“He is pestiferous.  If I were in the habit of profanity, I would let loose upon him an octagonal oath.  If I were a man of muscle, it would be pleasant to get his head in chancery, and bruise it.  It would be a relief to serve him with subpoenas, or present him long bills and demand immediate payment.  Was my name providentially ordered to be Green, that he might pass verbal contumely upon it?  Does he suppose that a man can live thirty-five years in this state of probation, without becoming slightly calloused to a pun on his own name?  Yet he continues to pun on mine as if the process were highly amusing.  Then again he interrupts any little attempts at pleasing conversation with his infernal absurdities.  I was speaking one day at the dinner-table of a well-known orator who had been entertaining the town, and I flatter myself that my remarks were critically just as well as deeply interesting.  The wretched being interposed—­

“’Mr. Green, when you say there was too much American Eagle in the speaker’s discourse, do you mean that it was a talon-ted production, and to what claws of the speech do you especially refer?’

“Miss Pipkin, who had been deeply intent on my observations, commenced to titter; what could I do but hang my head and swallow the rest of the meal in silence?  If I had been possessed of a quick tongue, I would have lashed him with sarcasms, and Pipkin would have rejoiced with me in his groans.  But no—­I am slow of speech—­and so I was bound to submit.  After that he was more tyrannical than ever.  He would come stealthily into my room and garotte me in a conversational way.  He would seem to take me by the throat, saying, ’why don’t you laugh—­why don’t you burst with merriment?’ and then I would force a dismal grin, just to get rid of him.

“I said to myself, I will leave this selfish Sahara called the city and county of New York I will leave its dust, dirt, carts, confusion, bulls, bears, Peter Funks, Jeremy Diddlers, and, best of all, the Funny Fellow.  I will take board in some rural, as well as accessible place; the mosquitoes and ague of Flushing shall refresh my frame; the cottages of Astoria, with their pleasant view of the Penitentiary, shall revive my wounded spirit; I will exile myself from my native land to the shores of Jersey; I will sit beneath the shadow of the Quarantine on Staten Island.  No—­I won’t—­I will go to Yonkers—­Yonkers that looks as though it had been built on a gentle slope, and then had suffered a violent attack of earthquake; daily boats shall convey me from my ledger to my bed and board, at convenient hours, so that while I post books in New York by day, I may revel in breezes, moonbeams, sweet milk, and gentle influences, by night.  There, said I, in a burst of excusable enthusiasm, I will recline beneath wide-spreading beeches, and pipe upon an oaten reed.  There will I listen to the soft bleating of lambs, and scent the fresh breath of cows; Nature shall touch and thrill me with