or, "that the
ball-players have adjourned; and as for Mr. Lather, he declines your
proposition."

"Declines my proposition!"

"Yes, sir; he dislikes to come; for he thinks it will be altogether a
poor operation. His notion is, that if it be worth his while to come
up to the Wigwam to cut your hair, it may be worth your while to go
down to the shop, to have it cut. Considering the matter in all its
bearings, therefore, he concludes he would rather not engage in the
transaction at all."

"I regret, sir, to have consented to your taking so disagreeable a
commission, and regret it the more, now I find that the barber is
disposed to be troublesome."

"Not at all, sir. Mr. Lather is a good man, in his way, and
particularly neighbourly. By the way, Mr. Effingham, he asked me to
propose to let him take down your garden fence, in order that he may
haul some manure on his potato patch, which wants it dreadfully, he
says."

"Certainly, sir. I cannot possibly object to his hauling his manure,
even through this house, should he wish it. He is so very valuable a
citizen, and one who knows his own business so well, that I am only
surprised at the moderation of his request."

Here Mr. Effingham rose, rang the bell for Pierre, and went to his
own room, doubting, in his own mind, from all that he had seen,
whether this was really the Templeton he had known in his youth, and
whether he was in his own house or not.

As for Aristabulus, who saw nothing out of rule, or contrary to his
own notions of propriety, in what had passed, he hurried off to tell
the barber, who was so ignorant of the first duty of his trade, that
he was at liberty to pull down Mr. Effingham's fence, in order to
manure his own potato patch.

Lest the reader should suppose we are drawing caricatures, instead of
representing an actual condition of society, it may be necessary to
explain that Mr. Bragg was a standing candidate for popular favour;
that, like Mr. Dodge, he considered every thing that presented itself
in the name of the public, as sacred and paramount, and that so
general and positive was his deference for majorities, that it was
the bias of his mind to think half-a-dozen always in the right, as
opposed to one, although that one, agreeably to the great decision of
the real majority of the entire community, had not only the law on
his side, but all the abstract merits of the disputed question. In
short, to such a pass of freedom had Mr. Bragg, in