if you can't fix it so as to be born here, you can come and
live here. Old Ben Franklin, the father of American science and the
American Union, was n't ashamed to be born here. Jim Otis, the father of
American Independence, bothered about in the Cape Cod marshes awhile, but
he came to Boston as soon as he got big enough. Joe Warren, the first
bloody ruffed-shirt of the Revolution, was as good as born here. Parson
Charming strolled along this way from Newport, and stayed here. Pity old
Sam Hopkins hadn't come, too;--we'd have made a man of him,--poor, dear,
good old Christian heathen! There he lies, as peaceful as a young baby,
in the old burying-ground! I've stood on the slab many a time. Meant
well,--meant well. Juggernaut. Parson Charming put a little oil on one
linchpin, and slipped it out so softly, the first thing they knew about
it was the wheel of that side was down. T' other fellow's at work now,
but he makes more noise about it. When the linchpin comes out on his
side, there'll be a jerk, I tell you! Some think it will spoil the old
cart, and they pretend to say that there are valuable things in it which
may get hurt. Hope not,--hope not. But this is the great Macadamizing
place,--always cracking up something.

Cracking up Boston folks,--said the gentleman with the diamond-pin, whom,
for convenience' sake, I shall hereafter call the Koh-i-noor.

The little man turned round mechanically towards him, as Maelzel's Turk
used to turn, carrying his head slowly and horizontally, as if it went by
cogwheels.--Cracking up all sorts of things,--native and foreign vermin
included,--said the little man.

This remark was thought by some of us to have a hidden personal
application, and to afford a fair opening for a lively rejoinder, if the
Koh-i-noor had been so disposed. The little man uttered it with the
distinct wooden calmness with which the ingenious Turk used to exclaim,
E-chec! so that it must have been heard. The party supposed to be
interested in the remark was, however, carrying a large knife-bladeful of
something to his mouth just then, which, no doubt, interfered with the
reply he would have made.

--My friend who used to board here was accustomed sometimes, in a
pleasant way, to call himself the Autocrat of the table,--meaning, I
suppose, that he had it all his own way among the boarders. I think our
small boarder here is like to prove a refractory subject, if I undertake
to use the sceptre my