brother Eldad, the lawyer, but
I guess I was wrong there. I don't think I had ought to have given him
that sly poke; but I didn't like his talkin' that way to me. Whenever a
feller tries to pull the wool over your eyes, it's a sign he don't think
high of your onderstandin'. It isn't complimental, that's a fact. 'One
is a serious offence, I mean, sais he; 'the other is not. We don't want
to sarch; we only want to look a slaver in the face, and see whether
he is a free and enlightened American or not. If he is, the _flag of
liberty_ protects him and _his slaves_; if he ain't, it don't protect
him, nor them nother.'

"Then he did a leadin' article on slavery, and a paragraph on
non-intervention, and spoke a little soft sawder about America, and
wound up by askin' me if he had made himself onderstood.

"'Plain as a boot-jack,' sais I.

"When that was over, he took breath. He sot back on his chair, put one
leg over the other, and took a fresh departur' agin.

"'I have read your books, Mr. Slick,' said he, 'and read 'em, too, with
great pleasure. You have been a great traveller in your day. You've been
round the world a'most, haven't you?'

"'Well,' sais I, 'I sharn't say I hante.'

"'What a deal of information a man of your observation must have
acquired.' (He is a gentlemanly man, that you may depend. I don't know
when I've see'd one so well mannered.)

"'Not so much, Sir, as you would suppose,' sais I.

"'Why how so?' sais he.

"'Why,' sais