Mexican war. Regaining his good humor soon after, I resigned him the
reins, and he desired me to tell him at what point of his story he
had been interrupted. Having done this, he resumed its thread as old
Battle jogged on at his usual slow pace. "I now took up the trade of
politics," he continued, "and went about the country, making
speeches and demolishing everything that came in my way. I had ideas
enough for any number of speeches, no matter what the length might
be; but the evil was how to put the sentences together. I could make
points such as Cicero and Lycurgus never thought of; as for
patriotism, there was no trouble about that. I had a dozen platforms
at my fingers' ends, and could move an audience equal to Lamartine.
Here then was my game, and at it I made a nice thing. The editor of
the "Provincetown Longbow," who was celebrated for making at least
two Cabinet ministers a day, declared to his readers that it was
lucky for the era that my great wisdom had been discovered; that it
would be a great wrong in General Harrison to offer me any less
office than Secretary of State. The "Barnstable Pocketbook," a
clever little sheet, edited by Miss Holebrook, who snapped her
political whip in the teeth of the town, and had come off conqueror
in many a tilt with editors in breeches, was willing to compromise
with he of the Longbow, by assuring its readers that only two years'
study of law would make me an excellent judge of the Supreme Court.
These well bestowed encomiums, (as I think they are called,) so
elated my wife that she speedily took to giving tea parties, to
which all the majors and generals of the town were invited. And as
they demolished the hospitality of her teacups they made her believe
the nation never could get along unless I had two fingers in its
affairs.

"My children, before as distasteful as the butter one gets in New