the people were to burn up our cities, and knock us down and jump on our
stomachs. That was about the kind of talk, as the papers had it; I don't
wonder it scared the old women.

--The Member was wide awake by this time.

--I don't seem to remember of them partickler phrases, he said.

--Dear me, no; only levelling everything smack, and trampling us under
foot, as the reporters made it out. That means FIRE, I take it, and
knocking you down and stamping on you, whichever side of your person
happens to be uppermost. Sounded like a threat; meant, of course, for a
warning. But I don't believe it was in the piece as they spoke
it,--could n't have been. Then, again, Paris wasn't to blame,--as much
as to say--so the old women thought--that New York or Boston would n't be
to blame if it did the same thing. I've heard of political gatherings
where they barbecued an ox, but I can't think there 's a party in this
country that wants to barbecue a city. But it is n't quite fair to
frighten the old women. I don't doubt there are a great many people
wiser than I am that would n't be hurt by a hint I am going to give them.
It's no matter what you say when you talk to yourself, but when you talk
to other people, your business is to use words with reference to the way
in which those other people are like to understand them. These pretended
inflammatory speeches, so reported as to seem full of combustibles, even
if they were as threatening as they have been represented, would do no
harm if read or declaimed in a man's study to his books, or by the
sea-shore to the waves. But they are not so wholesome moral
entertainment for the dangerous classes. Boys must not touch off their
squibs and crackers too near the powder-magazine. This kind of speech
does n't help on the millennium much.