it must be mentioned, finding him not quite up to their expectations, were endeavoring to drop him with as little noise as possible.  But it seemed a question which was most deceived, the general or the city fathers.  The latter found the former a shallow pated man, who from mere joking, had been made to believe himself a great politician, and by a singular cleverness in committing to memory the altered speeches of others, had created for himself a respectability that always vanished on an acquaintance with him; while the former declared that the population of a city was no proof of the amount of moral rectitude by which its government was conducted, seeing that he had found those of the city fathers with whom he had come in contact, very craggy headed men, and sadly deficient in everything but creating disorders and bringing disgrace upon the city:  in fine, that they were not what they ought to be.

The general now began to look about him for means whereby he could distinguish himself in war, and make his fame national.  He argued within himself that however famous a man might become in politics, there was an uncertainty always impending.  But to be famous in war, was something as durable as time, and which always excited the warmest admiration of one’s countrymen.  And while he, with confused fancies flitting through his imagination, was thus contemplating his present greatness and future prospects, a servant entered, bearing a letter.

“Love of me!” exclaimed the general, “It’s from my wife, Polly!”

A superscription in a series of hieroglyphics that would have defied the combined erudition of Rawlinson and Layard, the general deciphered thus:  “To Major Roger Sherman Potter.  In New York.”  The seal, which was of broken wafers, pressed with a thimble, was broken xwith eager anxiety, and the general, his eyes transfixed on the dingy page, read the contents, which ran thus: 

“Barnstable, June -, 185.—­“My Dear husban

“You knows i niver did like these ere politiks, for all the expereiance i’ve had in um tells me they nethir brings meat nor pays the store bills.  I see they bin making ever so much on you yinder in New York; but that ant nothin’, when a body has debts to pay, and childirn to shoe and larn.  I know, and you know i know, that when you was young you had capacity (talent they call it) enuff to get to Congriss; and thats why i tried so to get you there, and sold all the ducks and chickens, and strained, you know, ever so many ways to help you up in the world; but now i see there’s not a whit a use int, for i’ve a come convinsed that them politiks makes an honest man a rogue, and sends his soul to the devil, and his family to the town-house.  I like to see you made so much of, for i have the nateral feelins of a wife, and if, as you used to say, i didn’t know much of filosofy, why i have some sense, and want you to come straight home, and see to your poor family, for it takes all we can get for