That imperial first transgressor had the fickle imaginations of his people to dazzle by paying off certain old scores; even now how beautifully he plays the disinterested to curtain the designs of his ambition!  John, nevertheless, did wake from his years of stupor to find himself in an uncertain position;—­this was manifest by the manner in which he assumed a contemplative mood.  A few shakes at the hands of his rougher politicians aroused his apprehension of being swamped in the political perplexity.  Mr. Smooth paused, and took a careful view of the venerable old man, that he might learn something more of him.  ‘Stranger.’ said I, ‘what on earth has brought you here?’

“He canted his head, as if it were thickish, gave a dignified look, and again turned to his meditations;—­’Beg pardon, but I don’t know you,’ he grumbled.

“’Social’s the word, John; be social, and give us an inkling of your motive for that peculiar position you unwittingly find yourself in.’  The salutation seemed to excite his astonishment.  He was a stranger to such familiarity—­rudeness, if so you may please to call it; and turned from me, his movements assimilating to those of a turtle with a coal of fire on his back.

“‘You are who?’ he returned, in a gruff voice, a scowl of contempt invading his broad face.

“‘Smooth, from Down East!’ I replied,—­’who do you think it is?’ To make the point more convincing, I started up Yankee Doodle, which I whistled with the variations.

“‘You are not only an intruder, but an impertinent fellow!’

“’Needn’t feel disagreeable about it.  Smooth—­a man of standing in his diggins, and Young America’s independent delegate, has only come to take a bird’s-eye view of the way things look about this seat of war.’

“‘Who the devil is Mr. Smooth?  I know he has no business here!’ again grumbled the old man.

“‘Don’t know Solomon Smooth, eh?’

“’No, don’t nor do I want to.  You are always making difficulty wherever you go, probing your nose into everybody’s business.  You may be a keen fellow in commerce, but in diplomacy you are impertinent and quite beside yourself.  You better be off from here, inasmuch as I am the biggest toad in this puddle, and mean to remain so.  We are not inclined to know anything about Mr. Smooth; so the quicker he packs himself and his baggage up and is off from this, the better.’  The earnestness with which he said this left me no reason to doubt his intention to remain the biggest toad of the pool.

“’Mr. Smooth, something of a man in Washington, holds a contrary opinion, and claims a right to know the ins and outs of what is going on outside of your dominions, as well as inside his own, and to insinuate himself into just what it may please him,’ I replied in the measured manner of an experienced diplomatist.

“‘Perhaps you have,’ he interrupted, ’but if you were possessed of ordinary modesty, you would refrain from intermeddling when you saw what a blasted time I had to keep that great Bear, across there, from breaking his chain and devouring everything on this side.’