"This war hez bin a rather profitable thing for you."
"Nothin to speek uv," sed he. "The leaders uv the Southerners were, sum
uv em, honest, and got through on that account, and the rank and file
were ignorant wretches, who ain't accountable, no how. The leading
copperheads uv the North were mine, anyhow, from the beginnin. Any man
who cood sympathize with the rebels in sich a struggle, must, yoo will
acknowledge, hev hed a long career uv iniquity to fit em for sich a sin.
Why," sed he, "do yoo think I use all the shot I hev? Not any. Them
yoove seen piled on were used because, bein the last, they were on the
top uv the pile.
"Any quantity uv yoor party escaped me. Them fellows who are yet votin
for Jackson I'll never git, and the most uv them ez alluz votes
unscratched tickets will dodge me. Their innocence protects em. It takes
a modritly smart man to be vishus enuff to come to me; he hez to hev
sense enuff to distinguish between good and evil, cussednis enuff to
deliberately choose the latter, and brains enuff to do suthin startlin
in that line. Dan Voorhees, uv Injeany, hez all these qualities
developed to a degree wich excites my profound respect. Between him and
Fernandy Wood its nip and tuck. Fernandy did wicked things with more
neatnis than Voohees, but for a actual love uv doin em Voohees beets the
world. I sed," continued he, "that the war wuzn't uv much yoose to me. I
repeat it; it wuz a damage. Afore the war, I hed my own way, pretty
much, in the Southern States. For every octoroon, I cood count on at
least two planters, and under the patriarkle system uv Afrikin slavery
(wich, by the way, wuz one uv my most brilliant consepshuns), octooroons
multiplied with a rapidity pleasin to behold. But now, alas! the
octooroon bizness is done, and my best holt is gone. I hev some little
hope, however. The Dimocrisy are displayin a vigger I didn't think they
possest. Ef they kin only git strength enuff to elect the next President
and re-establish slavery! The thought fills me with unutterable joy. The
redoosin of the nigger to bondage agin wood give me a clean title to
evry last one who helped to do it, and in gittin em back into their
normal condishun (by the way, that's another phrase uv mine), ther'd be
enuff slaughterin and murders to satisfy several sich Satans ez I am.
I'd help em ef I knowd how, but I can't improve on either their speekers
or writers, and ez long ez men will do my work gratis, I don't see the
yoose uv interferin."
At this pint a couple uv small imps undertook to push me into the
stream, and in the struggle, I awoke. My dreem wuz o'er, but the
impreshun remained. "Kin it be," mused I, pensively, "that we are doin
the devil's work, and are we to be finally rewarded in the manner I saw
in my vision? Ef so, hedn't I better quit and repent?"
But I thought agin, that however it mite be for younger men, it wood be
uv no yoose for me. I hed voted the strait ticket for thirty years, and
the ten or twelve years I hed to live wuz too short a time in which to
repent successfully uv sich iniquity. So I sank into sleep agin, this
time dreemin that I had turned Fenian--hed elected myself Hed Center for
the Stait uv Kentucky, and wuz just investin $75,000 in a magnificent
plantashun.
PETROLEUM V. NASBY,
Lait Paster uv the Church uv the Noo Dispensashun.