The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 565 pages of information about The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter.

The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 565 pages of information about The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter.
were expended for as many yards of Lowell cotton, sufficient to supply shirts to the unwashed Hibernians who bear them.  The torchlights, as is customary, must be carried by hatless and shoeless urchins, who will feel great pride in the service, and have no scruple at scrambling for the pennies thrown them by the mischievous who line the sidewalk.  The transparencies must also bear the significant motto, “Welcome to the brave.”  All this and much more being done, the hero will have arrived at one of our most fashionable hotels, where splendid apartments have been prepared for him; and for which the cunning landlord was careful to get his pay in advance.  As those who follow such trains and such heroes have an habitual aversion to water, its diminution or increase on arriving at the hotel will depend very much on the state of the weather.  But no true hero will for a moment think of entering his hotel unless all the ambitious chambermaids in it are grouped upon its balconies, and its entrances so lined with pickpockets, that it becomes absolutely necessary that his generals force a passage.  The crowd outside will then greet his advance up stairs with much shouting, interspersed with demands for a speech, which, on partaking of a well compounded punch, in which his generals will not forget to join him, seeing that he is their only worldly stock in trade left, he may manifest his willingness to receive friends of distinction.  This being regarded as an oversight by his most famous general, and the corpulent alderman, he will be reminded that the safety of the building is really in danger from the enthusiasm of the citizens outside, who refuse to go peaceably to their homes until he appears before them on the balcony, where they can offer him their homage, and hear from his lips at least three speeches.  All this being done to the entire satisfaction of his admirers, then let him snap his fingers at your unprogressive gentlemen of quality, (who are much given to sneering,) and comfort himself that “the people” are always right.  The torchbearers having exhausted their pennies as well as their patriotism, and the peaceable intervention of a shower having dispersed the mob, the hero, satisfied he has received every honor a grateful people can bestow, will, as is customary, betake himself much fatigued to his apartments, where he must remain in consultation with his generals and a few select friends, (on the grave question of what is to be done next?) until two o’clock in the morning, or, perhaps, until Aurora begins to open her windows in the east or the expert bar tender has wearied of mixing libations not even the most self-complacent of the generals has a shilling to pay for.  This sad state of affairs being reported to head quarters, the hero will, unless the aldermen present pledge the city for security, hasten to his cot, and having snuffed out his candle get quietly to bed.

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The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.