ame so goot ash Deutsch," and very
"bopular." One day Von Tronk came with a request. There was to be an
immense German Republican _Massenversammlung_ or mass-meeting in a great
beer-garden. "If Colonel Forney could only be induced to address them!"
I undertook to do it. It was an entirely new field to him, but one
wondrous rich in votes. Now Colonel Forney, though from Lancaster County
and of German-Swiss extraction, knew not a word of the language, and I
undertook to coach him.

"You will only need one phrase of three words," I said, "to pull you
through; but you must pronounce them perfectly and easily. They are
_Freiheit und Gleichheit_, 'freedom and equality.' Now, if you _please_,
_fry-height_."

The Colonel went at his lesson, and being naturally clever, with a fine,
deep voice, in a quarter of an hour could roar out _Freiheit und
Gleichheit_ with an intonation which would have raised a revolution in
Berlin. We came to the garden, and there was an immense sensation. The
Colonel had winning manners, with a manly mien, and he was duly
introduced. When he rose to speak there was dead silence. He began--

"Friends and German Fellow-citizens:--Yet why should I distinguish the
words, since to me every German is a friend. I am myself, as you all
know, of unmingled German extraction, and I am very, very proud of it.
But there is one German sentiment which from a child has been ever in my
heart, and from infancy ever on my lips, and that sentiment, my friends,
is _Freiheit und Gleichheit_!"

If ever audience was astonished in this world it was that of the
_Massenversammlung_ when this burst on their ears. They hurrahed and
roared and banged the tables in such a mad storm of delight as even
Colonel Forney had never seen surpassed. Rising to the occasion, he
thundered on, and as he reached the end of every sentence he repeated,
with great skill and aptness, _Freiheit und Gleichheit_.

"You have made two thousand votes by that speech, Colonel," I said, as we
returned. "Von Tronk will manage it at this crisis." After that, when
the Colonel jested, he would called me "the Dutch vote-maker." This was
during the Grant campaign.

Droll incidents were of constant occurrence in this life. Out of a
myriad I will note a few. One day there came into our office an Indian
agent from the West, who had brought with him a Winnebago who claimed to
be the rightful chief of his tribe. They were going to Washington to