'
"'I know it and feel it, Mr Sam,' said he, lookin' up in a way that
nobody but him could look, 'but--'
"'But what?' sais I.
"'Why,' says he, 'but it don't do to say so, you know.'
"Jist then some of the neighbours came in, when he burst out wuss than
before, and groaned like a thousand sinners at a camp-meetin'.
"Most likely the radical father of the strangled Reform Bill comforted
himself with the same reflection, only he thought it wouldn't do to
say so. Crocodiles can cry when they are hungry, but when they do it's
time to vamose the poke-loken,1 that's a fact. Yes, yes, they
understand these things to England as well as we do, you may depend.
They warn't born yesterday. But I won't follow it out. Liberalism is
playing the devil both with us and the British. Change is going on
with railroad haste in America, but in England, though it travels not
so fast, it never stops, and like a steam-packet that has no freight,
it daily increases its rate of speed as it advances towards the end of
the voyage. Now you have my explanation, Doctor, why I am a
conservative on principle, both at home and abroad."
1 Poke-loken, a marshy place, or stagnant pool, connected with a
river.
"Well," said the doctor," that is true enough as far as England is
concerned, but still I don't quite understand how it is, as a
republican, you are so much of a conservative at home, for your
reasons appear to me to be more applicable to Britain than to the
United States.
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