ed
itself upon my mind as I (having received a commission as minister in
general to Mr. Pierce) engaged passage in a spacious balloon, with
which to navigate this little globe of ours, and report here and there
on the condition of our international difficulties. Indeed, some of
those difficulties required looking after. And as no man should permit
his dignity to take the upward turn when a penny may be turned, I
reckoned on turning what I learned to the very best account. That you
spend your money very foolishly, Sam, is as true as sunrise; but more
than that, you intrust your honor (which is more precious than your
gold) to those who are seen abroad only to misnomer us. To counteract
this state of things is the primary object of my mission round the
globe.

"This I was anxious to impress on General Pierce; but he seemed to
have a wavering bump on his head, and not seeing his way clear, came
to the peculiar conclusion that Mr. Smooth had a very novel head, full
of novel notions. But he told me, by way of becoming enlightened on
the affairs of other nations, to keep a bright look-out, note down the
items, and see where we could turn the go-ahead of our people to
account. As most of our small disputes were with Mr. John Bull, who
was prone to keep open any quantity of very vexatious questions,
Mr. Pierce thought it good policy to make John Littlejohn a fellow
voyager with me. It was not a bad idea, seeing that Mr. Pierce had an
inward hatred of the Britishers, nor thought a war with them would be
the most unpopular thing in the world, inasmuch as it would attach to
him the Young American party, which said party might in gratitude
render good service to his re-election. Upon this principle
Littlejohn's company was acceptable; and when he joined me at the
National we had a social bit of a chat together about the matter. John
was not a bad fellow when once you knew how to take him, but he had
qualities of character which at times seemed at variance with what he
would have us believe were his straightforward principles. It was this
trait of character, at times defying analysis, we had to treat with
most care, lest unconsciously it embroil us. My friend Palmerston
might without prejudice be taken as an excellent representative of
this unfortunate trait. 'Now,' says John, in a methodical sort of way,
'there are, to be honest, (and acts will prove the truth of a
principle), two great pirates in the world. You know that, Smooth,