Get Mr. Sam Price into court.  Here is a man who assuredly knows who they are:  if we are, not much mistaken, he is their mouthpiece.  Get, an eel into court.  There is only one man in town who can hold an eel, and he isn’t on the jury.  Mr. Price will talk plentifully, in his nasal way; but he won’t tell you anything.

Mr. Price has been nominated to fill Deacon Lysander Richardson’s shoes in the following manner:  One day in the late autumn a man in a coonskin cap stops beside Mr. Price’s woodpile, where Mr. Price has been chopping wood, pausing occasionally to stare off through the purple haze at the south shoulder of Coniston Mountain.

“How be you, Jethro?” says Mr. Price, nasally.

“D-Democrats are talkin’ some of namin’ you Moderator next meetin’,” says the man in the coonskin cap.

“Want to know!” ejaculates Mr. Price, dropping the axe and straightening up in amazement.  For Mr. Price’s ambition soared no higher, and he had made no secret of it.  “Wal!  Whar’d you hear that, Jethro?”

“H-heerd it round—­some.  D-Democrat—­hain’t you—­Democrat?”

“Always callate to be.”

“J-Jacksonian Democrat?”

“Guess I be.”

Silence for a while, that Mr. Price may feel the gavel in his hand, which he does.

“Know somewhat about Jacksonian principles, don’t ye—­know somewhat?”

“Callate to,” says Mr. Price, proudly.

“T-talk ’em up, Sam—­t-talk ’em up.  C-canvass, Sam.”

With these words of brotherly advice Mr. Bass went off down the road, and Mr. Price chopped no more wood that night; but repeated to himself many times in his nasal voice, “I want to know!” In the course of the next few weeks various gentlemen mentioned to Mr. Price that he had been spoken of for Moderator, and he became acquainted with the names of the other candidates on the same mysterious ticket who were mentioned.  Whereupon he girded up his loins and went forth and preached the word of Jacksonian Democracy in all the farmhouses roundabout, with such effect that Samuel Todd and others were able to talk with some fluency about the rights of American citizens.

Question before the Committee, undisposed of:  Who nominated Samuel Price for Moderator?  Samuel Price gives the evidence, tells the court he does not know, and is duly cautioned and excused.

Let us call, next, Mr. Eben Williams, if we can.  Moses Hatch, Senior, has already interrogated him with all the authority of the law and the church, for Mr. Williams is orthodox, though the deacons have to remind him of his duty once in a while.  Eben is timid, and replies to us, as to Moses, that he has heard of the Democratic ticket, and callates that Fletcher Bartlett, who has always been the leader of the Democratic party, has named the ticket.  He did not mention Jethro Bass to Deacon Hatch.  Why should he?  What has Jethro Bass got to do with politics?