e chief," by the band was drowned by the cat-calls:
"Put him out!"--"Duck him!"--"Ride him on a rail!" etc., etc., Yells
of the Butlerites who had packed the hall. At last I got my "mad up,"
and rising, I lighted a cigar, puffed vigorously, and smiled upon
my uproarious foes. This astonished the "great unwashed," and a big
Irishman jumped on the stage, shouting:

"Shut up, shut up, byes! Let's hear what the cuss has to say; he's a
cool un."

There was silence. Taking out my cigar, I laughed long and loud.

"What you laughing at?" howled the mob.

"This reminds me," said I, very slowly, "of a little story."

"Out with it," was the response.

"When I was a teacher in Marblehead," drawled I, "I had occasion
to wallop a boy with a cowhide. I made him touch his toes with his
fingers and laid on the braid where it would do the most good; the
more I whaled him the more he laughed. I laid on Macduff with a
'damned be he who first cries hold, enough,' determination, and yet
he laughed. 'What you laughing at?' cried I. 'Oh, ha, ha, ha, you're
licking the wrong boy,' giggled the unspeakable scamp. It's just that
way here. You gentlemen are licking the wrong boy; I am not General
Hall, at all, I am Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant." The crowd
roared: "He's a good un, let's hear him--ha, ha, ha, he's a good un,"
and for two hours I had as good-natured an audience as you ever saw.

"You say you don't want a protective tariff; you don't want sound
money. Well, you remind me of the man who killed his father, mother,
brothers, sisters, and when condemned to death he begged the judge to
have mercy upon a poor orphan. You have killed the tariff twice, and
nearly every mill wheel stopped, and you and I had to beg from door to
door or live on dry crackers and shin-bones. Do you want that kind
of provender again? Butler says, 'give us greenbacks by the ton, and
everybody will be rich.' You tried that once and you carried your
money to market in a bushel basket, and brought back the dinner you
bought with it in a gill dipper. Do you want any more such times?"

"Be Gorrah," cried my big Irish friend, "that's so: I rimimber it
well. I'd forgut it; the bye's right, he is."

"Yes," I yelled, "Butler says he'll leave the Republican party out in
the cold. It reminds me of the old farmer who rushed outdoors in his
bed-shirt, bareheaded and barefooted in winter, grabbed a barking dog
who was disturbing his rest, by the ears; his wife cam