to the constable. I perform some
of the duties of the town-clerk by promulgating public notices when
they are posted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief
person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable
pattern to my brother-officers by the cool, steady, upright, downright
and impartial discharge of my business and the constancy with which I
stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain, for all
day long I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market,
stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike, and at night I hold a
lantern over my head both to show where I am and keep people out of
the gutters. At this sultry noontide I am cupbearer to the parched
populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist.
Like a dramseller on the mall at muster-day, I cry aloud to all and
sundry in my plainest accents and at the very tiptop of my voice.

[Footnote 1: Essex and Washington streets, Salem.]

Here it is, gentlemen! Here is the good liquor! Walk up, walk up,
gentlemen! Walk up, walk up! Here is the superior stuff! Here is the
unadulterated ale of Father Adam--better than Cognac, Hollands,
Jamaica, strong beer or wine of any price; here it is by the hogshead
or the single glass, and not a cent to pay! Walk up, gentlemen, walk
up, and help yourselves!

It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here they
come.--A hot day, gentlemen! Quaff and away again, so as to keep
yourselves in a nice cool sweat.--You, my friend, will need another
cupful to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as
it is on your cowhide shoes. I see that you have trudged half a score
of miles to-day, and like a wise man have passed by the taverns and
stopped at the running brooks and well-curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat
without and fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder or
melted down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish. Drink
and make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to quench the
fiery fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no cup of
mine.--Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have been great strangers
hitherto; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be anxious for a
closer intimacy till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent.
Mercy on you, man! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot
gullet and is converted quite to steam in the miniature Tophet which
you mistake for a stomach. Fill