of their wealth remained a mystery no man dare probe.  Telling her I had rather join the brigands in the hills of Lombardy than accept her gold, I at once turned my energies to writing speeches for members of Congress incapable of writing their own, and correcting the dictum of those made by men whose time was too much taken up at the gambling crib and drinking saloon.  And for this labor, so easily performed when one possessed the ability, I was to receive five dollars a column, of the Globe.  Small as was this allowance, I found great difficulty in collecting it, since members too honest to sell votes generally wrote their own speeches, and those who lacked that little virtue had so many speculations on hand as to render it quite impossible for them to find time to pay their speech writers.  However, between giving Latin lessons to two or three of the New York delegation and this speech writing, and teaching the rudiments of grammar to an Arkansas member, whose custom it was to make a speech every day, I scraped a few dollars to the good, and retiring to my native village entered upon the business of swine driving, in which calling, thank God, I have at least had an opportunity to be honest.  In truth, brother tin peddler, (I call thee brother, since I find so good a friend in thee,) it seems to me a man may prepare for heaven and find no obstacles in so honest a trade.  I have now followed it for seven long years.”  Here the major took his hand, earnestly, and swore that he was ready to serve him with his life, so deeply had his story affected him.

“It was but yesterday,” resumed the swine driver, “that a tin peddler of New Haven, who vends his wares over this part of the country, and though a great rogue, makes people believe him honest by asserting that he is a graduate of Yale, passed me on the road and killed three of my swine, causing me a loss of some eight dollars, for I sell them at three cents a pound, by my steelyards; and when I demanded him to make good the damage he jeered and drove on.  And to make the matter worse, the cunning rogue has tricked the simple minded people into the belief that he is a man of great wisdom, which was no hard matter, seeing that he threw into all his sayings a large amount of Greek and Latin it would have puzzled the devil himself to translate.  This, my brother, accounts for the rudeness of my greeting, and for it I now ask to be forgiven.  Having lost my shoats in the manner I have related, I sat down and swore eternal enmity to all of the trade.”

The swine driver thus ended the recital of his grievances, when the major, holding it his duty to set the fallen upon their legs, divided his pine apple cheese and crackers among us, and commenced advising him in the following style:  “I see, brother drover,” said he, “what a grief having fallen from thy high estate in the church, is to thee.  Take then my advice.  Keep thy ambition within proper bounds until thou hast got bread enough to live in peace for