Toward the close of Thanksgiving, how manifest becomes the influence of this feathered sovereign.  Observe yonder jaundiced youth pacing the street moodily, his lips set in a cynic sneer.  His turkey was lean.  I know it.  He cannot hide that turkey.  The gaunt fowl obtrudes himself from every part.  On the other hand, none but the primest of prime turkeys could have set in motion this brisk old gentleman with the ruddy check and hale, clear eye, whom we next pass.  A most stanch and royal turkey lurks behind that portly front—­a sound and fresh animal, with plenty of cranberries to boot.—­What are these soldiers?  Carpet-knights who have united their thanks over a grand regimental banquet.  What frisky gobblers they have shared in, to be sure!  They prance and amble over the pavements as if they had absorbed the very soul of Chanticleer, and fancied themselves once more princes of the barnyard.  The most singular and freakish of the turkey’s manifestations this, by far!

Indeed, on a review of these suggestive facts, we cannot but feel a marvellous reverence for the potent cock, established as patron of this feast.  This sentiment is wide-spread among our people, and perhaps it is not too fanciful to predict that it will some day expand itself to a cultus like that of the Egyptian APIS, or, more properly, the Stork of Japan.  The advanced civilization of the Chinese, indeed, has already made the Chicken an object of religious veneration.  In the slow march of ages we shall perhaps develop our as yet crude and imperfect religions into an exalted worship of the Turkey.  Then shall the symbolic bird, trussed as for Thanksgiving, be enshrined in all our temples, and the multitudes making pilgrimage from afar to such sanctuaries shall be greeted by an inscription over the temple-gate of BRILLAT SAVARIN’S axiom:—­

“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”

* * * * *

BOOTS.

MR. PUNCHINELLO:—­Breaking in a young span of boots is ecstasy, or would be, if fitting bootmakers could be found; but there’s the pinch, though they do give you fits sometimes.

Getting tailored to suit me, the next thing was to get booted, I succeeded.  It cost me nineteen dollars.

I’d willingly return the compliment for nothing.

At last my boots were finished, and I went into them right and left; at least, I tried so to do.

With every nerve flashing lightning, I pulled and tugged most thrillingly, but in vain.

“There’s no putting my foot in it,” says I.

“Give one more try,” says he.

Although almost tried out, I generously gave one more.  I placed the bootmaker’s awl in one strap, and his last-hook in the other, and with “two roses” mantling my cheeks, postured for the contest.

I tried the heeling process, and earnestly endeavored to toe the mark; but to successfully start the thing on foot was a bootless effort.