——­How high is Bosting meet’n’-house?—­said a person with black whiskers and imperial, a velvet waistcoat, a guard-chain rather too massive, and a diamond pin so very large that the most trusting nature might confess an inward suggestion,—­of course, nothing amounting to a suspicion.  For this is a gentleman from a great city, and sits next to the landlady’s daughter, who evidently believes in him, and is the object of his especial attention.

How high?—­said the little man.—­As high as the first step of the stairs that lead to the New Jerusalem.  Isn’t that high enough?

It is,—­I said.—­The great end of being is to harmonize man with the order of things; and the church has been a good pitch-pipe, and may be so still.  But who shall tune the pitch-pipe? Quis cus——­(On the whole, as this quotation was not entirely new, and, being in a foreign language, might not be familiar to all the boarders, I thought I would not finish it.)

——­Go to the Bible!—­said a sharp voice from a sharp-faced, sharp-eyed, sharp-elbowed, strenuous-looking woman in a black dress, appearing as if it began as a piece of mourning and perpetuated itself as a bit of economy.

You speak well, Madam,—­I said;—­yet there is room for a gloss or commentary on what you say.  “He who would bring back the wealth of the Indies must carry out the wealth of the Indies.”  What you bring away from the Bible depends to some extent on what you carry to it—­Benjamin Franklin!  Be so good as to step up to my chamber and bring me down the small uncovered pamphlet of twenty pages which you will find lying under the “Cruden’s Concordance.” [The boy took a large bite, which left a very perfect crescent in the slice of bread-and-butter he held, and departed on his errand, with the portable fraction of his breakfast to sustain him on the way.]

Here it is.  “Go to the Bible.  A Dissertation, etc., etc.  By J.J.  Flournoy.  Athens, Georgia. 1858.”

Mr. Flournoy, Madam, has obeyed the precept which you have judiciously delivered.  You may be interested, Madam, to know what are the conclusions at which Mr. J.J.  Flournoy of Athens, Georgia, has arrived.  You shall hear, Madam.  He has gone to the Bible, and he has come back from the Bible, bringing a remedy for existing social evils, which, if it is the real specific, as it professes to be, is of great interest to humanity, and to the female part of humanity in particular.  It is what he calls trigamy, Madam, or the marrying of three wives, so that “good old men” may be solaced at once by the companionship of the wisdom of maturity, and of those less perfected but hardly less engaging qualities which are found at an earlier period of life.  He has followed your precept, Madam; I hope you accept his conclusions.

The female boarder in black attire looked so puzzled, and, in fact, “all abroad,” after the delivery of this “counter” of mine, that I left her to recover her wits, and went on with the conversation, which I was beginning to get pretty well in hand.