“Squire,” said Mr. Hopewell, one morning when we were alone on the
quarter-deck, “sit down by me, if you please. I wish to have a little
private conversation with you. I am a good deal concerned about Sam. I
never liked this appointment he has received: neither his education, his
habits, nor his manners have qualified him for it. He is fitted for a
trader and for nothing else. He looks upon politics as he does upon his
traffic in clocks, rather as profitable to himself than beneficial to
others. Self is predominant with him. He overrates the importance of
his office, as he will find when he arrives in London; but what is still
worse, he overrates the importance of the opinions of others regarding
the States.
“He has been reading that foolish book of Cooper’s ‘Gleanings in
Europe,’ and intends to shew fight, he says. He called my attention,
yesterday, to this absurd passage, which he maintains is the most manly
and sensible thing that Cooper ever wrote: ‘This indifference to the
feelings of others, is a dark spot on the national manners of England.
The only way to put it down, is to become belligerent yourself, by
introducing Pauperism, Radicalism, Ireland, the Indies, or some other
sore point. Like all who make butts of others, they do not manifest
the proper forbearance when the tables are turned. Of this, I have had
abundance of proof in my own experience. Sometimes their remarks are
absolutely rude, and personally offensive, as a disregard of one’s
national character, is a disrespect to his principles; but as personal
quarrels on such grounds are to be avoided, I have uniformly retorted in
kind, if there was the smallest opening for such retaliation.”
“Now, every gentleman in the States repudiates such sentiments as these.
My object in mentioning the subject to you, is to request the favour
of you, to persuade Sam not to be too sensitive on these topics; not
to take offence, where it is not intended; and, above all, rather
to vindicate his nationality by his conduct, than to justify those
aspersions, by his intemperate behaviour. But here he comes; I shall
withdraw and leave you together.”
Fortunately, Mr. Slick commenced talking upon a topic, which naturally
led to that to which Mr. Hopewell had wished me to direct his attention.
“Well, Squire,” said he, “I am glad too, you are a goin’ to England
along with me: we will take a rise out of John Bull, won’t we?--We’ve
hit Blue-nose and Brother Jonathan both pretty considerable tarnation
hard, and John has split his sides with larfter. Let’s tickle him now,
by feeling his own short ribs, and see how he will like it; we’ll
soon see whose hide is the thickest, hisn or ourn, won’t we? Let’s see
whether he will say chee, chee, chee, when he gets to the t’other eend
of the gun.”
“What is the meaning of that saying?” I asked. “I never heard it
before.”
“Why,” said he, “when I was a considerable of a grown up saplin of a
boy to Slickville, I used to be a gunnin’ for everlastinly amost in our
hickory woods, a shootin’ of squirrels with a rifle, and I got amazin’
expart at it. I could take the head off of them chatterin’ little imps,
when I got a fair shot at ‘em with a ball, at any reasonable distance,
a’most in nine cases out of ten.
“Well, one day I was out as usual, and our Irish help Paddy Burke was
along with me, and every time he see’d me a drawin’ of the bead fine
on ‘em, he used to say, ‘Well, you’ve an excellent gun entirely, Master
Sam. Oh by Jakers! the squirrel has no chance with that gun, it’s an
excellent one entirely.’
“At last I got tired a hearin’ of him a jawin’ so for ever and a day
about the excellent gun entirely; so, sais I, ‘You fool you, do you
think it’s the gun that does it _entirely_ as you say; ain’t there a
little dust of skill in it? Do you think you could fetch one down?’
“‘Oh, it’s a capital gun entirely,’ said he.
“‘Well,’ said I, ‘if it ‘tis, try it now, and see what sort of a fist
you’ll make of it.’
“So Paddy takes the rifle, lookin’ as knowin’ all the time as if he
had ever seed one afore. Well, there was a great red squirrel, on the
tip-top of a limb, chatterin’ away like any thing, chee, chee, chee,
proper frightened; he know’d it warn’t me, that was a parsecutin’
of him, and he expected he’d be hurt. They know’d me, did the little
critters, when they seed me, and they know’d I never had hurt one on
‘em, my balls never givin’ ‘em a chance to feel what was the matter
of them; but Pat they didn’t know, and they see’d he warn’t the man
to handle ‘old Bull-Dog.’ I used to call my rifle Bull-Dog, cause she
always bit afore she barked.
“Pat threw one foot out astarn, like a skullin’ oar, and then bent
forrards like a hoop, and fetched the rifle slowly up to the line, and
shot to the right eye. Chee, chee, chee, went the squirrel. He see’d it
was wrong. ‘By the powers!’ sais Pat, ‘this is a left-handed boot,’ and
he brought the gun to the other shoulder, and then shot to his left eye.
‘Fegs!’ sais Pat, ‘this gun was made for a squint eye, for I can’t get
a right strait sight of the critter, either side.’ So I fixt it for him
and told him which eye to sight by. ‘An excellent gun entirely,’ sais
Pat, ‘but it tante made like the rifles we have.’
“Ain’t they strange critters, them Irish, Squire? That feller never
handled a rifle afore in all his born days; but unless it was to a
priest, he wouldn’t confess that much for the world. They are as bad as
the English that way; they always pretend they know every thing.
“‘Come, Pat,’ sais I, ‘blaze away now.’ Back goes the hind leg agin, up
bends the back, and Bull-Dog rises slowly to his shoulder; and then he
stared, and stared, until his arm shook like palsy. Chee, chee, chee,
went the squirrel agin, louder than ever, as much as to say, ‘Why the
plague don’t you fire? I’m not a goin’ to stand here all day, for you
this way,’ and then throwin’ his tail over his back, he jumped on to the
next branch.
“‘By the piper that played before Moses!’ sais Pat, ‘I’ll stop your
chee, chee, cheein’ for you, you chatterin’ spalpeen of a devil, you’.
So he ups with the rifle agin, takes a fair aim at him, shuts both eyes,
turns his head round, and fires; and “Bull-Dog,” findin’ he didn’t know
how to hold her tight to the shoulder, got mad, and kicked him head over
heels, on the broad of his back. Pat got up, a makin’ awful wry faces,
and began to limp, to show how lame his shoulder was, and to rub his
arm, to see if he had one left, and the squirrel ran about the tree
hoppin’ mad, hollerin’ out as loud as it could scream, chee, chee, chee.
“‘Oh bad luck to you,’ sais Pat, ‘if you had a been at t’other eend of
the gun,’ and he rubbed his shoulder agin, and cried like a baby, ‘you
wouldn’t have said chee, chee, chee, that way, I know.’
“Now when your gun, Squire, was a knockin’ over Blue-nose, and makin’ a
proper fool of him, and a knockin’ over Jonathan, and a spilin’ of his
bran-new clothes, the English sung out chee, chee, chee, till all was
blue agin. You had an excellent gun entirely then: let’s see if they
will sing out chee, chee, chee, now, when we take a shot at _them_. Do
you take?” and he laid his thumb on his nose, as if perfectly satisfied
with the application of his story. “Do you take, Squire? you have an
excellent gun entirely, as Pat says. It’s what I call puttin’ the leake
into ‘em properly. If you had a written this book fust, the English
would have said your gun was no good; it wouldn’t have been like the
rifles they had seen. Lord, I could tell you stories about the English,
that would make even them cryin’ devils the Mississippi crocodiles
laugh, if they was to hear ‘em.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Slick,” I said, “this is not the temper with which you
should visit England.”
“What is the temper,” he replied with much warmth, “that they visit us
in? Cuss ‘em! Look at Dickens; was there ever a man made so much of,
except La Fayette? And who was Dickens? Not a Frenchman that is a friend
to us, not a native that has a claim on us; not a colonist, who, though
English by name is still an American by birth, six of one and half a
dozen of t’other, and therefore a kind of half-breed brother. No! he was
a cussed Britisher; and what is wus, a British author; and yet, because
he was a man of genius, because genius has the ‘tarnal globe for its
theme, and the world for its home, and mankind for its readers, and
bean’t a citizen of this state or that state, but a native of the
univarse, why we welcomed him, and feasted him, and leveed him, and
escorted him, and cheered him, and honoured him, did he honour us? What
did he say of us when he returned? Read his book.
“No, don’t read his book, for it tante worth readin’. Has he said one
word of all that reception in his book? that book that will be read,
translated, and read agin all over Europe--has he said one word of that
reception? Answer me that, will you? Darned the word, his memory was
bad; he lost it over the tafrail when he was sea-sick. But his notebook
was safe under lock and key, and the pigs in New York, and the chap the
rats eat in jail, and the rough man from Kentucky, and the entire raft
of galls emprisoned in one night, and the spittin’ boxes and all that
stuff, warn’t trusted to memory, it was noted down, and printed.
“But it tante no matter. Let any man give me any sarce in England, about
my country, or not give me the right _po_-sition in society, as Attache
to our Legation, and, as Cooper says, I’ll become belligerent, too, I
will, I snore. I can snuff a candle with a pistol as fast as you can
light it; hang up an orange, and I’ll first peel it with ball and
then quarter it. Heavens! I’ll let daylight dawn through some o’ their
jackets, I know.
“Jube, you infarnal black scoundrel, you odoriferous nigger you, what’s
that you’ve got there?”
“An apple, massa.”
“Take off your cap and put that apple on your head, then stand sideways
by that port-hole, and hold steady, or you might stand a smart chance to
have your wool carded, that’s all.”
Then taking a pistol out of the side-pocket of his mackintosh, he
deliberately walked over to the other side of the deck, and examined his
priming.
“Good heavens, Mr. Slick!” said I in great alarm, “what are you about?”
“I am goin’,” he said with the greatest coolness, but at the same time
with equal sternness, “to bore a hole through that apple, Sir.”
“For shame! Sir,” I said. “How can you think of such a thing? Suppose
you were to miss your shot, and kill that unfortunate boy?”
“I won’t suppose no such thing, Sir. I can’t miss it. I couldn’t miss
it if I was to try. Hold your head steady, Jube--and if I did, it’s no
great matter. The onsarcumcised Amalikite ain’t worth over three hundred
dollars at the furthest, that’s a fact; and the way he’d pyson a shark
ain’t no matter. Are you ready, Jube?”
“Yes, massa.”
“You shall do no such thing, Sir,” I said, seizing his arm with both my
hands. “If you attempt to shoot at that apple, I shall hold no further
intercourse with you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Sir.”
“Ky! massa,” said Jube, “let him fire, Sar; he no hurt Jube; he no
foozle de hair. I isn’t one mossel afeerd. He often do it, jist to keep
him hand in, Sar. Massa most a grand shot, Sar. He take off de ear oh de
squirrel so slick, he neber miss it, till he go scratchin’ his head. Let
him appel hab it, massa.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Slick, “he is a Christian is Jube, he is as good as
a white Britisher: same flesh, only a leetle, jist a leetle darker; same
blood, only not quite so old, ain’t quite so much tarter on the bottle
as a lord’s has; oh him and a Britisher is all one brother--oh by all
means--
Him fader’s hope--him mudder’s joy,
Him darlin little nigger boy.
You’d better cry over him, hadn’t you. Buss him, call him brother, hug
him, give him the “Abolition” kiss, write an article on slavery, like
Dickens; marry him to a white gall to England, get him a saint’s darter
with a good fortin, and well soon see whether her father was a talkin’
cant or no, about niggers. Cuss ‘em, let any o’ these Britishers give
me slack, and I’ll give ‘em cranberry for their goose, I know. I’d jump
right down their throat with spurs on, and gallop their sarce out.”
“Mr. Slick I’ve done; I shall say no more; we part, and part for ever. I
had no idea whatever, that a man, whose whole conduct has evinced a
kind heart, and cheerful disposition, could have entertained such
a revengeful spirit, or given utterance to such unchristian and
uncharitable language, as you have used to-day. We part”--
“No, we don’t,” said he; “don’t kick afore you are spurred. I guess I
have feelins as well as other folks have, that’s a fact; one can’t help
being ryled to hear foreigners talk this way; and these critters are
enough to make a man spotty on the back. I won’t deny I’ve got some
grit, but I ain’t ugly. Pat me on the back and I soon cool down, drop in
a soft word and I won’t bile over; but don’t talk big, don’t threaten,
or I curl directly.”
“Mr. Slick,” said I, “neither my countrymen, the Nova Scotians, nor your
friends, the Americans, took any thing amiss, in our previous remarks,
because, though satirical, they were good natured. There was nothing
malicious in them. They were not made for the mere purpose of shewing
them up, but were incidental to the topic we were discussing, and their
whole tenor shewed that while “we were alive to the ludicrous, we fully
appreciated, and properly valued their many excellent and sterling
qualities. My countrymen, for whose good I published them, had the most
reason to complain, for I took the liberty to apply ridicule to them
with no sparing hand. They understood the motive, and joined in the
laugh, which was raised at their expense. Let us treat the English in
the same style; let us keep our temper. John Bull is a good-natured
fellow, and has no objection to a joke, provided it is not made the
vehicle of conveying an insult. Don’t adopt Cooper’s maxims;
nobody approves of them, on either side of the water; don’t be too
thin-skinned. If the English have been amused by the sketches their
tourists have drawn of, the Yankees, perhaps the Americans may laugh
over our sketches of the English. Let us make both of them smile, if we
can, and endeavour to offend neither. If Dickens omitted to mention the
festivals that were given in honour of his arrival in the States, he
was doubtless actuated by a desire to avoid the appearance of personal
vanity. A man cannot well make himself the hero of his own book.”
“Well, well,” said he, “I believe the black ox did tread on my toe that
time. I don’t know but what you’re right. Soft words are good enough in
their way, but still they butter no parsnips, as the sayin’ is. John may
be a good-natured critter, tho’ I never see’d any of it yet; and he may
be fond of a joke, and p’raps is, seein’ that he haw-haws considerable
loud at his own. Let’s try him at all events. We’ll soon see how he
likes other folks’ jokes; I have my scruple about him, I must say. I am
dubersome whether he will say ‘chee, chee, chee’ when he gets ‘T’other
eend of the gun.’”