The judicious and forgiving reader will, I am sure, join me in approving the facility with which the major regained his stock of courage, (lost when entering Tarpaulin Cove,) on hearing that the politicians of New York had determined on making him a hero of no mean parts, and were devising a grand programme for our reception.  And this consoling news I read to him from that very enterprising and extremely reliable journal, the New York Herald, a copy of which I got of the parson, who was its Tarpaulin Cove correspondent, and admired it much for its mingling of divine and human things, as well as the amount of honey the editor always mixed with his brimstone.  The Common Council had, according to this sagacious journal, held a meeting, and, at the expense of much unintelligible oratory and disorder, passed a resolution appropriating five thousand dollars for the purpose of giving us a reception worthy of either Cicero or Washington.  And this was to be entirely in consideration of the great public services we had rendered the country.

And it was further resolved, and therein set forth, that Aldermen Pennyworth, of the Sixth Ward, and Brandybottom, of the Second, together with Councilmen Bluster and Sputter, (the last named gentleman being clever at a speech,) be a committee of reception, invested with power to draw up and present a suitable address on behalf of the citizens of “this great metropolis.”  It was also resolved, in a flourish of speech utterly unknown in anything ever attempted by Choate, that the mayor, who, though he contemplated himself the greatest of potentates, was famous only for commanding an unruly police to bludgeon the heads of peaceable citizens, should publicly receive us at the City Hall.

This news so elated the major, that he commenced running about the deck, after the manner of a madman.  He next tore the bandages from his head, and swore though his eyes were disfigured, his body remained in most excellent condition.  As to persecutions, all great men ought to endure them with humility, for they were only the forerunners of great honors.  He therefore resolved to say no more of the scars, but, in proof of his faith, to for ever esteem Captain Luke Snider a public benefactor, and to set about commending himself to the consideration of all good citizens, for therein, as he conceived, lay the virtue of true eminence.  And now that he had a horse of such excellent parts, and a pig whose rare gifts, (did the critics do him justice,) must prove invaluable, he flattered himself he was fairly on the road to fortune, and might safely leave the rest to the hero makers of New York.