Jest a little while after breakfast, who should come in but Seward? He hadn't hardly spoken to me sence I blowed him for alterin the Kernel's Constitushinal Teliskope, but this mornin he was as perlite an as clever as he could be. Ses he, "Majer, the elecshin news is good, an _our_ party is successful." Ses I, "Mr. Seward, I don't understand you." "Why, Majer," ses he--and he put on one of the queerest smiles I ever see on a man's face--"don't you know I have turned Dimmocrat?" Ses I, "You don't say so." "Yes," ses he, "I'm a Dimmocrat now, an no mistake." The Kernel looked as if thunder had struck him. "Wal," ses I, "Mr. Seward, that reminds me of a story, as the Kernel would say." "Wal," ses he, "Majer, what is it? I always like to hear your stories. They are so pat." "Wal," ses I, "mebby this will turn out to be a little patter than you like; but, howsoever, as I never spile a good story for acquaintance sake, I will tell it. Once on a time, it is said, an old coon went out of a night to get some fodder among the cornfields, an did not return to his hole until near mornin. Wen he got hum he saw a skunk had taken possession of his hole. He went up, an ses he, 'Who's there?' The skunk replied, 'A coon.' 'Are you a coon?' 'Yes,' said the skunk, 'I'm a coon.' 'Wal,' sed the coon, 'you don't look like a coon; you don't act like a coon, and I'll be darned ef you _smell_ like a coon.'" "Now," ses I, "Mr. Seward, you may be a Dimmocrat, but you don't look like one, nor act like one, nor smell like one, an I'll be darned ef I believe you are one."