His feet, which were of unusually large proportions, were leisurely crossed before him as he half leaned against, half sat upon, the steamboat's bulwark; and his thick cane, shod with a mighty ferule at one end and armed with a great metal knob at the other, depended from a line-and-tassel on his wrist.

Thus attired, and thus composed into an aspect of great profundity, the gentleman twitched up the right-hand corner of his mouth and his right eye simultaneously, and said, once more: 'It is in such enlightened means that the bubbling passions of my country find a vent.' As he looked at Martin, and nobody else was by, Martin inclined his head, and said: 'You allude to-- ?' 'To the Palladium of rational Liberty at home, sir, and the dread of Foreign oppression abroad,' returned the gentleman, as he pointed with his cane to an uncommonly dirty newsboy with one eye.

'To the Envy of the world, sir, and the leaders of Human Civilization.

Let me ask you sir,' he added, bringing the ferule of his stick heavily upon the deck with the air of a man who must not be equivocated with, 'how do you like my Country ?' 'I am hardly prepared to answer that question yet,' said Martin 'seeing that I have not been ashore.' 'Well, I should expect you were not prepared, sir,' said the gentleman, 'to behold such signs of National Prosperity as those ?' He pointed to the vessels lying at the wharves; and then gave a vague flourish with his stick, as if he would include the air and water, generally, in this remark.
'Really,' said Martin, 'I don't know.Yes.I think I was.' The gentleman glanced at him with a knowing look, and said he liked his policy.

It was natural, he said, and it pleased him as a philosopher to observe the prejudices of human nature.
'You have brought, I see, sir,' he said, turning round towards Martin, and resting his chin on the top of his stick, 'the usual amount of misery and poverty and ignorance and crime, to be located in the bosom of the great Republic.