CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH MR. SMOOTH HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH GENERAL CASS.


"Smooth had just stowed himself away in the shape of a figure 4, when
there came a voice as husky as Uncle Zack Peabody's conk, (which said
conk had been used to blow his way through the fogs of Newfoundland
for nearly half a century), saying:--'It's mighty tight squeezing
there, ain't it, stranger?' Where the voice came from seemed a puzzle
for all creation. No room was there in the place for another soul--all
became as still and watchlike as the tomb. In fear and anxiety I gazed
upon the dark wall, and along it to the little window facing the
avenue; and there, behold! but tell it not in the Capitol, was the
broad, burly face of General Cass, like a wet moon in discontent.
Unhappy with himself, he was peering in at the window. Again he
muttered:--'I can't get in!--such has always been my fate.' The
much-disappointed old gentleman bore such an expression of
discomfiture on his countenance, that Smooth was forced to the
conclusion that to be sociable would only be doing a good turn--more
especially as the General and Uncle Sam never got along well together.
'Then it's you, General?' says I: 'well, don't be in a hurry!' After a
short silence, he inquired if I could accommodate a traveller who had
been long on the road, and short of shot. I said I was not well to do
for room; but as to be obliging was the order of the day, and seeing
that he was soon to try another turn by joining the 'Young American'
party, I would see what could be done. He had got upon the roof of the