h arms, as if he
was tryin' to thrash out wheat, and see how bothered he looked, as if
he couldn't find nothin' but dust and chaff in the straw? Well, that
critter was agin the Bill, in course, and Irish like, used every
argument in favour of it. Like a pig swimmin' agin stream, every time
he struck out, he was a cuttin' of his own throat. He then blob blob
blobbered, and gog gog goggled, till he choked with words and passion,
and then sot down.

"Then that English Radical feller, that spoke with great voice, and
little sense. Aint he a beauty, without paint, that critter? He know'd
he had to vote agin the Bill, 'cause it was a Government Bill, and be
know'd he had to speak for _Bunkum_, and therefore--"

"_Bunkum!_" I said, "pray, what is that?"

"Did you never hear of Bunkum?"

"No, never."

"Why, you don't mean to say you don't know what that is?"

"I do not indeed."

"Not Bunkum? Why, there is more of it to Nova Scotia every winter, than
would paper every room in Government House, and then curl the hair of
every gall in the town. Not heer of _Bunkum_? why how you talk!"

"No, never."

"Well, if that don't pass! I thought every body know'd that word. I'll
tell you then, what Bunkum is. All over America, every place likes to
hear of its members to Congress, and see their speeches, and if they
don't, they send a piece to the paper, enquirin' if their member died a
nateral death, or was skivered with a bowie knife, for they hante seen
his speeches lately, and his friends are anxious to know his fate. Our
free and enlightened citizens don't approbate silent members; it don't
seem to them as if Squashville, or Punkinville, or Lumbertown was right
represented, unless Squashville, or Punkinville, or Lumbertown, makes
itself heard and known, ay, and feared too. So every feller in bounden
duty, talks, and talks big too, and the smaller the State, the louder,
bigger, and fiercer its members talk.

"Well, when a critter talks for talk sake, jist to have a speech in
the paper to send to home, and not for any other airthly puppus but
electioneering, our folks call it _Bunkum_. Now the State o' Maine is a
great place for _Bunkum_--its members for years threatened to run foul
of England, with all steam on, and sink her, about the boundary line,
voted a million of dollars, payable in pine logs and spruce boards, up
to Bangor mills--and called out a hundred thousand militia, (only they
never come,) to captur' a saw mill