"Really," says he, just stepping across the ward to spit on a copy of the Tribune, which served as a window-curtain, "really, I forgot all about that manly form. Oh!" says the pleasant Democratic chap, replacing the Constitution in his hat, from which it had just fallen,--"Oh! what heroism do we find embodied in that youthful shape! The voice of a assembled universe asks: 'Shall G. B. McClellan go unrewarded?' There is no echo at the time. It asks again: 'Who, then, shall be President of the United States in 1865?' And echo triumphantly answers, General George Barnum McClellan!" Here the affable Democratic chap took off his spectacles, my boy, and beamed undisguisedly at a small black bottle on the table. "But," says I, softly, "his name is not George _Barnum_ McClellan at all. His middle name is not Barnum." "Hem!" says the Democratic chap, with a severe aspect, "I don't know that it is. Really," says the Democratic chap, hastily picking up his umbrella and moving away, "really, I don't know that it is." Mistakes, my boy, will happen in the best-regulated organizations; and, if we construe them maliciously, we deserve, like a parcel of scandal-mongering old Bohea-mians, to be confined all our lives to small _coups_ of Phineas T. It was during my illness that the adoring citizens of Mugville discovered that the Venerable Gammon had been defeated ten times in the election for County Clerk in his youth, and frantically instigated an overflowing ovation therefore to that venerable man. I know not, my boy, what this aged and shirt-collared picture of perpetual beneficence had done to be such an idol. I cannot conceive why repeated defeats in his youth should entitle him to the adoration of a fond populace at the present exciting period; but the leading citizens presented him with a silver butter-knife and a serenade, my boy; and he made a benignant speech to show that he and Providence desired only the applause of their own consciences. "My children," says the Venerable Gammon, waving benefactions in his fat and heartfelt manner, "I accept this butter-knife,--not for my own merits, but because it symbolizes the only true means of restoring that Union of which I am a part. This knife," says the Venerable Gammon, eying the costly gift with oily and benignant satisfaction,--"this knife teaches us that only fiendish Abolitionism would think of using the Sword of Radicalism to conquer the erring Confederacy which is still our sister, when the Butter-knife of Conservatism was to be had." Then all the leading citizens of Mugville observed joyfully to each other that the country was redeemed at last, and four-and-twenty reliable morning journals published six columns each about the triumphant progress of the Venerable Gammon in the affections of the people.