the rocks are different,
and the soil is different, and everything that comes out of the soil,
from grass up to Indians, is different. And now that the provisional
races are dying out--

--What do you mean by the provisional races, Sir?--said the
divinity-student, interrupting him.

Why, the aboriginal bipeds, to be sure,--he answered,--the red-crayon
sketch of humanity laid on the canvas before the colors for the real
manhood were ready.

I hope they will come to something yet,--said the divinity-student.

Irreclaimable, Sir,--irreclaimable!--said the Little Gentleman.--Cheaper
to breed white men than domesticate a nation of red ones. When you can
get the bitter out of the partridge's thigh, you can make an enlightened
commonwealth of Indians. A provisional race, Sir,--nothing more.
Exhaled carbonic acid for the use of vegetation, kept down the bears and
catamounts, enjoyed themselves in scalping and being scalped, and then
passed away or are passing away, according to the programme.

Well, Sir, these races dying out, the white man has to acclimate
himself. It takes him a good while; but he will come all right
by-and-by, Sir,--as sound as a woodchuck,--as sound as a musquash!

A new nursery, Sir, with Lake Superior and Huron and all the rest of
'em for wash-basins! A new race, and a whole new world for the new-born
human soul to work in! And Boston is the brain of it, and has been any
time these hundred years! That's all I claim for Boston,--that it is the
thinking centre of the continent, and therefore of the planet.

--And the grand emporium of modesty,--said the divinity-student, a
little mischievously.

Oh, don't talk to me of modesty!--answered the Little Gentleman,--I 'm
past that! There is n't a thing that was ever said or done in Boston,
from pitching the tea overboard to the last ecclesiastical lie it
tore into tatters and flung into the dock, that was n't thought very
indelicate by some fool or tyrant or bigot, and all the entrails of
commercial and spiritual conservatism are twisted into colics as often
as this revolutionary brain of ours has a fit of thinking come over
it.--No, Sir,--show me any other place that is, or was since the
megalosaurus has died out, where wealth and social influence are so
fairly divided between the stationary and the progressive classes! Show
me any other place where every other drawing-room is not a chamber of
the Inquisition, with papas and mammas for inquisitors,--and