“’With us it would present no rub; give us the means, as spread out to your hands, and the problem we would solve while you were pondering over its intricacy.  We would pay good premiums to practical overseers of cotton plantations in Georgia and Alabama, who, with the inducement offered, would come as instructors—­cotton-growing requires the application of the nicest agricultural science—­in the art of cultivating the sensitive plant.  And to encourage private enterprise we would offer bounties for the largest amount of best quality produced on the smallest space.  By government encouraging the best staple, a rivalry would spring up which could not fail to produce much good; it would open up a spirited system of planting, as well as that enlarged intercommunication of commerce which must follow.’  Let me take leave of this subject!

“From India we sojourned across the great desert, meeting in succession the white-robed Arab, the savage Kurd, the docile Yeeside, and the melancholy Turk.  John said we must have a staff, and a score of guides, and no end of menials, and must put on the dignity, or it would not be safe, especially now that Turks and Russians were at war.  Mr. Smooth took exceptions to this ruling, preferring to assume the go-ahead, and test the virtue of a hard front, the effects of which he was quite sure would not be entirely lost even among the Arabs.  And then, if the Turks and Russians were again at war about holy places—­places for which a deal of human blood had been spilt for the mere gratification of a very unholy ambition—­Mr. Smooth, on behalf of Young America, might make a dollar or two by the way of proposing a very christian plan for settling the stubborn intricacy.  With this best of all motives in view, I left John in the desert, where he said he expected to do some good business, and, what was better, get some good dinners.  So, bidding him godspeed, I made straight headway for the point where the pious difficulty had resulted in so much iniquitous blood-shedding.

“The fact is, Old Uncle John was at first inclined to make rather spare use of bear’s grease to dress his Turkey, an unhealthy bird, scarcely possessing fat enough to cook himself; but, being rather doubtful of his own culinary efficiency, had consented to receive a French cook into the family:  and, fearing there might yet be a deficiency, the ever-credulous old dotard was making good-natured overtures to one Joseph of Hapsburg,—­never trustworthy, and always known to act as circumstances changed interests,—­who said there was no knowing what time he would be ready to turn his attention to such purposes.  Joseph, however, was never in his life so willing to play open and shut with John, at the same time giving Nicholas that cunning wink so well understood in all respectable family circles.  This game Joseph played, and played, and played, until the credulity of old John seemed like a cooked fish in a pot of porridge.  The fact must be confessed that Joseph was so politically