Oh, cuss 'em, I have no patience with them.

Well, there was an officer of a marchin' regiment there, who it seems ought to have took down the words and sent 'em up to the head Gineral, but he was a knowin' coon, was officer, and _didn't hear it_.
No sooner said than done; some one else did the dirty work for him; but you can't have a substitute for this, you must sarve in person, so the old Gineral hawls him right up for it.
"'Why the plague, didn't you make a fuss ?' sais the General, 'why didn't you get right up, and break up the party ?' "'I didn't hear it,' sais he.
"'You didn't hear it!' sais Old Sword-belt, 'then you had ought to have heerd it; and for two pins, I'd sharpen your hearin' for you, so that a snore of a fly would wake you up, as if a byler had bust.' "Oh, how it has lowered the English in the eyes of foreigners! How sneakin' it makes 'em look! They seem for all the world like scared dogs; and a dog when he slopes off with his head down, his tail atween his legs, and his back so mean it won't bristle, is a caution to sinners.Lord.I wish I was Queen!" "What, of such a degraded race as you say the English are, of such a mean-spirited, sneaking nation ?" "Well, they warn't always so," he replied.

"I will say that, for I have no prejudice.

By natur, there is sunthin' noble and manly in a Britisher, and always was, till this cussed Spy System got into fashion.
They tell me it was the Liberals first brought it into vogue.

How that is.