"'Now, Gineral,' said Smooth, addressing himself to Mr. President Pierce, 'the items are all down!--there will be warm work, depend upon it!--and seeing how Uncle Sam'll have to scratch in somewhere (just to make a point or two), Cousin Caleb and me will take the job of doing all the necessary fighting on both sides the big pond, and getting all the stray territory required to complete these United States, for eighty-six million dollars--two and a half per cent. off for ready money. Might as well let Smooth have the shiners, seeing how me and Caleb would give security to do the fighting up brown; and. then somebody was getting the tin out of Uncle Sam's big bag in a fast kind of way that nobody could explain. Smooth begged Mr. President Pierce to give the thing a few turns over in his head, and when the problem came as clear as daylight, send him his figure by the first post.' With this, Mr. Smooth retired to the National. CHAPTER XXIV. MR. PIERCE SENDS SMOOTH DOWN AMONG THE BRITISHERS. "Mr. Smooth (I write after the style most in fashion), having been associated with Mr. Pierce, whose Minister in general he was, as has been set forth in this history, is come to be regarded as a very dangerous individual. It is astonishing with what facility we gain bad repute from association with a certain class of men and things. Our country is a stalwart oasis, rising in reproachful greatness over the old and dwindling dependencies around it; but our Pierce government is a waste in its centre, contaminating and casting the blight of intrigue upon those connected with it. It builds bulwarks for itself, and breaks them down with the mere fog of its own breakers. It, like a dauntless boy, seizes the helm of State, and steering by scheme instead of compass, runs the ship ashore in unknown seas. As Smooth is a national Christian, he believes the timbers of the old ship tough and strong, or they had been bilged ere this. But, while speaking of contamination in connection with Mr. Pierce, he (Smooth) is forcibly reminded of the similarity between it and an episode in the life of his great-grandfather. This venerable ancestor, when fine society was less tenacious of its associations, entered upon the cultivation of pumpkins as a business, but in after life, as the novelist has it, became a railroad president, and as an inseparable result, a great financier. When in the latter position, being a very sensitive person, he tried to get rid of the odor of the pumpkin business; but all to no purpose. Do what he would, go where he would, contribute to what he would, mix with what society he would, be as generous as he would, people were heard to whisper 'pumpkins;' and to construe his motives as prompted by the same spirit which induced him to make a business of cultivating that vegetable. A similar odor, arising from his connection with Pierce, Smooth found clinging to his garments. The world in general viewed him as a dangerous man, for the simple reason