o-Water, like a
poor slave as I am."

"You ought to be chosen the next President!"

"I owe my present emancipation, sir, to the sogdollager. I first
began to reason about such a man as this Mr. Dodge, who has thrust
himself and his ignorance together into the village, lately, as an
expounder of truth, and a ray of light to the blind. Well, sir, I
said to myself, if this man be the man I know him to be as a man, can
he be any thing better as an editor?"

"That was a home question put to yourself, commodore; how did you
answer it?"

"The answer was satisfactory, sir, to myself, whatever it might be to
other people. I stopped his paper, and set up for myself. Just about
that time the sogdollager nibbled, and instead of trying to be a
great man, over the shoulders of the patriots and sages of the land,
I endeavoured to immortalize myself by hooking him. I go to the
elections now, for that I feel to be a duty, but instead of allowing
a man like this Mr. Dodge to tell me how to vote, I vote for the man
in public that I would trust in private."

"Excellent! I honour you more and more every minute I pass in your
society. We will now drink to the future happiness of those who will
become brides and bridegrooms to-morrow. If all men were as
philosophical and as learned as you, commodore, the human race would
be in a fairer way than they are to-day."

"Just so; I drink to them with all my heart. Is it not surprising,
sir, that people like Mrs. Abbott and Mr. Dodge should have it in
their power to injure such as those whose happiness we have just had
the honour of commemorating in advance?"

"Why, commodore, a fly may bite an elephant, if he can find a weak
spot in his hide. I do not altogether understand the history of the
marriage of John Effingham, myself; but we see the issue of it has
been a fine son. Now I hold that when a man fairly marries, he is
bound to own it, the same as any other crime; for he owes it to those
who have not been as guilty as himself, to show the world that he no
longer belongs to them."

"Just so; but we have flies in this part of the world that will bite
through the toughest hide."

"That comes from there being no quarter-deck in your social ship,
commodore. Now aboard of a well-regulated packet, all the thinking is
done aft; they who are desirous of knowing whereabouts the vessel is,
being compelled to wait till the observations are taken, or to sit
down in their ignorance. The whole diff