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e hangs.
----That's a good joke,--said the young fellow John,--considerin' it commonly belongs to a female Paddy.
I thought--I will not be certain--that Little Boston winked, as if he had been hit somewhere,--as I have no doubt Dr. Darwin did when the _wooden-spoon_ suggestion upset his theory about why, etc. If he winked, however, he did not dodge.
A lively comment!--he said.--But Rome, in her great founder, sucked the blood of empire out of the dugs of a brute, Sir! The Milesian wet-nurse is only a convenient vessel through which the American infant gets the life-blood of this virgin soil, Sir, that is making man over again, on the sunset pattern! You don't think what we are doing and going to do here. Why, Sir, while commentators are bothering themselves with interpretation of prophecies, we have got the new heavens and the new earth over us and under us! Was there ever anything in Italy, I should like to know, like a Boston sunset?
----This time there was a laugh, and the little man himself almost smiled.
Yes,--Boston sunsets;--perhaps they're as good in some other places, but I know 'em best here. Anyhow, the American skies are different from anything they see in the Old World. Yes, and the rocks are different, and the soil is different, and everything that comes out of the soil, from grass up to Indians, is different. And now that the provisional races are dying out----
----What do you mean by the provisional races, Sir?--said the divinity-student, interrupting him.
Why, the aboriginal bipeds, to be sure,--he answered,--the red-crayon sketch of humanity laid on the canvas before the colors for the real manhood were ready.
I hope they will come to something yet,--said the divinity-student.
Irreclaimable, Sir,--irreclaimable!--said the little gentleman.--Cheaper to breed white men than domesticate a nation of red ones. When you can get the bitter out of the partridge's thigh, you can make an enlightened commonwealth of I