The Adventures of My Cousin SmoothTempleton, Timothy
General
The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth
Templeton, Timothy
Pierce, Franklin, 1804-1869 -- Humor; United States -- Politics and government -- 1853-1857
give him to understand that you can extract crooked and put straight
ideas into his head--above all, be sure and feel as independent as a
wood-sawyer at two dollars a day. Play well your face, and a spoil of
the game just won will be yours. Marcy is father of this principle!
Heed not the sympathy between your heart and head,--while the one
feels high never let the other play low. Accept anything the General
may be pleased to offer, adding that it is in respect to his great
talent and your anxiety to keep respectable his foreign affairs; and
think how you belie your conscience the while. Now, Smooth, you will
see how open-armed the General will be to see me!'
"I told Mr. Pierpont how glad I was to hear it, seeing that it might
be the means of putting me through on the same hook. Without
hesitation, he said he would do what he could. Had I fought in the
Mexican war the case would have been different--had I been true to the
South, the case had been very different: the distinctions here
enumerated brought down the scale. 'However, the General and me are
one, having fought by his side in Mexico, and you shall be put
through.' So saying, we proceeded on our way, reaching in a few
minutes the White House, the gardens of which we found transplanted
with citizens--set here and there as thick as the gardener's tulips.
Before the circular carriage-way that sweeps to the great entrance,
filed a rampart of moody faces. Mr. Mulligan said they were there for
the study of Botany, he believed. Near the great portico stood the
tall figure of a man plainly dressed in blackest broadcloth; he
sauntered about as if contemplating some hopeless game of party.
Another looked as if he had just sprung from a dressing-case to
present himself before Grandpapa Marcy, in the hope of his personal
appearance making stronger his claims to a very acceptable
appointment. A third had a woe-begone smile on his face, and seemed
studying the nature of a plant that would soon need a careful hand.
When accosted concerning his musings, he said he had done battle right
manfully for the democracy; and now Mr. Pierce's only reply was, that
his demands were of so hard a nature as to render it impossible for
him to knock under. I told him that I would take the small points of
Mr. Pierce's ideas, and the strong points of Mr. Marcy's, and from
them try to work out the P's and Q's of his case.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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