“Another?” says Jeff; “and whose egg is it, pray?”

I looked to the bottom of it, and read aloud, “Your obedient servant, James Shields, Auditor.”

“Aha!” says Jeff, “one of them same three fellows again.  Well read it, and let’s hear what of it.”

I read on till I came to where it says, “The object of this measure is to suspend the collection of the revenue for the current year.”

“Now stop, now stop!” says he; “that’s a lie a’ready, and I don’t want to hear of it.”

“Oh, maybe not,” says I.

“I say it-is-a-lie.  Suspend the collection, indeed!  Will the collectors, that have taken their oaths to make the collection, dare to end it?  Is there anything in law requiring them to perjure themselves at the bidding of James Shields?

“Will the greedy gullet of the penitentiary be satisfied with swallowing him instead of all of them, if they should venture to obey him?  And would he not discover some ‘danger of loss,’ and be off about the time it came to taking their places?

“And suppose the people attempt to suspend, by refusing to pay; what then?  The collectors would just jerk up their horses and cows, and the like, and sell them to the highest bidder for silver in hand, without valuation or redemption.  Why, Shields didn’t believe that story himself; it was never meant for the truth.  If it was true, why was it not writ till five days after the proclamation?  Why did n’t Carlin and Carpenter sign it as well as Shields?  Answer me that, Aunt ’Becca.  I say it’s a lie, and not a well told one at that.  It grins out like a copper dollar.  Shields is a fool as well as a liar.  With him truth is out of the question; and as for getting a good, bright, passable lie out of him, you might as well try to strike fire from a cake of tallow.  I stick to it, it’s all an infernal Whig lie!”

“A Whig lie!  Highty tighty!”

“Yes, a Whig lie; and it’s just like everything the cursed British Whigs do.  First they’ll do some divilment, and then they’ll tell a lie to hide it.  And they don’t care how plain a lie it is; they think they can cram any sort of a one down the throats of the ignorant Locofocos, as they call the Democrats.”

“Why, Jeff, you ’re crazy:  you don’t mean to say Shields is a Whig!”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why, look here! the proclamation is in your own Democratic paper, as you call it.”

“I know it; and what of that?  They only printed it to let us Democrats see the deviltry the Whigs are at.”

“Well, but Shields is the auditor of this Loco—­I mean this Democratic State.”

“So he is, and Tyler appointed him to office.”

“Tyler appointed him?”