me the subject and a horn
of lignum vitae (of the wickedest kind), and then let a feller rile me,
so as to get my back up like a fightin' cat's, and I'll tell you
what I'd do, I'd sarve him as our Slickville boys sarve the cows to
California. One on 'em lays hold of the tail, and the other skins her
as she runs strait an eend. Next year, it's all growed ready for another
flayin'. Fact, I assure you. Lord! I'd skin a feller so, his hide would
never grow agin; I'd make a caution of him to sinners, I know.

"Only hear them fellers now talk of extendin' of the representation;
why the house is a mob now, plaguy little better, I assure you. Like the
house in Cromwell's time, they want "Sam Slick's" purge. But talkin'
of mobs, puts me in mind of a Swoi-ree, I told you I'd describe that to
you, and I don't care if I do now, for I've jist got my talkin' tacks
aboard. A Swoi-ree is--

"We'll talk of that some other time, Mr. Slick," said I; "it is now near
two o'clock, I must retire."

"Well, well," said he, "I suppose it is e'en a'most time to be a movin'.
But, Squire, you are a Britisher, why the plague don't you get into the
house? you know more about colony matters than the whole bilin' of" them
put together, quite as much about other things, and speak like a--"

"Come, come, Mr. Slick," said I, rising and lighting my bed-room candle,
"it is now high time to bid you good night, for you are beginning to
talk _Bunkum_."

CHAPTER IX. THROWING THE LAVENDER.

Mr. Slick's character, like that of many of his countrymen, is not so
easily understood as a person might suppose. We err more often than we
are aware of, when we judge of others by ourselves. English tourists
have all fallen into this mistake, in their, estimate of the Americans.
They judge them by their own standard; they attribute effects to wrong
causes, forgetting that a different tone of feeling, produced by a
different social and political state from their own, must naturally
produce dissimilar results.

Any person reading the last sketch containing the account, given by Mr.
Slick of the House of Commons, his opinion of his own abilities as a
speaker, and his aspiration after a seat in that body, for the purpose
of "skinning," as he calls it, impertinent or stupid members, could not
avoid coming to the conclusion that he was a conceited block-head; and
that if his countrymen talked in that absurd manner, they must be the
weakest, and most vain-glorious pe