d; why stand we here idle? Is ice so dear, or peace
so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid
it, Almighty Dollars! I know not what other gentlemen would have; but
as for me, give me liberty, or give me a fan. Thus, my boy, after the
manner of the departed Patrick Henry, did I expose myself to the
conservative Kentucky chap, as we stood panting together in the
vestibule of the Treasury Buildings the other day; and says he:

"The loyal State of Kentucky, of which I am a part, has no objections
to warm weather in the summer-time; provided it is not indorsed by the
fanatical Black Republicans. Warm weather," says the conservative
Kentucky chap, thoughtfully, "is of much service to the old rye crop of
Kentucky; but Kentucky would forego even her old rye, rather than see
retarded the movements of that army whose constitutional duty it is to
restore the Union--not reconstruct it."

The regular list of dead idiots for this year being not quite full yet,
my boy, there are still persons living who can perceive no very immense
difference between Restoring the Union and Reconstructing the Union;
which reminds me of a chaste little incident that once occurred in the
Sixth Ward.

A highly-respectable liquor-selling chap, of enlarged stomach and
overwhelming shirt-collar, having just been elected Alderman, through
the influence of his excellent moral character, and about two thousand
dollars judiciously invested in Irishmen, gave a fashionable party to
celebrate this triumph of the purity of elections, and invited about
two-thirds of the Fire Department to bring their wives and sweethearts.
Promptly at nine o'clock, two Hose Companies, of unblemished
reputations for noise, four Engine Associations noted for saving one
pine table from the devouring element to every two Brussels carpets
they ruined with water, three Hook-and-Ladder Societies greatly
distinguished for climbing into the third-story windows of the building
two doors from the burning domicil, and an equivalent number of the
cotton-hearted women of America, were on hand in the aldermanic
drawing-rooms. The new public dignitary received them all with that
exquisite blandness of demeanor which is so becoming to great men who
have just made a rush from obscurity: and says he,--

"Make yourselves at home now, boys, only don't spit on the carpet. If
there's a fire while the swarry is goin' on, I'll let the old woman
listen for the district and an