“Good evenin’, Mrs. Newt,” said a voice in another part of the room.  “Good-evenin’, marm.  I sez to ma, Now ma, sez I, you’d better go to Mrs. Kingfisher’s ball.  Law, pa, sez she, I reckon ’twill be so werry hot to Mrs. Kingfisher’s that I’d better stay to home, sez she.  So she staid.  Well, ‘tis dreadful hot, Mrs. Newt.  I’m all in a muck.  As I was a-puttin’ on my coat, I sez, Now, ma, sez I, I hate to wear that coat, sez I. A man does git so nasty sweaty in a great, thick coat, sez I. Whew!  I’m all sticky.”

And Mr. Van Boozenberg worked himself in his garments and stretched his arms to refresh himself.

Mrs. Boniface Newt, to whom he made this oration, had been taught by her husband that Mr. Van Boozenberg was an oaf, but an oaf whose noise was to be listened to with the utmost patience and respect.  “He’s a brute, my dear; but what can we do?  When I am rich we can get rid of such people.”

On the other hand, Jacob Van Boozenberg had his little theory of Boniface Newt, which, unlike that worthy commission merchant, he did not impart to his ma and the partner of his bosom, but locked up in the vault of his own breast.  Mr. Van B. gloried in being what he called a self-made man.  He was proud of his nasal twang and his want of grammar, and all amenities and decencies of speech.  He regarded them as inseparable from his success.  He even affected them in the company of those who were peculiarly elegant, and was secretly suspicious of the mercantile paper of all men who were unusually neat in their appearance, and who spoke their native language correctly.  The partner of his bosom was the constant audience of his self-glorification.

A little while before, her lord had returned one day to dinner, and said, with a tone of triumph,

“Well, ma, Gerald Bennet & Co. have busted up—­smashed all to pieces.  Always knew they would.  I sez to you, ma, a hundred times—­don’t you remember?—­Now, ma, sez I, ’tain’t no use.  He’s been to college, and he talks grammar, and all that; but what’s the use?  What’s the use of talkin’ grammar?  Don’t help nothin’.  A man feels kind o’ stuck up when he’s been to college.  But, ma, sez I, gi’ me a self-made man—­a man what knows werry well that twice two’s four.  A self-made man ain’t no time for grammar, sez I. If a man expects to get on in this world he mustn’t be too fine.  This is the second time Bennet’s busted.  Better have no grammar and more goods, sez I. You remember—­hey, ma?”

When, a little while afterward, Mr. Bennet applied for a situation as book-keeper in the bank of which Mr. Van Boozenberg was president, that officer hung, drew, and quartered the English language, before the very eyes of Mr. Bennet, to show him how he despised it, and to impress him with the great truth that he, Jacob Van Boozenberg, a self-made man, who had no time to speak correctly, nor to be comely or clean, was yet a millionaire before whom Wall Street trembled—­while