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of men, and the most amiable of publishers; and I can conceive that few of the more legitimate craft would be able to stand upon dignity, or refuse his kind invitation to meet a little company at his board-- "At the close of the day, when the market is still, And mortals the sweets of comestibles prove." But hold! When is the market still. For a fortnight after he has set it astir with a new number, his announcements confront you as you open your "folio of four pages." His placards smite the eye at the crossings of the streets; they return your glance at the shop-window, and confound your senses at every turn. "Old Ebony for the month,"--"Kit North again in the field,"--"A racy new number of _Blackwood_,"--such are the headings of newspaper puffs, and the bawlings of hawkers on the steps of Astor House. They pursue you to the Boston railway-station, or to the Hudson-river steamer; they follow you on the road to Niagara; meet you afresh at Detroit and Chicago, and hardly provoke any additional surprise when the bagman accosts you with the same syllables, through the nose, as you arrive in the buffalo-season on the debateable grounds of Oregon! To quote once more the oracular words of the Ettrick orator and poet, "Ane gets tired o' that eternal soun'--_Blackwood's Magazeen,--Blackwood's Magazeen_--dinnin' in ane's lugs, day and nicht!" So vast and so varied I suppose to be the commercial relations of Reprint & Co., and such, beyond a doubt, is Maga's empire in America. No more by this steamer. Let me see; in ten days, perhaps, Harry will be with you at breakfast, discussing my letter, and lamenting my lot, to live so far from the world. For me, however, a contented disposition, the steamers twice a-month, and _Blackwood_ monthly, do wonders. I see as much of the world as a good man need wish to see; and at any time, you know, it's not a fortnight's work, by God's blessing, to rejoin the old friends and true friends, that so often go fishing under your patronage, and tell improbable stories around your table. Wait till I get into my own chair beside you, and I will tell stories of my sojourn in America that will put Harry's Indian romances to the blush. He now goes out with a stock of prairie-adventures, that out-Sinbad Sinbad, and yet he tells them with an air of honesty that would gull Gulliver. Wait till I rejoin you, and you shall see how a plain tale will put him down.
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