ce to the amount and quality of thrashing it were
necessary to inflict upon the enemy. That it would divest war of its
glories, and ambitious men of their zeal, he never had a doubt. War
taken by the job, at a given sum for thrashing the enemy right
soundly, would resolve itself into a mere trading commodity, fit only
to be dabbled in by shopkeepers and stockbrokers. By this turn in
national affairs, Kings and Czars might curtail their ambition, and
their devoted subjects, being paid to fight by the lump, would hurry
through their contract. General Pierce, too, would find it decidedly
more convenient, inasmuch as it would save his benevolent people the
trouble of inflicting that most unwarrantable rebuke--sending bread to
the hungry people at Greytown he has made homeless with his
bombshells. Smooth leans no disrespect to Mr. President Pierce, who,
since his wondrous victory over the Mosquitoes, has disappointed the
world by demonstrating the singular fact that he has a gunpowder
policy, which he developes when he can find objects sufficiently small
for his purposes. Heretofore, Smooth had got an idea in his head
(crosswise he admits), that if Mr. President Pierce had anything
assimilating to a policy, it must be like his grandmother's hard
cider--the longer it remained exposed the flatter it became. That this
was an egregious mistake, is fully proven to a mistaken world by the
dauntless and immortal Admiral Hollins (he should be promoted to the
rank), who, to give positive evidence of the size of his master's
spirit, just battered down a defenseless town or two. It may turn out
that the bombshelling was only to practice a little in that sort of
gunnery, and that using up the property of American citizens to
illustrate the war principles of Uncle Sam was merely an evidence of
spunk in Mr. Pierce, who expected his people to knock under.

"Smooth has been at the White House, seeing Mr. Pierce, and cautioning
him about the look of things abroad, lest they get kind of snarled up.

"Being a genuine New Englander, with real Puritanic blood in his
composition, Smooth considered himself a good sort of man,--rather a
desirable neighbor, conscientious, extremely disinterested, and always
ready to do a bit of a good turn, never forgetting number one. Smooth
was just going to ask the Gineral if this was not so, when he smiled
so free and easy that it settled the point shorter.

"'Now, Smooth, you've seen a good deal, I reckon, an