Happy and prosperous in the Far West wasn't I?
You know that. Principal citizen of Hawkeye, looked up to by everybody,
kind of an autocrat, actually a kind of an autocrat, Washington. Well,
nothing would do but I must go Minister to St. James, the Governor and
everybody insisting, you know, and so at last I consented--no getting out
of it, had to do it, so here I came. A day too late, Washington. Think
of that--what little things change the world's history--yes, sir, the
place had been filled. Well, there I was, you see. I offered to
compromise and go to Paris. The President was very sorry and all that,
but that place, you see, didn't belong to the West, so there I was again.
There was no help for it, so I had to stoop a little--we all reach the
day some time or other when we've got to do that, Washington, and it's
not a bad thing for us, either, take it by and large and all around
--I had to stoop a little and offer to take Constantinople. Washington,
consider this--for it's perfectly true--within a month I asked for China;
within another month I begged for Japan; one year later I was away down,
down, down, supplicating with tears and anguish for the bottom office in
the gift of the government of the United States--Flint-Picker in the
cellars of the War Department.
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