I wuz sent for to come to Washington, from my comfortable quarters at the Post Offis, to attend the convenshun uv sich soldiers and sailors uv the United States ez bleeve in a Union uv 36 States, and who hev sworn allejinse to a flag with 36 stars onto it, at Cleveland. My esteemed and life-long friend and co-laborer, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, wuz to hev bin the chaplin uv the convenshun, but he failed us, and it wuz decided in a Cabinet meetin that I shood take his place. I didn't see the necessity uv hevin a chaplin at every little convenshun uv our party, and so stated; but Seward remarked, with a groan, that ef ever there wuz a party, since parties wuz invented, wich needed prayin for, ours wuz that party. "And, Parson," sed he, glancin' at a list uv delegates, "ef yoo hev any agonizin petitions, any prayers uv extra fervency, offer em up for these fellers. Ef there is any efficacy in prayer, it's my honest, unbiased opinion that there never wuz in the history uv the world, nor never will be agin, sich a magnificent chance to make it manifest. Try yoor-self particularly on Custer; tho', after all," continyood he, in a musin, abstracted sort uv a way, wich he's fallen into lately, "the fellow is sich a triflin bein, that he reely kin hardly be held 'sponsible for what he's doin; and the balance uv em, good Hevens! they'r mostly druv to it by hunger." And the Secretary maundered on suthin about "sixty days" and "ninety days," payin no more attention to the rest uv us than ez ef we wuzn't there at all. So, receevin transportashen and suffishent money from the secret service fund for expenses, I departed for Cleveland, and after a tejus trip thro' an Ablishn country, I arrived there. My thots were gloomy beyond expression. I hed recently gone through this same country ez chaplin to the Presidential tour, and every stashen hed its pecooliar onpleasant remembrances. Here wuz where the cheers for Grant were vociferous, with nary a snort for His Eggslency; there wuz where the peasantry laft in his face when he went thro' with the regler ritooal uv presentin the constitooshn and the flag with 36 stars onto it to a deestrick assessor; there wuz--but why recount my sufferins? Why harrow up the public bosom, or lasserate the public mind? Suffice to say, I endoored it; suffice to say that I hed strength left to ride up Bank street, in Cleveland, the seen uv the most awful insult the Eggsecutive ever receeved.