The balance of our table, as the reader has no doubt observed, has been deranged by the withdrawal of the Man of Letters, so called, and only the side of the deficiency changed by the removal of the Young Astronomer into our neighborhood.  The fact that there was a vacant chair on the side opposite us had by no means escaped the notice of That Boy.  He had taken advantage of his opportunity and invited in a schoolmate whom he evidently looked upon as a great personage.  This boy or youth was a good deal older than himself and stood to him apparently in the light of a patron and instructor in the ways of life.  A very jaunty, knowing young gentleman he was, good-looking, smartly dressed, smooth-checked as yet, curly-haired, with a roguish eye, a sagacious wink, a ready tongue, as I soon found out; and as I learned could catch a ball on the fly with any boy of his age; not quarrelsome, but, if he had to strike, hit from the shoulder; the pride of his father (who was a man of property and a civic dignitary), and answering to the name of Johnny.

I was a little surprised at the liberty That Boy had taken in introducing an extra peptic element at our table, reflecting as I did that a certain number of avoirdupois ounces of nutriment which the visitor would dispose of corresponded to a very appreciable pecuniary amount, so that he was levying a contribution upon our Landlady which she might be inclined to complain of.  For the Caput mortuum (or deadhead, in vulgar phrase) is apt to be furnished with a Venter vivus, or, as we may say, a lively appetite.  But the Landlady welcomed the new-comer very heartily.

—­Why! how—­do—­you—­do Johnny?! with the notes of interrogation and of admiration both together, as here represented.

Johnny signified that he was doing about as well as could be expected under the circumstances, having just had a little difference with a young person whom he spoke of as “Pewter-jaw” (I suppose he had worn a dentist’s tooth-straightening contrivance during his second dentition), which youth he had finished off, as he said, in good shape, but at the expense of a slight epistaxis, we will translate his vernacular expression.

—­The three ladies all looked sympathetic, but there did not seem to be any great occasion for it, as the boy had come out all right, and seemed to be in the best of spirits.

-And how is your father and your mother? asked the Landlady.

-Oh, the Governor and the Head Centre?  A 1, both of ’em.  Prime order for shipping,—­warranted to stand any climate.  The Governor says he weighs a hunderd and seventy-five pounds.  Got a chin-tuft just like Ed’in Forrest.  D’d y’ ever see Ed’in Forrest play Metamora?  Bully, I tell you!  My old gentleman means to be Mayor or Governor or President or something or other before he goes off the handle, you’d better b’lieve.  He’s smart,—­and I’ve heard folks say I take after him.

—­Somehow or other I felt as if I had seen this boy before, or known something about him.  Where did he get those expressions “A 1” and “prime” and so on?  They must have come from somebody who has been in the retail dry-goods business, or something of that nature.  I have certain vague reminiscences that carry me back to the early times of this boardinghouse.—–­Johnny.—–­Landlady knows his father well.