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All this was smooth and fair,--done in the spirit of
our go-ahead, all-accomplished diplomacy.'
"'Ah!' interrupted Littlejohn, 'your appetite for bits of territory
runs monstrously that way.'
"'Yes!' I replied; 'but, John, give us your hand-on that point we may
honestly embrace, and declare ourselves now even two. You are as
modest as an archbishop on salary day, and seldom openly embrace
territory; we prefer the frank style in all our adoptions. Let us not
quarrel over that--you love freedom, we love free government. Our
political thoughts are moulded in one die, though self-interest may
vary them. To be mutually just toward each other, to live on terms of
friendship, and preserve that amity which is our bulwark, serves well
that unity of great principles which conserves and preserves our
happiness. Yea! cursed be the hand, and stagnate the breath raised
against that peace and good-will which saves us from the monster of
war.' Here I grasped firmly and earnestly John's hand, and would fain
he forgot the past and thought only of the future.


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