secessionists, who, having failed in devising means to dissolve the
'federal union,' were returning homeward very melancholy.

"'Never doubted Mr. Smooth's word,' says he, with simple
dryness,--'but, notwithstanding, painful is the experience that
office-holders and seekers, though always kind to Uncle Sam, and
tenacious of his dignity and cashbag, seldom maintain the same
earnestness for their own when legitimates are left in the key-hole.'

"'You mean that the General's friends don't shine over on the square?'

"'Precisely so!--Mr. General Pierce himself is a sort of mixed stripe;
but his friends (and he has regiments of them!), all fighters in the
Mexican war when he was brigadier, expect so much something material
for themselves that all _outsiders_ are forgotten. Now and then the
General is sorry to inform his many friends that he is a little ill;
to which a voice here and there is heard to say that he is not
inclined to do the clean thing.'

"Well, I saw what the feller wanted; so I pulled out a fist full of
shiners, just to show him what Young America could do. The seeing the
dimes smoothed him down into the most agreeable amiability. His face
loomed out with good natur, his feelings seemed coming right from his
inards; and he struck up Yankee Doodle by way of an offset.

"'Pooty full, Mr. Smooth,' he generously remarked, 'but we must try
accommodate you somehow! We'll tuck you away in a spare corner, high
up!'

"'That's a good soul,' said I,--'know'd ye warn't a bad sort of