ng on one leg, looked with a vacant, spectral eye at
his visitors. Nothing could be so perfectly burlesque, and we
enjoyed it deeply and long. I shall never be deceived by
show-bills again.'

The following must close our quotations. We venture to say that it
describes a scene which many a reader has more than once witnessed:

'Talking of a man's making a hero of himself, reminds me of an old
friend of mine, who is fond of telling long stories about fights
and quarrels that he has had in his day, and who always makes his
hearer his opponent for the time, so as to give effect to what he
is saying. Not long ago I met him on 'Change, at a business hour,
when all the commercing multitudes of the city were together, and
you could scarcely turn, for the people. The old fellow fixed his
eye on me; there was a fatal fascination in it. Getting off
without recognition, would have been unpardonable disrespect. In a
moment, his finger was in my button-hole, and his rheumy optics
glittering with the satisfaction of your true _bore_, when he has
met with an unresisting subject. I listened to his common-places
with the utmost apparent satisfaction. Directly, he began to speak
of an altercation which he once had with an officer in the navy.
He was relating the _particulars_. 'Some words,' said he,
'occurred between _him_ and _me_. Now you know that he is a much
younger man than I am; in fact, about _your_ age. Well, he '_made
use of an expression_' which I did not exactly like. Says I to
him, says I, 'What do you mean by that?' 'Why,' says he to me,
says he, 'I mean just what I say.' Then I began to burn. There was
an impromptu elevation of my personal dandriff, which was
unaccountable. I didn't waste words on him; I just took him in
this way,' (here the old _spooney_ suited the action to the word,
by seizing the collar of my coat, before the assemblage,) 'and
says I to him, says I, 'You infernal scoundrel, I will punish you
for your insolence on the spot!' and the manner in which I shook
him (just in _this_ way) was really a warning to a person
similarly situated.'

'I felt myself at this moment in a beautiful predicament; in the
midst of a large congregation of business people; an old
gray-headed man hanging, with an indignant look, at my
coat-collar; and a host of persons looking on. The old f