ng
of a monster stew. Work your course through the smoke--you may be sure
Mr. Pierce is in the thickest cloud, though over the smallest
stew-pan,' a voice echoed, as if broken on the winds. 'All right!' I
muttered, confronting on my way the still stronger odour of the
sickening steam. My intention was to have a political discussion with
the cook (Fourney by name) and say a thing or two to the General; for
I had got a sort of cross-grained notion into my head that he was
compounding a grand stew for the black pig with the horns. Meanwhile
my stomach said it would have no objection to join the General over a
good breakfast. Presently I scented the frying of fish, which betold
that I was on the right track. But lo! as I was about to open a great
door that led into where the fussing and frying was going on, a voice
screamed out--'Visitors are forbidden these premises!' Here was a
pretty kettle of political fish. 'Much you know about it!' I replied
testily, and turning saw nothing but fog and confusion. Faith and
energy being the two great pillars of human progress, I summoned them
to my aid, and pressed onward, determined to see for myself who
regulated the culinary. This resolution was adopted solely on the
ground that the General had repudiated his responsibility to the
people, and joined hands with those who eat up all the loaves and
little fishes.

"Mr. Smooth, on behalf of Young America, esteemed the having positive
proof of how Mr. General Pierce kept his kitchen things a duty he
could not forego, and upon the strength of which he presented himself
to the august culinary cabinet, which he found enveloped in a dense
cloud. As I passed the great door, a fat man from Florida, who filled
that office of steady habits, the doorkeeper, said Mr. Smooth, which
he read on my card, was decidedly impertinent; the more so because
neither of the old grey-back parties had ever troubled themselves
about the kitchen fixings; that the present was an innovation he was
sure Mr. Pierce would resent by the withholding of appointments. I
left him to his opinion, and delved my way through the smoke, until I
began to think I had lost myself, and instead of Mr. Pierce on the
grindstone found a lower region of unlimited extent--so murky and
dismal was the place. They said it didn't use to be so! Such fritter
frying; such johnny-cake baking; such chowder making, and flounder
frying! Nearly a dozen fine buxom-looking, corn-fed females
(_helps_)