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"Gentlemen," said he, "let me tell you a modest fact: seven-eighths of the secession fire-eaters don't know what the proper meaning of government is: I make the charge against my own people-but it is true." "Traitor! traitor! traitor to South Carolina," was sounded at the top of a dozen voices. "Then, if I am such in your opinions, I'm gratified to know that my feelings are my own. Good-night!"
British seamen seldom wish to avoid a fight, but on the present occasion few on board were such fire-eaters as not to hope that they might keep well ahead of their foes. The two frigates were rapidly gaining on the Ione; another half-hour, or even less, and she would be within range of their guns.
I have thought occasionally since of that editorial and of the thousands of sedentary fire-eaters and hate-mongers like the writer of it men who live forever in a cloud of words, bounce from one nervous reaction to another without ever touching the ground, and, rejoicing in their eloquence, go down from their comfortable breakfasts to their comfortable offices morning after morning and demand slaughter, annihilation, heaven knows what not men who could not endure for ten minutes that small part of war which any frail girl of a trained nurse endures hour after hour every morning as part of the day's work.
He calls all his fire-eaters about him, all those into whom he had more particularly put the devil, and talks to them in this way: "'My friends, for the time being they are giving us Egypt to stop our mouths. But we will swallow down Egypt in a brace of shakes, just as we swallowed Italy, and private soldiers shall be princes, and shall have broad lands of their own. Forward!
"Damn my honor, M'Clutchy" for that was now the usual respectful tone of his address to him "were you not a precious old villain to allow me to take the chair yesterday, when you knew what cursed fire-eaters these Hartleys are?" "That, Phil, comes of your drinking brandy so early in the day.
On the other hand, there were Republicans in that Body who sturdily met the bluster of the Southern Fire-eaters with frank and courageous words expressing their full convictions on the situation and their belief that Concessions could not be made and that Compromises were mere waste paper.
Once, at the end of his byplay between the two young fire-eaters, the sea lurched in earnest, a mighty pitch that threw tipstaff sprawling across the table. And the beer went full in the face of the marquis. "There's a health to you, Forêt!" roared the merchant in whirlwinds of laughter. But the marquis had gone heels over head.
"Do any of you young fire-eaters ever listen to more than one tenth of what any of your elders say?
Some of the party experienced sharp pains in the tips of their ears, and in the septum of the nose, while others felt a pain in their eyes. It has sometimes been noted in the foregoing pages, that fire-eaters, finding it difficult to invent new effects in their own sphere, have strayed into other fields of endeavor in order to amplify their programmes.
His service in Congress began amid exciting debates over the compromise measures of 1850, when the Southern fire-eaters were already rampant.
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