and private history?"

"Oh, with pleasure--with pleasure. I have a very bad memory, but I
hope you will not mind that. That is to say, it is an irregular
memory--singularly irregular. Sometimes it goes in a gallop, and then
again it will be as much as a fortnight passing a given point. This is a
great grief to me."

"Oh, it is no matter, so you will try to do the best you can."

"I will. I will put my whole mind on it."

"Thanks. Are you ready to begin?"

"Ready."

Q. How old are you?

A. Nineteen, in June.

Q. Indeed. I would have taken you to be thirty-five or six. Where were
you born?

A. In Missouri.

Q. When did you begin to write?

A. In 1836.

Q. Why, how could that be, if you are only nineteen now?

A. I don't know. It does seem curious, somehow.

Q. It does, indeed. Whom do you consider the most remarkable man you
ever met?

A. Aaron Burr.

Q. But you never could have met Aaron Burr, if you are only nineteen
years!--

A. Now, if you know more about me than I do, what do you ask me for?

Q. Well, it was only a suggestion; nothing more. How did you happen to
meet Burr?

A. Well, I happened to be at his funeral one day, and he asked me to
make less noise, and--

Q. But, good heavens! if you were at his funeral, he must have been
dead, and if he was dead how could he care whether you made a noise or
not?

A. I don't know. He was always a particular kind of a man that way.

Q. Still, I don't understand it at all. You say he spoke to you, and
that he was dead.

A. I didn't say he was dead.

Q. But wasn't he dead?

A. Well, some said he was, some said he wasn't.

Q. What did you think?

A. Oh, it was none of my business! It wasn't any of my funeral.

Q. Did you--However, we can never get this matter straight. Let me ask
about something else. What was the date of your birth?

A. Monday, October 31, 1693.

Q. What! Impossible! That would make you a hundred and eighty years old.
How do you account for that?

A. I don't account for it at all.

Q. But you said at first you were only nineteen, and now you make
yourself out to be one hundred and eighty. It is an awful discrepancy.

A. Why, have you noticed that? (Shaking hands.) Many a time it has
seemed to me like a discrepancy, but somehow I couldn't make up my mind.
How quick you notice a thing!

Q. Thank you for the compliment, as far as it goes. Had you, or have
you, any brothers or sisters?

A. Eh! I--I--I think so--ye