We are an exacting people, frequently requiring too much of our great men, and achieving in a week what it took ordinary nations, such as Greece and Rome, years to perform.  Therefore I hold it right that we be cautious how we trust the recording of every great event to such witty but careless historians as Bancroft and Prescott, who are much given to pleasing descriptions of wonderful revolutions, but entirely overlook the battered and bruised hero, for the purpose of making others to their fancy.

You must know, then, that this mayor, Don Fernando, (he bore no resemblance to the Don Fernando of Don Quixote,) advanced with the gravity and solemnity of one whose business it was to kill giants; for though he was a man of much humor, he had a necromantic facility for dissembling, and could declare before high heaven his innocence of any crime laid at his door, and in the very next breath issue an order giving peace and comfort to pickpockets.  And while I am writing of this great man, I may mention that if there was any one thing more than another he was famous for, it was a curious infatuation for great placards, in which he enjoined all good citizens to preserve the peace, at the same time commanding his worthy vassals, the policemen, to crack the skulls of all who came in their way.

Tall of figure, with a pale and long visage, which he prided himself resembled the visage of an equally great man, he advanced at a pace indicative of one who felt the grandeur of his position.  The major was at first not a little surprised at the manner of his visitor; but being himself a dabster at great things, he soon recognized the quality of the new comer, and came forth to meet him in all his uniform, not even forgetting his three cornered hat, which he passed with his left hand while making an unexceptionable bow.  Unembroidered greatness-yes, naked greatness, stripped of all falsehood and pretence, and such only as is worthy of governing an honest world, which it would generously do, but for the trifling inconvenience to itself, was here represented in these two great men-the Scylla and Charybdis of these wonderful times.  The only perceptible difference in their prowess was, that the mayor stood at least a head and a half taller than the major.  Both had begun making unexceptionable bows, when Alderman Dan Dooley, seeing the embarrassment that might occur, came resolutely forward, (having first set down the bottle from which he had replenished Councilman Finnigan’s glass,) and addressing the mayor, said, “Faith, then, I ask no greater enterprise than to serve yer ‘onor, seein’ how ye know the dacency one great man owes to another.  By my faith, then, I’m deloighted to prisent ye to the gintleman we all mane to ’onor.  Faith, an’ it’s himself’s before ye, Meiger Roger (stay! what the devil is it now?) I have it.  Meiger Roger Jefferson Potter!”

“Major Roger Sherman Potter, commonly called Major Roger Potter!” the major interrupted, with a deferential bow.