“Mister, I’m canvassing for the National Portrait Gallery; splendid work; comes in numbers, fifty cents apiece.  Contains pictures of all the great American heroes from the earliest times to the present day.  Everybody’s subscribing for it, and I want to see if I can’t take your name.

“Now, just cast your eyes over that,” he said, opening his book and pointing to an engraving.  “That’s—­lemme see—­yes, that’s Columbus.  Perhaps you’ve heard sumfin about him?  The publisher was telling me to-day, before I started out, that he discovered—­No; was it Columbus that dis—­Oh yes!  Columbus, he discovered America.  Was the first man here.  He came over in a ship, the publisher said, and it took fire, and he stayed on deck because his father told him to, if I remember right; and when the old thing busted to pieces, he was killed.  Handsome picture, ain’t it?  Taken from a photograph; all of ’em are; done specially for this work.  His clothes are kinder odd, but they say that’s the way they dressed in those days.

“Look here at this one.  Now, isn’t that splendid?  William Penn; one of the early settlers.  I was reading the other day about him; when he first arrived, he got a lot of Indians up a tree, and when they’d shook some apples down, he set one on top of his son’s head and shot an arrow plumb through it, and never fazed him.  They say it struck them Indians cold, he was such a terrific shooter.  Fine countenance, hasn’t he?  Face shaved clean; he didn’t wear a mustache, I believe, but he seems to’ve let himself out on hair.  Now, my view is that every man ought to have a picture of that patriarch, so’s to see how the first settlers looked and what kind of weskits they used to wear.  See his legs, too!  Trousers a little short, maybe, as if he was going to wade in a creek; but he’s all there.  Got some kind of a paper in his hand, I see.  Subscription list, I reckon.

“Now, how does that strike you?  There’s something nice.  That, I think, is—­is—­that is—­a—­a—­yes, to be sure, Washington.  You recollect him, of course.  Some people call him ’Father of his Country,’ George Washington.  Had no middle name, I believe.  He lived about two hundred years ago, and he was a fighter.  I heard the publisher telling a man about him crossing the Delaware River up yer at Trenton, and seems to me, if I recollect right, I’ve read about it myself.  He was courting some girl on the Jersey side, and he used to swim over at nights to see her, when the old man was asleep.  The girl’s family were down on him, I reckon.  He looks like the man to do that, now, don’t he?  He’s got it in his eye.  If it’d been me, I’d a gone over on the bridge, but he probably wanted to show off before her; some men are so reckless.  Now, if you’ll go in on this thing, I’ll get the publisher to write out some more stories about him, and bring ’em around to you, so’s you can study up on him.  I know he did ever so many other things, but I’ve forgot ’em; my memory’s so thundering poor.