Now, sir, none but a patriot could, in the nature of things, endure this without some other motive than his country's good, and so we esteem them." "But the most patriotic patriots, commodore ?" The minister of Leaphigh now toed the mark again, placing himself within a few feet of the point of junction between the two lines, and then he begged me to pay particular attention to his evolution.

When all was ready, the commodore threw himself, as it were, invisibly into the air, again head over heels, so far as I could discover, and alighted on the antagonist line, toeing the mark with a most astonishing particularity.
It was a clever gyration, beyond a doubt; and the performer looked towards me, as if inviting commendation.
"Admirably executed, judge, and in a way to induce one to believe that you must have paid great attention to the practice." "I have performed this manoeuvre, Sir John, five times in real life; and my claim to be a patriotic patriot is founded on its invariable success.
A single false step might have ruined me; but as you say, practice makes perfect, and perfection is the parent of success." "And yet I do not rightly understand how so sudden a desertion of one's own side, to go over in this active manner head over heels, I may say, to another side, constitutes a fair claim to be deemed so pure a character as that of a patriot." "What, sir, is not he who throws himself defencelessly into the very middle of the ranks of the enemy, the hero of the combat?
Now, as this is a political struggle, and not a warlike struggle, but one in which the good of the country is alone uppermost, the monikin who thus manifests the greatest devotion to the cause, must be the purest patriot.

I give you my honor, sir, all my own claims are founded entirely on this particular merit." "He is right, Sir John; you may believe every word he says," observed the brigadier, nodding.
"I begin to understand your system, which is certainly well adapted to the monikin habits, and must give rise to a noble emulation in the practice of the rotatory principle.

But I understood you to say, colonel, that the people of Leaplow are from the hive of Leaphigh ?" "Just so, sir." "How happens it, then, that you dock yourselves of the nobler member, while the inhabitants of this country cherish it as the apple of the eye--nay, as the seat of reason itself ?" "You allude to our tails ?--Why, sir, nature has dealt out these ornaments with a very unequal hand, as you may perceive on looking out of the window.

We agree that the tail is the seat of reason, and that the extremities are the most intellectual parts; but, as governments are framed to equalize these natural inequalities, we denounce them as anti-republican.