"
"I am glad to hear you say so, Doctor," said I, "for I concur in it
all. The English are liberal, but half the time they ain't just.
Spendin' money in colonies is one thing, but givin' them fair play is
another. The army complains that all commendation and promotion is
reserved for the staff. Provincials complain of similar injustice, but
there is this wide difference, the one has the 'Times' for its
advocate, the other is unheard or unheeded. An honest statesman will
not refuse to do justice--a willy poilitician will concede with grace
what he knows he must soon yield to compulsion. The old Tory was a man
after all, every inch of him."
"Now," sais the doctor, "that remark reminds me of what I have long
intended to ask you if I got a chance. How is it, Mr Slick, that you,
who are a republican, whenever you speak of England are so
conservative? It always seemed to me as if it warn't quite natural. If
I didn't know you, I should say your books were written by a colonist
who had used your name for a medium for giving his own ideas."
"Well," sais I, "Doctor, I am glad you asked me, for I have thought
myself it wasn't unlikely some folks would fall into that mistake.
I'll tell you how this comes, though I wouldn't take the trouble to
enlighten others, for it kinder amuses me to see a fellow find a
mare's nest with a tee-hee's egg in it. First, I believe that a
republic is the only form of government suited to us, or practicable
in North America.
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