s it hard to
guess how much more or less he means than he seems to say. But he is
honest, and always has a twinkle in his eye to put you on your guard
when he does not mean to be taken quite literally. I think old Ben
Franklin had just that look. I know his great-grandson (in pace!) had
it, and I don't doubt he took it in the straight line of descent, as he
did his grand intellect.

The Member of the Haouse evidently comes from one of the lesser inland
centres of civilization, where the flora is rich in checkerberries
and similar bounties of nature, and the fauna lively with squirrels,
wood-chucks, and the like; where the leading sportsmen snare patridges,
as they are called, and "hunt" foxes with guns; where rabbits are
entrapped in "figgery fours," and trout captured with the unpretentious
earth-worm, instead of the gorgeous fly; where they bet prizes for
butter and cheese, and rag-carpets executed by ladies more than seventy
years of age; where whey wear dress-coats before dinner, and cock their
hats on one side when they feel conspicuous and distinshed; where they
say--Sir to you in their common talk and have other Arcadian and bucolic
ways which are highly unobjectionable, but are not so much admired in
cities, where the people are said to be not half so virtuous.

There is with us a boy of modest dimensions, not otherwise especially
entitled to the epithet, who ought be six or seven years old, to judge
by the gap left by his front milk teeth, these having resigned in favor
of their successors, who have not yet presented their credentials. He
is rather old for an enfant terrible, and quite too young to have grown
into the bashfulness of adolescence; but he has some of the qualities
of both these engaging periods of development, The member of the Haouse
calls him "Bub," invariably, such term I take to be an abbreviation
of "Beelzeb," as "bus" is the short form of "omnibus." Many eminently
genteel persons, whose manners make them at home anywhere, being
evidently unaware of true derivation of this word, are in the habit
of addressing all unknown children by one of the two terms, "bub" and
"sis," which they consider endears them greatly to the young people, and
recommends them to the acquaintance of their honored parents, if
these happen to accompany them. The other boarders commonly call our
diminutive companion That Boy. He is a sort of expletive at the table,
serving to stop gaps, taking the same place a washer do