“The bread-tree grows abundantly.  Its branches are well known to Europe and America under the familiar name of maccaroni.  The smaller twigs are called vermicelli.  They have a decided animal flavor, as may be observed in the soups containing them.  Maccaroni, being tubular, is the favorite habitat of a very dangerous insect, which is rendered peculiarly ferocious by being boiled.  The government of the island, therefore, never allows a stick of it to be exported without being accompanied by a piston with which its cavity may at any time be thoroughly swept out.  These are commonly lost or stolen before the maccaroni arrives among us.  It therefore always contains many of these insects, which, however, generally die of old age in the shops, so that accidents from this source are comparatively rare.

“The fruit of the bread-tree consists principally of hot rolls.  The buttered-muffin variety is supposed to be a hybrid with the cocoa-nut palm, the cream found on the milk of the cocoa-nut exuding from the hybrid in the shape of butter, just as the ripe fruit is splitting, so as to fit it for the tea-table, where it is commonly served up with cold”—­

—­There,—­I don’t want to read any more of it.  You see that many of these statements are highly improbable.—­No, I shall not mention the paper.—­No, neither of them wrote it, though it reminds me of the style of these popular writers.  I think the fellow who wrote it must have been reading some of their stories, and got them mixed up with his history and geography.  I don’t suppose he lies;—­he sells it to the editor, who knows how many squares off “Sumatra” is.  The editor, who sells it to the public—­By the way, the papers have been very civil haven’t they?—­to the—­the what d’ye call it?  —­“Northern Magazine,”—­isn’t it?—­got up by some of those Come-outers, down East, as an organ for their local peculiarities.

—­The Professor has been to see me.  Came in, glorious, at about twelve o’clock, last night.  Said he had been with “the boys.”  On inquiry, found that “the boys,” were certain baldish and grayish old gentlemen that one sees or hears of in various important stations of society.  The Professor is one of the same set, but he always talks as if he had been out of college about ten years, whereas. . . [Each of these dots was a little nod, which the company understood, as the reader will, no doubt.] He calls them sometimes “the boys,” and sometimes “the old fellows.”  Call him by the latter title, and see how he likes it.—­Well, he came in last night glorious, as I was saying.  Of course I don’t mean vinously exalted; he drinks little wine on such occasions, and is well known to all the Peters and Patricks as the gentleman who always has indefinite quantities of black tea to kill any extra glass of red claret he may have swallowed.  But the Professor says he always gets tipsy on old memories at these gatherings.  He was, I forget how many years old when he went to the meeting; just