The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth

No uncommon type of our "Young America" is Mister Solomon Smooth, the individual whose part in these sketches was performed for General Pierce in particular, and "Uncle Sam" in...

"Dear Uncle--Once upon a time you were called Sam; but now that the reign of Pierce is upon us it is difficult to tell what you may not be called. Not long since you were the so...

"At length, Uncle Sam, I found myself somebody; and while looking about me on the many well-dressed and very good-natured gentlemen who subsisted on the hope of your generosity,...

"Smooth had just stowed himself away in the shape of a figure 4, when there came a voice as husky as Uncle Zack Peabody's conk, (which said conk had been used to blow his way th...

"Leaving Cass holding on at the slippery roof. I dreamed that the ghost of Benton, in contemplation bestrode the summit of the Rocky Mountains; that 'Young America,' like a Colo...

"As Uncle Sam is equally careless of his language and cash, he will excuse a crooked beginning and accept a straight ending. Contemplating my crooked dream I confess I waked up...

"'Good morning, Mr. Smooth!' saluted the fat man behind the mahogany, as I entered the office, having escaped from my perilous position in the seventh story. In addition, he too...

"Down, down, down, went, groping my way (significant of the General's policy) through a long dark passage, whence came a rancorous stench, strong enough to kill cats and doubtfu...

"Well, Uncle Sam, I reckoned I'd seen enough of the kitchen arrangements; so I left them scraping the General--that is, getting off the injured outside, in order to see what rea...

"When the nations of Europe give themselves up to the sword, let us aggrandize ours with the arts of peace. This is my talisman. In that commerce which is our nation's pride the...

"Day dawned through the gray mist of the East, as crowding the old institution, we sailed swiftly through the air, over the calm Pacific. Soon San Francisco seemed but a speck i...

"'This side up--with care!' said I, finding we must come down, and keeping an eye on John, who looked as burly as a drifting ale pipe in a head sea, and whispered something abou...

"Shanghai seemed a place of adventures and uncertain speculations; its people were a medley of all sorts of human kind badly propounded. Perhaps I should except that numerous ge...

"Difficult is it for a man travelling in a country where everything seems crooked, to keep up straight ideas. I have said crooked, for where nature has been most profuse in her...

"Few would have supposed that when Minister Smooth left General Pierce and his waggish cabinet he would so soon have taken a turn round the world, and fetched up in that world o...

"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 her...

"Smooth being a great man, as well as Mr. Pierce's minister in general--and citizen Peabody being no less great in diplomacy, which he illustrated in the most substantial manner...

"Mr. President Pierce, who was by his friends supposed to be a comical and very small miniature of General Jackson's political school, and whose cabinet was of the Bunkum stripe...

"Several months having passed, during which no further instructions from the General came to hand, I began to think he had forgotten my mission, and taken himself to dieting on...

"'Now, citizen!' said I, thinking it was about time I disclosed to Mr. Prompt who I was, and also the character of my mission, 'as you seem to be the establishment in general, a...

"Our passage was attended with extremely pleasant weather; and nothing remarkable occurred, except that the Dutch crew thought Mr. Buckhanan a very great man, and the object of...

"In days not altogether halcyon, I had a venerable great-uncle, a quaint specimen of human infirmity, the singularity of the parish. Though eccentric at times, he was not destit...

"Readers, and fellow citizens of these United States in general! know ye, that I, Solomon Smooth, in the first person singular, as Uncle Sam Houston used to say, being worn out...

"Mr. Smooth, a young man of the fast school, has been calculating, during his tour in Europe, the saving it would be to nations if they would but let their wars out by the job t...

"Mr. Smooth (I write after the style most in fashion), having been associated with Mr. Pierce, whose Minister in general he was, as has been set forth in this history, is come t...

"The good people of Nova Scotia were, in days gone by, exceedingly given to Toryism, and, as was then held to be the natural result, very loyal. To such an extent was this loyal...

"Nova Scotia being what a South Carolinian would call a hard country to live in (though the people were proverbially kind, and hospitable, and loyal, and simple-minded), Smooth,...

"Smooth, on returning to the arms of Mr. Pierce, concluded it would not be bad policy to touch at Halifax, meet Uncle John Bull's Commissioner, and with him make a final settlem...