2 Pliable politicians, men who are accessible to personal influences
or considerations.
3 A man is said to be on a fence who is ready to join the strongest
party because he who sits on a fence is in a position to jump down,
with equal facility, on either side of it.
4 "Political come-outers" are the loose fish of all parties.
Dissenters from their own side.--See Bartlett's definitions.
"Seeing the elephant," said the doctor, "was he so large a man as
that?"
"Lord bless you," sais I, "no, he is a man that thinks he pulls the
wires, like one of Punch's small figures, but the wires pull him and
set him in motion. It is a cant term we have, and signifies 'going out
for wool and coming back shorn.' Yes, he actually shed tears, like a
cook peelin' onions. He reminded me of a poor fellow at Slickville,
who had a family of twelve small children. His wife took a day, and
died one fine morning, leaving another youngster to complete the
baker's dozen, and next week that dear little innocent died too. He
took on dreadfully about it. He boo-hooed right out, which is more
than the politicioner did over his chloroformed bill.
"'Why,' sais I, 'Jeddediah, you ought to be more of a man than to take
on that way. With no means to support your family of poor helpless
little children, with no wife to look after them, and no airthly way
to pay a woman to dry-nurse and starve the unfortunate baby, it's a
mercy it did die, and was taken out of this wicked world.
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