od for any thing in that way, and let us see what
you can do. A free, bold, happy and _faithful_ sketch of that which in
itself would be worthless, or even loathsome, shall make your fortune.
Morland's pigs and pig-styes, on paper or canvas, were always worth
half a hundred of the originals. One of Tenier's inside-out pictures
of a village feast, with drunken boors--not worth a groat apiece when
alive--would now fetch its weight in gold three times over.

Look you now. There goes a man with a large bundle under his arm, tied
up in a yellow bandanna handkerchief, faded and weather-worn, and
looking as if ready to burst--the bundle I mean. What would you give
to know the history of that bundle and what there is in it? Observe
the man's eye, the swing of his right arm--the carriage of his
body--the dip of his hat. You would swear, or might if your
conscience, or your habits as a gentleman, would let you, that he was
a proud and a happy fellow, though you never saw his face before in
all your life. The tread of his foot is enough--the very swing of his
coat-tail as he clears the corner. It is Saturday night, and he is
carrying the bundle home to his own house--of that you may be sure.
And you may be equally sure that whatever else there may be in it,
there is nothing for him to be ashamed of, and _therefore_ nothing for
the man himself. My notion is, that he has bought a ready-made cloak
for his wife, without her knowledge, or got a friend to choose the
cloth and be measured for it, who will be found at his fire-side when
he gets home, holding forth upon the comfort of such an outside
garment in our dreadful winters, with a perseverance which leads the
good woman of the house to suspect her neighbor of being better off
than herself, in one particular at least, for the coming Sabbath. But
just now the door opens--the gossiping neighbor springs up with a
laugh--the bundle is untied--the children scream, and the wife jumps
about her husband's neck as if he had been absent a twelvemonth.

Where!--where!

Can't you see them for yourself! Can't you see the fire-light flash
over the newly-papered walls! can't you hear the children laugh as
mother swings round with her new cloak--scattering the ashes, and
almost puffing out their only lamp, which she has set upon the floor
to see how the garment hangs! and now she drops into a chair. Take my
word for it, sir, that is a very worthy woman--and the man himself is
a Washingtonian.