s frequently returned home in the evenings, distended like a
Boa-Constrictor after a gorge; yet no person was ever able to come at
the cause of his inflation. There were, to be sure, suspicions abroad,
and it was mostly found that depredations in some neighboring orchard
or garden had been committed a little before the periods in which it was
supposed the distention took place. Wo mention these things after the
example of those "d----d good-natured" biographers who write great men's
lives of late, only for the purpose of showing that there could be no
truth in such suspicions. Phelim, we assure an enlightened public, was
voraciously fond of fruit; he was frequently inflated, too, after the
manner of those who indulge therein to excess; fruit was always
missed immediately after the periods of his distention, so that it was
impossible he could have been concerned in the depredations then
made upon the neighboring orchards. In addition to this, we would beg
modestly to add, that the pomonian temperament is incompatible with the
other qualities for which he was famous. His parents were too ignorant
of those little eccentricities which, had they known them, would have
opened up a correct view of the splendid materials for village greatness
which he possessed, and which, probably, were nipped in their bud
for the want of a pocket to his breeches, or rather by the want of
a breeches to his pocket; for such was the wayward energy of his
disposition, that he ultimately succeeded in getting the latter, though
it certainly often failed him to procure the breeches. In fact, it was
a misfortune to him that he was the Son of his father and mother at all.
Had he been a second Melchizedec, and got into breeches in time,
the virtues which circumstances suppressed in his heart might have
flourished like cauliflowers, though the world would have lost all the
advantages arising from the splendor of his talents at going naked.

Another fact, in justice to his character, must not be omitted. His
penchant for fruit was generally known; but few persons, at the period
we are describing, were at all aware that a love of whiskey lurked as a
predominant trait in his character, to be brought out at a future era in
his life.

Before Phelim reached his tenth year, he and his parents had commenced
hostilities. Many were their efforts to subdue some peculiarities of his
temper which then began to appear. Phelim, however, being an only son,
possessed h