"Lord love you! I aint no speaker, I never made but one
speech since I was raised, and that was afore a Slickville
legislatur, and then I broke down. I know'd who I was
a talkin' afore; they was men that had cut their eye-teeth,
and that you could'nt pull the wool over their eyes,
nohow you could fix it, and I was young then. Now I'm
growed up, I guess, and I've got my narves in the right
place, and as taught as a drum; and I _could_ speak if
I was in the House o' Commons, that's a fact. If a man
was to try there, that was worth any thin', he'd find he
was a flute without knowin' it. They don't onderstand
nothin' but Latin and Greek, and I'd buoy out them sand
banks, keep the lead agoin', stick to the channel, and
never take ground, I know. The way I'd cut water aint no
matter. Oh Solomon! what a field for good speakin' that
question was to-night, if they only had half an eye, them
fellers, and what a'most a beautiful mess they made of
it on both sides!

"I ain't a vain man, and never was. You know, Squire,
I hante a mossel of it in my composition; no, if you was
to look at me with a ship's glass you wouldn't see a
grease spot of it in me. I don't think any of us Yankees
is vain people; it's a thing don't grow in our diggins.
We have too much sense in a giniral way for that; indeed
if we wanted any, we couldn't get none for love nor money,
for John Bull has a monopoly of it. He won't open the
trade. It's a home market he looks to, and the best of
it is, he thinks he hante none to spare.