Year: 1870

the crowd behind you are growing some
what inpatient" the President said.


" DO you hear that?" / said TO the fel-
low behind me. l suppose you will
take that hint anyhow l tell you he is
milder than l would be. If l was Pres
ident | would waltz you people out at
the back door if you came crowding q
gentleman this way, that was holding
a private conversation with"


And then | resumed with the Presi-
dent with.


81 think that hint of yours will start
them. l never saw people act SO. 1t is
rea ly about all / can do to bold my
ground with that mob showing up behind
But don't you worry on my account,
General don't give yourself any un-
easiness about mel can stand it as long
as they can. I've been through this kind
of a mill before. Why, as was Just say
ing to you, many and manya a time. out
in the wilds of Nevada, | have been at
Governor Nye's Injuu receptions-and
between you and me that old man was
good deal Of governor take him all
round. | don't know what for Senator
he makes, though | think you'll admit
that him and Bill Stewart and Tom Fitch
take bigger average of brains into that
Capitol up yonder. by hundred aud fif-
ty fold, than any other State in America
according to population. Now that is so
Those three men represent only twenty or
twenty-five thousand people-bless you,
the least little bit of triAing ward in
the city of New York casts two votes to
Nevada's one-and yet those three men
haven't their superio,s in Congress for
st aight-out, simon pure brains and abli-
ty. And if you could just have been at
one old Nye's Injun receptions and
seen those savages-not high fiiers like
these, you know, but frowsy old bum
mers with nothing in the world on, in the
summer time, but an old battered plug
hat and a pair of spectacles-I tell you
it was a swell affair, was one of Cover
nor Nye's early-day receptions. Many
and many's the time have been to them
and seen him stand up and beam and
smile on his children, as he called them
in his motherly way-beam on them by
the hour out of his splendid eyes, and
tascinate them with his handsome face,
and comfort them with his persuasive
tongue-seen him stand up there and tell
them anecdotes and lies, and quote Watts
hymns to them, until he just took the
war spirit all out of them-and grim
chiefs that came two hundred miles to
tax the whites for whole wagon loads of
blankets and things or make eternal var
if they didn't get them, he has sent away
bewildered with his inspired mendacity
aud perfectly satisfied and enriched with
an old hoop-skirt or two, a lot Of Patent
Office reports, and few sides ofcondemn-
ed army bacon that they would have to
chain up to tree when they camped, or
the shippers would run off with them
| tell you he is rattling talker Talk !.
It's no name for it. He-well, he is
bound to launch straight into close quar-
tiers and heap of trouble hereafter, of
eourse-we all know that--but you can
rest satisfied that he will take off his hat
and put out his hand and introduce him
self to the King of Darkness perfectly
easy and comfort BILE, and let on that he
has seen him somewhere before; and he
will remind him of parties he used to
know, and things that's slipped out of
his memory-and he'll tell him thous-
and things that he can't help taking an
interest in, and every now and then he
will just gently m in an anecdote that
will fetch him if there's any laugh in
him-he will, indeed-and Jim Nye will
chip in and help cross-question the can
didates, and be will just hang around,
and hang around and hang around, get
ting more and more sociable all the time
and doing this, that, and the other thing
in the handiest sort of way, till he has
made himself perfectly Indispensable
and then, the very first thing you


wheeled and said.


"My friend. your conduct grieves me
to tie heart A dozen times at least
your unseemly crowding has seriously in-
terfered with the conversation | am hold
ing with the President, and if the thing
occurs again shall take my hat and
leave the premises"


al wish to the mischief you would =
Where did you come from anyway, that
you've got the unutterable cheek to
spread yourselfhere and keep fifteen hum
dred people standing waiting half an
hour to shake hands with the Presi-
dentf'


An officer touched me on the shoulder
and said: