The feller looked mad enough tu eat me hull, without vinegar or sarse--but I didn't seem to mind it. The harnsome gal had clenched her white fingers over my coat sleeve, as loving as a young grape vine round a black elder bush; and when I git hitched on to a fust rate gal, all the fellers in creation may go to old Nick, for what I care. The old Sogers, they mixed in with us and the fellers with silk rosies, and out we went, on deck and down stairs. The music, it bust out agin, and one of the fellers with a silk rose, he yelled out, "Make room for the President!" so the free-born Americans on deck, they crowded back and made a lane for us. "Make room for the President and his sweet," the feller sung out agin. Think sez I, "That aint fair now; the gal with the President is a nice critter as ever lived; but darn me if mine aint sweeter than his'n, a pesky sight,"--so I sung out, and sez I-- "Make room for Jonathan Slick and _his_ sweet;" with that I took a marching step and went down stairs heads up, and with the gal hanging on my arm, as independent as a cork-screw. Gaury, but wasn't there a feed, considering it was nothing but a cold cut--sich hunks of beef, and ham, and pork, and piles of bread, and bottles of "the critter," you never sot eyes on, without it was day arter thanksgiving. We all sot down at one eend of the table, and afore we'd got a single bite, the doors banged open, and down cum the free-born citizens from on deck, helter skelter, higgle-te-pigglety, black coats, red coats, blue, green, every color on arth, and sogers, spartans, tailors, shoemakers--every sort of two-legged animals under 'em, eating away for dear life, and a drinking like so many house gutters, right afore the face and eyes of the President and me, with all the harnsome leetle sweets a setting round us,--I swan tu man, it eenamost sot me agin my victuals: and the harnsome gal by my side, she looked kinder scared, as if she hadn't ought tu be there. "Try and take a bite, du now!" sez I, a piling some cold pork on her plate, "it aint a mite rusty, and makes me feel a'most to hum, it tastes so nat'ral." She put the leastest mite between them temptin lips, but didn't seem to eat with a relish yet. "I swan," sez I, a bending down to take a squint at her face, "I only wish I could git aboard the sloop, and bring you a prime bunch of young onions. Wait a minit and I'll try?" "Oh, no, no," sez the sweet critter, "I'd ruther not--don't leave me, Mr. Slick." "Darn me, if I du--onions or no onions," sez I, but I felt kinder disappointed though, for a bunch of white onions, tops and all, would a ben prime with the cold pork--howsomever, I gin in as a feller ought tu, when a gal is in the case; but I didn't feel a bit satisfied about the stomach. When the President got up tu go on deck agin, I looked into the gal's eyes, and tried not tu feel a hungry.