"The fellows cooled down at once, and John Littlejohn said, 'Come, Smooth! if you really are a clever citizen then you are precisely the fellow we want!' And then he conversed feelingly with me, said how much he liked our country and our countrymen; persuaded himself to believe them the real go-ahead chaps--though he, at times, thought it quite necessary to keep their go-ahead a little slow. I proposed their taking a smoke in a rough and ready sort of way, and pulling out my pouch, in a friendly sort of way, they all seemed struck aback with astonishment. One said, if we did things that way in Congress it was not the way they did them here. They all shook their heads--said they didn't smoke. "'We will may it please you Mr. Smooth--Citizen of the United States--excuse these things for the present,' rejoined Dablerdeen, who looked as if he did not know which way to turn, or how to please his people. Seeing this I sat down and watched the very odd style in which they played the game. Dablerdeen did all the talking, and Littlejohn, whom the reader will see had returned home helped him make his muff; and then there was a good deal of assisting one another to forget each move. But Sandy always moved slow, as if he had something under his thimble he was afraid of damaging. 'That's Turkey, that's Russia, that's France, and that's Austria--and this is ourselves!' he would say, making the moves up or down, but not knowing where to stop. 'It won't do to push that one, it won't!' he continued, pointing at the one he called Austria. 'If you did, nothing would you get from under it. It's a costly cup with a tender handle, somewhat dangerous to turn: only the cup of Spain is more costly; but that in this emergency is of no account whatever.' They had no United States cup to move, inasmuch as Jonathan had very respectfully declined to hazard a point in European games when he withheld his ascent to a tripartite treaty for the purpose of keeping his delicate fingers off Cuba. Now these very antiquated gentlemen seemed to entertain some respect for the British Lion, some apprehension of Jonathan and Nicholas, and a great dislike for fighting, which they had been driven, or rather drifted, into much against their imagined obligations to peace; for, indeed, did they carry on the war tail foremost, finding everything they had done large of stupidity. By and by a loud call rang through the tabernacle, and in another minute the platter of dough-nuts was borne in by two cooks. One, they said was Mrs. Victoria, and the other was Mr. Napoleon, curious acquaintances, who lugged and tugged, and puffed and blowed; and the piping hot doughnuts nuts gave out their glows. Then the players all seemed to quicken up, as if they had sooner be eating than thinking.