Man approximated to the Mule ideal of gentility when he began to suspect that the entire system of army team discipline rested on a false basis. But that suspicion had not dawned at the close of the war for the suppression of the rebellion--if, indeed, it has yet dawned. The platform of the Mule millennial: Six quarts of oats at a feed; a blanket; two curry-combs of assorted fineness; no spurs; no whip; no cursing--this was a dim vision of futurity; alluring but delusive as the seductive rustle of grain in a tin pan, with the ensnaring halter deftly hidden.
Fortunately for the Mule his epidermis was thick and tough, a non-conductor of pain, as it were; fortunately for his flagitious tormentor, likewise for other glowing lights of genus human, he was speechless. If the Mule could talk! What new aspects would be given to war-memoirs; what side-gleams would be thrown on historic events; what showers and floods of reinforcement would be added to the gurgling, vasty streams of patriotic reminiscence. He had his opinions on the conduct of the war, and on the character of the warriors, also the teamsters; but those opinions remain unrecorded and to all intents and purposes unexpressed. He reserved them, which would be deliciously sweet of him, don't you know, if it had not been involuntary and unavoidable.
Out in Oregon, apples grow to the diameter of Daniel Webster's skull, though with diluted flavor and contradictory aromas, it is claimed; but the inefficiently tutored Shoshone nevertheless affects his _dejeuner_ of decayed salmon whose aroma is indisputable and widely permeative. Arizona, latitude some hundreds of feet below the sea level, offers a splendid climate in exceptionally large quantities, where the insidious and terrible tubercle is unknown; but some of her citizens are accused of entertaining loose opinions as to the strict enforcement of law, and low, coarse views of the editorial function.
At Spuyten-Duyvel-on-Hudson, the local four hundred, exploiting the astrakhan hair and chinchilla whiskers inherited from a fused Iroquois and Rotterdam ancestry, can only be coaxed into activity by an elaborate expenditure of stimulants; then, however, they will very cheerfully pump you full of sententious legendary lore while you wait. In Rhode Island, walk under the mistletoe with a young lady and tradition will do the rest. In Chicago, hand an attractive widow out of a cable car, and gossips will supply all necessary additional ingredients for a five-column sensation. Thus every locality has its advantages and its drawbacks, its vexations and its compensations. By parallel lines of illustration it may be demonstrated that what the Mule lacks in volubility he fully makes up in sagaciousness.