ice, 'How do you do, sir?' and shook hands with
Mr Pogram all over again, as if he had been abroad for a twelvemonth in
the meantime, and they met, now, at a funeral.

But by this time Mr Pogram had freshened himself up, and had composed
his hair and features after the Pogram statue, so that any one with half
an eye might cry out, 'There he is! as he delivered the Defiance!'
The Committee were embellished also; and when they entered the ladies'
ordinary in a body, there was much clapping of hands from ladies and
gentlemen, accompanied by cries of 'Pogram! Pogram!' and some standing
up on chairs to see him.

The object of the popular caress looked round the room as he walked up
it, and smiled; at the same time observing to the shrill boy, that he
knew something of the beauty of the daughters of their common country,
but had never seen it in such lustre and perfection as at that moment.
Which the shrill boy put in the paper next day; to Elijah Pogram's great
surprise.

'We will re-quest you, sir, if you please,' said Buffum, laying hands on
Mr Pogram as if he were taking his measure for a coat, 'to stand up with
your back agin the wall right in the furthest corner, that there may
be more room for our fellow citizens. If you could set your back right
slap agin that curtain-peg, sir, keeping your left leg everlastingly
behind the stove, we should be fixed quite slick.'

Mr Pogram did as he was told, and wedged himself into such a little
corner that the Pogram statue wouldn't have known him.

The entertainments of the evening then began. Gentlemen brought ladies
up, and brought themselves up, and brought each other up; and asked
Elijah Pogram what he thought of this political question, and what
he thought of that; and looked at him, and looked at one another, and
seemed very unhappy indeed. The ladies on the chairs looked at Elijah
Pogram through their glasses, and said audibly, 'I wish he'd speak.
Why don't he speak? Oh, do ask him to speak!' And Elijah Pogram looked
sometimes at the ladies and sometimes elsewhere, delivering senatorial
opinions, as he was asked for them. But the great end and object of the
meeting seemed to be, not to let Elijah Pogram out of the corner on any
account; so there they kept him, hard and fast.

A great bustle at the door, in the course of the evening, announced the
arrival of some remarkable person; and immediately afterwards an elderly
gentleman, much excited, was seen to precipitate h