—­by the Frog-Pond, when there were frogs in and the folks used to come down from the tents on section and Independence days with their pails to get water to make egg-pop with.  Born in Boston; went to school in Boston as long as the boys would let me.—­The little man groaned, turned, as if to look around, and went on.—­Ran away from school one day to see Phillips hung for killing Denegri with a logger-head.  That was in flip days, when there were always two three loggerheads in the fire.  I’m a Boston boy, I tell you,—­born at North End, and mean to be buried on Copp’s Hill, with the good old underground people,—­the Worthylakes, and the rest of ’em.  Yes,—­up on the old hill, where they buried Captain Daniel Malcolm in a stone grave, ten feet deep, to keep him safe from the red-coats, in those old times when the world was frozen up tight and there was n’t but one spot open, and that was right over Faneuil all,—­and black enough it looked, I tell you!  There ’s where my bones shall lie, Sir, and rattle away when the big guns go off at the Navy Yard opposite!  You can’t make me ashamed of the old place!  Full crooked little streets;—­I was born and used to run round in one of ’em—­

—­I should think so,—­said that young man whom I hear them call “John,”—­softly, not meaning to be heard, nor to be cruel, but thinking in a half-whisper, evidently.—­I should think so; and got kinked up, turnin’ so many corners.—­The little man did not hear what was said, but went on,—­

—­full of crooked little streets; but I tell you Boston has opened, and kept open, more turnpikes that lead straight to free thought and free speech and free deeds than any other city of live men or dead men,—­I don’t care how broad their streets are, nor how high their steeples!

—­How high is Bosting meet’n’-house?—­said a person with black whiskers and imperial, a velvet waistcoat, a guard-chain rather too massive, and a diamond pin so very large that the most trusting nature might confess an inward suggestion,—­of course, nothing amounting to a suspicion.  For this is a gentleman from a great city, and sits next to the landlady’s daughter, who evidently believes in him, and is the object of his especial attention.

How high?—­said the little man.—­As high as the first step of the stairs that lead to the New Jerusalem.  Is n’t that high enough?

It is,—­I said.—­The great end of being is to harmonize man with the order of things, and the church has been a good pitch-pipe, and may be so still.  But who shall tune the pitch-pipe?  Quis cus-(On the whole, as this quotation was not entirely new, and, being in a foreign language, might not be familiar to all the boarders, I thought I would not finish it.)

—­Go to the Bible!—­said a sharp voice from a sharp-faced, sharp-eyed, sharp-elbowed, strenuous-looking woman in a black dress, appearing as if it began as a piece of mourning and perpetuated itself as a bit of economy.