The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England — Complete. Thomas Chandler Haliburton
and the Sea.’ ”
CHAPTER V. T’OTHER EEND OF THE GUN.
“Squire,” said Mr. Hopewell, one morning when we were alone on the quarter-deck, “sit down by me, if you please. I wish to have a little private conversation with you. I am a good deal concerned about Sam. I never liked this appointment he has received: neither his education, his habits, nor his manners have qualified him for it. He is fitted for a trader and for nothing else. He looks upon politics as he does upon his traffic in clocks, rather as profitable to himself than beneficial to others. Self is predominant with him. He overrates the importance of his office, as he will find when he arrives in London; but what is still worse, he overrates the importance of the opinions of others regarding the States.
“He has been reading that foolish book of Cooper’s ‘Gleanings in Europe,’ and intends to shew fight, he says. He called my attention, yesterday, to this absurd passage, which he maintains is the most manly and sensible thing that Cooper ever wrote: ‘This indifference to the feelings of others, is a dark spot on the national manners of England. The only way to put it down, is to become belligerent yourself, by introducing Pauperism, Radicalism, Ireland, the Indies, or some other sore point. Like all who make butts of others, they do not manifest the proper forbearance when the tables are turned. Of this, I have had abundance of proof in my own experience. Sometimes their remarks are absolutely rude, and personally offensive, as a disregard of one’s national character, is a disrespect to his principles; but as personal quarrels on such grounds are to be avoided, I have uniformly retorted in kind, if there was the smallest opening for such retaliation.”
“Now, every gentleman in the States repudiates such sentiments as these. My object in mentioning the subject to you, is to request the favour of you, to persuade Sam not to be too sensitive on these topics; not to take offence, where it is not intended; and, above all, rather to vindicate his nationality by his conduct, than to justify those aspersions, by his intemperate behaviour. But here he comes; I shall withdraw and leave you together.”
Fortunately, Mr. Slick commenced talking upon a topic, which naturally led to that to which Mr. Hopewell had wished me to direct his attention.
“Well, Squire,” said he, “I am glad too, you are a goin’ to England along with me: we will take a rise out of John Bull, won’t we?—We’ve hit Blue-nose and Brother Jonathan both pretty considerable tarnation hard, and John has split his sides with larfter. Let’s tickle him now, by feeling his own short ribs, and see how he will like it; we’ll soon see whose hide is the thickest, hisn or ourn, won’t we? Let’s see whether he will say chee, chee, chee, when he gets to the t’other eend of the gun.”
“What is the meaning of that saying?” I asked. “I never heard it before.”
“Why,” said he, “when I was a considerable of a grown up saplin of a boy to Slickville, I used to be a gunnin’ for everlastinly amost in our hickory woods, a shootin’ of squirrels with a rifle, and I got amazin’ expart at it. I could take the head off of them chatterin’ little imps, when I got a fair shot at ’em with a ball, at any reasonable distance, a’most in nine cases out of ten.
“Well, one day I was out as usual, and our Irish help Paddy Burke was along with me, and every time he see’d me a drawin’ of the bead fine on ’em, he used to say, ‘Well, you’ve an excellent gun entirely, Master Sam. Oh by Jakers! the squirrel has no chance with that gun, it’s an excellent one entirely.’
“At last I got tired a hearin’ of him a jawin’ so for ever and a day about the excellent gun entirely; so, sais I, ‘You fool you, do you think it’s the gun that does it entirely as you say; ain’t there a little dust of skill in it? Do you think you could fetch one down?’
“ ‘Oh, it’s a capital gun entirely,’ said he.
“ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘if it ’tis, try it now, and see what sort of a fist you’ll make of it.’
“So Paddy takes the rifle, lookin’ as knowin’ all the time as if he had ever seed one afore. Well, there was a great red squirrel, on the tip-top of a limb, chatterin’ away like any thing, chee, chee, chee, proper frightened; he know’d it warn’t me, that was a parsecutin’ of him, and he expected he’d be hurt. They know’d me, did the little critters, when they seed me, and they know’d I never had hurt one on ’em, my balls never givin’ ’em a chance to feel what was the matter of them; but Pat they didn’t know, and they see’d he warn’t the man to handle ‘old Bull-Dog.’ I used to call my rifle Bull-Dog, cause she always bit afore she barked.
“Pat threw one foot out astarn, like a skullin’ oar, and then bent forrards like a hoop, and fetched the rifle slowly up to the line, and shot to the right eye. Chee, chee, chee, went the squirrel. He see’d it was wrong. ‘By the powers!’ sais Pat, ‘this is a left-handed boot,’ and he brought the gun to the other shoulder, and then shot to his left eye. ‘Fegs!’ sais Pat, ‘this gun was made for a squint eye, for I can’t get a right strait sight of the critter, either side.’ So I fixt it for him and told him which eye to sight by. ‘An excellent gun entirely,’ sais Pat, ‘but it tante made like the rifles we have.’
“Ain’t they strange critters, them Irish, Squire? That feller never handled a rifle afore in all his born days; but unless it was to a priest, he wouldn’t confess that much for the world. They are as bad as the English that way; they always pretend they know every thing.
“ ‘Come, Pat,’ sais I, ‘blaze away now.’ Back goes the hind leg agin, up bends the back, and Bull-Dog rises slowly to his shoulder; and then he stared, and stared, until his arm shook like palsy. Chee, chee, chee, went the squirrel agin, louder than ever, as much as to say, ‘Why the plague don’t you fire? I’m not a goin’ to stand here all day, for you this way,’ and then throwin’ his tail over his back, he jumped on to the next branch.
“ ‘By the piper that played before Moses!’ sais Pat, ‘I’ll stop your chee, chee, cheein’ for you, you chatterin’ spalpeen of a devil, you’. So he ups with the rifle agin, takes a fair aim at him, shuts both eyes, turns his head round, and fires; and “Bull-Dog,” findin’ he didn’t know how to hold her tight to the shoulder, got mad, and kicked him head over heels, on the broad of his back. Pat got up, a makin’ awful wry faces, and began to limp, to show how lame his shoulder was, and to rub his arm, to see if he had one left, and the squirrel ran about the tree hoppin’ mad, hollerin’ out as loud as it could scream, chee, chee, chee.
“ ‘Oh bad luck to you,’ sais Pat, ‘if you had a been at t’other eend of the gun,’ and he rubbed his shoulder agin, and cried like a baby, ‘you wouldn’t have said chee, chee, chee, that way, I know.’
“Now when your gun, Squire, was a knockin’ over Blue-nose, and makin’ a proper fool of him, and a knockin’ over Jonathan, and a spilin’ of his bran-new clothes, the English sung out chee, chee, chee, till all was blue agin. You had an excellent gun entirely then: let’s see if they will sing out chee, chee, chee, now, when we take a shot at them. Do you take?” and he laid his thumb on his nose, as if perfectly satisfied with the application of his story. “Do you take, Squire? you have an excellent gun entirely, as Pat says. It’s what I call puttin’ the leake into ’em properly. If you had a written this book fust, the English would have said your gun was no good; it wouldn’t have been like the rifles they had seen. Lord, I could tell you stories about the English, that would make even them cryin’ devils the Mississippi crocodiles laugh, if they was to hear ’em.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Slick,” I said, “this is not the temper with which you should visit England.”
“What is the temper,” he replied with much warmth, “that they visit us in? Cuss ’em! Look at Dickens; was there ever a man made so much of, except La Fayette? And who was Dickens? Not a Frenchman that is a friend to us, not