early youth to a biskit-baker, or some other occupation of a
peaceful and quiet character. I say, therefore, to the great men
now livin; (you could put 'em all into Hyde Park, by the way, and
still leave room for a large and respectable concourse of
rioters)--be good. I say to that gifted but bald-heded Prooshun,
Bismarck, be good and gentle in your hour of triump. _I_ always
am. I admit that our lines is different, Bismarck's and mine;
but the same glo'rus principle is involved, I am a exhibiter of
startlin' curiositys, wax works, snaix, etsetry ("either of
whom," as a American statesman whose name I ain't at liberty to
mention for perlitical resins, as he expecks to be a candidate
for a prom'nent offiss, and hence doesn't wish to excite the rage
and jelisy of other showmen--"either of whom is wuth dubble the
price of admission"); I say I am an exhibiter of startlin
curiositys, and I also have my hours of triump, but I try to be
good in 'em. If you say, "Ah, yes, but also your hours of grief
and misfortin;" I answer, it is troo, and you prob'ly refer to
the circumstans of my hirin' a young man of dissypated habits to
fix hisself up as A real Cannibal from New Zeelan, and when I was
simply tellin the audience that he was the most feroshos Cannibal
of his tribe, and that, alone and unassisted, he had et sev'ril
of our fellow countrymen, and that he had at one time even
contemplated eatin his Uncle Thomas on his mother's side, as well
as other near and dear relatives,--when I was makin' these simple
statements the mis'ble young man said I was a lyer, and knockt me
off the platform. Not quite satisfied with this, he cum and trod
hevly on me, and as he was a very muscular person and wore
remarkable thick boots, I knew at once that a canary bird wasn't
walkin' over me.