“Acting upon the principle so many of our countrymen unhappily develop, (thinking nobody could hear of it on the other side of the water,) Mr. Smooth chartered a donkey-cart, put his donkeys in shining liveries, and was determined to outdo the Choctaws in making London astonished.  The most expensive tailor in Regent street did up the external, as he had before so many of my very simple-minded countrymen.  Such a suit of toggery as it was!  Alongside of me General Scott would have looked shy, I reckon.  And then, when the big cocked hat was spread!  I tell you, Uncle Sam, there as no touching Smooth—­he was half-duke, half-beadle, and the rest Pierce diplomatist.  ’If a dash ain’t cut among the nobs!’ thought I. The donkey turn out was a curiosity, Smooth himself was a curiosity; and with two curiosities an excitement was certain.  My first dash was into Hyde Park, near the entrance of which stood the brazen statue of a gladiator, raised by fair hands, in commemoration of the Iron Duke, whose indelible deeds they would emblazon on hardest brass.  In this park, at fashionable hours, sauntered the nice young men of the West End; that is, the biggest snobs of the fashionable world; but Smooth took the shine out of the whole lot, as did nearly all the rest of Mr. Pierce’s little folks.  Had he, however, turned out in the flummery of some of his contemporary snobs, and driven thus equipped into Cape Cod, a town-meeting, to take into consideration the sending him to a place where straight-jackets are worn, had been the result.  But in London a man may make almost any kind of a fool of himself, without applying for a license.  Indeed, the man most earnest in making an ass of himself may do it, with the satisfaction of knowing that he has a very large number of very respectable families for patrons.  In Hyde Park the greatest asses (a name and the needful may be necessary) have the most followers.  Longest ears are not the surest indices.  After all, my reader must excuse me for not visiting the purlieus of Downing street just yet, having a few of Mr. Pierce’s little folks to pack up and send home to Fourney, with instructions that he give them a few more turns on his grindstone.

CHAPTER XV.

HIS LITTLE LORDSHIP’S SHOW, AND A PEEP INTO DOWNING-STREET.

“Uncle Sam!—­if, beside yourself, there exists outside of Cape Cod another individual who would like to see Mr. Thomas Foolery move in state most perfect, just send him over here:  he must be present on that day when the little Lord Mayor makes a great man of himself.  A great man is the Lord Mayor on that day on which he sacrifices all his good sense to an ancient and much-beloved show, in which he permits himself to be made the fool of the farce.  No Choctaw war-train was ever half so extravagant of colored cloth and feathers.  A great day for London loafers is it, when my Lord Mayor puts on the big chain, and issues his mandate