he General would but get up a _cross_ between
southern secessionists and northern free-soilers, how happily it would
illustrate his policy.' Clasping his hand, 'Major Sykes,' said I, 'I
pity you.'

"'And so do I you,' he replied quickly. 'And when you come face to
face with the General, think of Uncle Sam, but don't forget
yourself,--_that is the motto!_' Saying thus, he started off, much
after the fashion of a man who feels somewhat fudgy. Duly esteeming
the position of a man who has that in his composition which gives
power to manliness, and has higher motives than political for its
aims, I made my way to the entrance of the White House, whistling
Yankee Doodle as I went. The closer I got to the great doors the more
violent became the crowd, until at last it ended in a jam of
bodies. 'Not so fast!' exclaimed an anxious individual, whose eyes
darted terror from their very sockets. 'Gentlemen!--it's my turn,'
re-echoes another half-stifled voice. 'Was not I in the city seven
weeks before the inauguration? and didn't I carry everything for the
General down in Pennsylvania?' roars a tall individual, whose hat had
received what may be called a shocking smash. Then they swayed forward
in a serf of bodies. Now it poised, as if for breath; then again it
swayed onward, threatening limb and wind. An exceedingly lean
gentleman, with a hard brown face, and a patch over his left eye,
cried out to the figure that stood bowing at the door, and demanded
that his card be first taken to the General, whom he was kind enough
to declare a right good fellow and a most intimate friend of
his. 'Perhaps you have a claim that way!' retorts a sharp voice, which
belonged to a sturdy figure well out at the elbows. He declared he had
driven the whigs out of Old North Carolina--had carried strong the,
State for Pierce and posterity. Another individual near by, and who
seemed inclined to doubt the assertion, suggested whether it were not
more probable he carried all the _watering_ establishments of that
renowned state, seeing that his nose and eyes had stood the storm of
spirits. No one ever heard of his carrying anything else! 'True,'
rejoined another: 'he can drink his way through a democratic canvass,
tell the most amiable lies, absorb any amount of chaffing, and stands
less at swearing than any other man in the country: more than all, he
can demolish the King's English at a stroke.' Such pulling, hauling,
squeezing and yawning, 'cussin' and swe