“Not in them words, not exactly in them terms, but from the same platform, stranger. Why, when you want to exalt a man for any great service to the state, you ain't satisfied with making him a loafer,--for a lord is just a loafer, and no more nor no less,--but you make his son a loafer, and all his descendants forever. What would you say to a fellow that had a fast trotter, able to do his mile, on a fair road, in two forty-three, who, instead of keeping him in full working condition, and making him earn his penny, would just turn him out in a paddock to burst himself with clover, and the same with all his stock, for no other earthly reason than that they were the best blood and bone to be found anywhere? There ain't sense or reason in that, stranger, is there?” “I don't think the parallel applies.” “Maybe not, sir; but you have my meaning; perhaps I piled the metaphor too high; but as John Jacob Byles says, 'If the charge has hit you, it don't signify a red cent what the wadding was made of.'” “I must say I think you are less than just in your estimate of our men of leisure,” said the Englishman, mildly. “I ain't sure of that, sir; they live too much together, like our people down South, and that's not the way to get rid of prejudices. They 've none of that rough-and-tumble with the world as makes men broad-minded and marciful and forgiving; and they come at last to that wickedest creed of all, to think themselves the superfine salt of the earth. Now, there ain't no superfine salt peculiar to any rank or class. Human natur' is good and bad everywhere,--ay, sir, I 'll go further, I 've seen good in a Nigger!” “I'm glad to hear you say so,” said the Englishman, repressing, but not without difficulty, a tendency to smile. “Yes, sir, there 's good amongst all men,--even the Irish.” “I feel sorry that you should make them an extreme case.” “Well, sir,” said he, drawing a long breath, “they're main ugly,--main ugly, that's a fact. Not that they can do _us_ any mischief. Our constitution is a mill where there's never too much water,--the more power, the more we grind; and even if the stream do come down somewhat stocked with snags and other rubbish upon it, the machine is an almighty smasher, and don't leave one fragment sticking to the other when it gets a stroke at 'em. Have you never been in the States, stranger?” “Never. I have often planned such a ramble, but circumstances have somehow or other always interfered with the accomplishment.” “Well, sir, you 're bound to go there, if only to correct the wrong impressions of your literary people, who do nothing but slander and belie us.” “Not latterly, surely. You have nothing to complain of on the part of our late travellers.”