"But, arter all," sez I, "what is the nobility of Old England more than that which we Yankees have a right to?" "Was William the Conqueror, that they brag so much about, any thing to be compared to our Washington? Was his conquest of Old England, half so great, or so tough a job as the tussle we had to get New England into our own native land? Now, the whole truth is, blood is like wine, the older it is, the stronger and clearer it grows. If it warn't for that, we Yankees, that had forefathers in the Revolutionary war, have as good a right to brag about our pure blood, as the greatest and oldest line of proud England." Here I stopped jest long enough to make a bow to Lord Morpeth, and on I went agin. "I say," sez I, a stretching out my arm, "there aint a true born American on arth, if he owns the truth, that haint English grit and pride enough about him to feel a kind of respect for an English nobleman, if he behaves himself like folks: but if he don't," sez I, "we've got a right to dispise him more than we do one another when we act mean; for he not only disgraces hisself, but all the forefathers that he ought to be proud on, and a man that can do that must be mean as git out and meaner tu, a darned sight. Now," sez I, a looking at Lord Morpeth, "we Yankees and the English are purty much alike, for all. If they've got their lords, and dukes, and princes, haint we no military captins, and generals, and deacons, and squires,--rather small potatoes compared to the English, but yet it shows a sort of native notion we've got arter sich things, and don't du no sort of harm one way nor t'other. Now," sez I, "in a few hundred years from this, we Americans, shall have a sort of republican nobility of our own. I aint sartin about the titles, but by-am-by, when the 'tea party,' and the battle of Bunker Hill lies clear back in our history, as William the Conquerer's does among the British, Cousin Jase there, wouldn't have to make up a story about his British ancestors; for the pure blood of this ere country will be that which goes right back to the Revolutionary war. All Yankee noblemen will have to sarch for their titles on the pension list of this ere very generation; and the old man that now draws his twenty dollars a month, will be the founder of a line, jest as noble as any that ever sprung up in the heart of old England! That's my ginuine opinion. Now," sez I, "if we Slicks wanted to make out that we are any great shakes, it aint no very hard job to du it. It aint by no means sartin that we, any on us, ever had any forefathers afore the old Shoemaker, that we've jest been a telling on; but he was a hull team and horse to boot. When the ammunition gin out at Bunker Hill, he flung away his gun, and went to storming a hull regiment, tooth and nail, on his own hook, till in the eend he was shot down dead with a piece of the old lap stun in his hand, that he gripped like an Injun arter his teeth was sot, and his fingers stiff and stun cold.