I have always
thought since, that the rest at that one conversational oasis, just
enabled me to hold on to the hither verge of Sahara.
The next eight days seem nearly blank to me now. I was past reading
anything, for I could scarcely make out the capitals with which the
journalists headed their daily bits of romance from Vicksburg and
elsewhere. It was with great difficulty that I scrawled detached
sentences at long intervals--a difficulty that, I fear, some unhappy
compositor, doomed to decipher the foregoing pages, will thoroughly
appreciate, though he may decline to sympathize with.
I had one passage of arms with the Superintendent during that week. I
have an idea that I spoke somewhat freely with regard to the
Administration that he had the honor to serve, pressing him for a
justification of its conduct in my own especial case.
The official listened quite coolly and calmly, with a twinkle of
amusement in his shrewd cynical eyes, and answered:
"Well, we've had a good bit of trouble with England and English this
year; and I reckon they think they've got a pretty fair-sized fish now,
and mean to keep him, whether or no."
"That's Republican justice, all over," I said; "to make the one that you
can catch, pay for the dozen that you can't, or that you are afraid to
grapple with.
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