as Billy Button to hosts of familiar friends—­was, I think, a Kentuckian by birth; a fact which might honestly account for his having come by the loss of an eye through some operation by which marks of violence had been left upon the surrounding tracts of his rugged countenance.  He was a short, thick-set man, with bow-legs like those of a bull-terrier, and walked with a heavy lurch in his gait.  William’s head was of immense size in proportion to his stature.  Indeed, that important joint of his person must have been a division by about two of what artists term heroic proportions, or eight heads to a height,—­a standard by which Button was barred from being a hero, for his head could hardly have been much less than a fourth of his entire length.  The expression of his face was remarkably typical of American humor and shrewdness, an effect much aided by the chronic wink afforded by his closed eye.  How Button found his way to this remote spot would have been a puzzle to any person unfamiliar with American character.  How he managed to live among and deal with and very considerably master a community speaking no language with which he was acquainted was more unaccountable still.  The inn could not have been a very profitable speculation, in itself; but there was one room in it fitted out with a display of Indian manufactures,—­some of the articles reposing in glass cases to protect them from hands and dust, others arranged with negligent regularity upon the walls.  Out of these the landlord made a good penny, as he charged an extensive percentage upon the original cost,—­that is, to strangers; but if you were in Button’s confidence, then was there no better fellow to intrust with a negotiation for a pair of snow-shoes, or moose-horns, or anything else in that line of business.  In the winter season he was a great instigator of moose- and caribou-expeditions to the districts where these animals abound, assembling for this purpose the best Indian hunters to be found in the neighborhood, and accompanying the party himself.  Out of the spoils of these expeditions he sometimes made a handsome profit:  a good pair of moose-horns, for instance, used to fetch from six to ten dollars; and there is always a demand for the venison in the Quebec market.  The skins were manufactured into moccason-leather by Indian adepts whom Button had in his pay, and who worked for a very low rate of remuneration,—­quite disproportioned, indeed, to the fancy prices always paid by strangers for the articles turned out by their hands.

The name “Billy Button” carries with it an association oddly corroborated by a story narrated of himself by the man of whom I am speaking.  Of all the reminiscences connected with the illegitimate drama that have dwelt with me from my early childhood until now, not one is more vividly impressed upon my memory than that standard old comedy on horseback performed by circus-riders long since gone to rest, and entitled “Billy Button’s Journey to