that _Michael_ was his name correctly and honestly spelled
out. But it is equally true that Michael was a name to which he seldom
had to answer. At school, and among his playmates, it was always
_Mike_. I really believe, from what I have heard my grandfather say,
that not half the boys and girls in his neighborhood could have been
convinced, by any common arguments, that his name was Michael. Indeed,
I remember having heard that once, when a schoolmate called the fellow
by the long name, just to see how it would seem, he and the other boy
both burst right out into a perfect roar of laughter over the sound
of it. "For pity's sake," said he, when he got over his laughing fit,
"don't call me by that hard name again, as long as I live;" and, as he
seemed to be quite in earnest, none of the boys ever addressed him by
any other name than _Mike_, after that.

CHAP. III.

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.

"But who is _Mike Marble_? where does he live? what sort of a man is
he? what kind of oddities has he got?"

My little friend, your questions come out so fast, and there is such a
long string of them, that they make me think of the way a whole pack
of fire crackers go off, when you touch a coal to one of them, and
throw the whole into the street. I am going to tell you ever so many
things about this same Mike Marble. Before I get through with him, you
will get very well acquainted with him, I think. But Uncle Frank, you
know, has got some oddities himself. When he has got any thing to do,
he, too, has his own way of doing it.

Some people, I suppose, if they were treating you to a few chapters in
the history of this singular man, would weave the threads together in
a different manner from mine. They would begin, very likely, by
telling where the chap was born, who were his father and mother, how
many brothers and sisters he had, what their names were, whether he
had any uncles and aunts, and if he had, what kind of uncles and aunts
they were, and all that sort of thing. And they would describe Mike's
appearance exactly--tell you whether he had black eyes or blue, gray
eyes or brown, red eyes or green. But I don't see much use in that.

Indeed, I am not sure but I shall keep you ignorant as to how he
looked, and let you learn what there is worth learning in his
character--for character is the great thing, after all, you know--by
the stories I shall tell of him. I might, it is true, take every
branch, and leaf, and bud, and fl