“I pleaded my poverty while keeping my prospective riches before his eyes,” said he; “and as he was as scrupulous of his character for generosity as he was of the reputation of his house, I was careful to enhance the opportunity of flattering both those weaknesses.  I also said, by way of perfecting the thing, that when in the capacity of foreign minister, I had agreed to correspond with the Courier and Enquirer, which, notwithstanding it was an almost pious newspaper, and edited by not less than two famous generals, and the grandson of a most worthy bishop, who was a poetaster, as well as a man of so much fashion that he had gained an enviable celerity for writing sonnets and eulogistic essays in admiration of fair but very faulty actresses; being the prospective correspondent of this almost pious newspaper, I consoled the landlord with a promise to write numerous puffs of his house.  My point is carried, and if they like not my articles, as the critics say, they will at least give me credit for astuteness, for the man who succeeds is the man in these days!”

“And now, sir,” said I, “remember that you promised, as we were journeying over the road to Barnstable, to renew the history of your first adventure in New York, in which you were interrupted by the mischievous boys.”  And as nothing so much pleased him as to relate his misfortunes at that time, he went straight into a rhapsody of joy, fretted his beard, looked quizzically out of his eyes, and said: 

“I have it, sir!  I have the exact place.  I was, as I am now, on my way to Washington, in the hope of getting a reward for the services I had rendered the party; but having lost all my money by one of these pranks which the gentry of New York practice, and which Mr. Councilman Finnigan, (I honor him in his present position,) is, no doubt, skilled in, I had no means either to pay my landlord, or what certainly was much more, to leave his premises.

“Days and weeks I was a martyr to my doubts and fears, and ate the good man’s meat as if his finger was on my shoulder, and his eye on my plate.  Several times he suggested, in the most gentlemanly manner, that it would be consulting economy for me to seek private board.  But I should like to see the man who could look a widow landlady in the face, (unless he intended marrying one of her daughters,) without a dollar in his pocket.  I told the landlord as much, but he only laughed, and said it was a thing very common at this day.

“I got up one morning, eat what little my anxiety would admit, went and sat down upon a seat in the Park, and contemplated the inclinations of the passers as they rushed by; fixed my eyes upon the city hall clock, as it struck ten, and thought the policemen cast an unusually sharp eye at me, as they sauntered by, and puzzled my brain to find some means of relief, for I had just received a letter from my wife, Polly, who was in a sad strait at home, which added to the amount of my own misfortunes.  And while I was