had,
with the greatest unwillingness and many moral apologies, a medical
examination; they might as sensibly have examined Vashishta's cow to find
out if it was an Irish bull. Then came the attack on the impropriety of
the whole thing, and finally Mr. Barnum's triumphant surrebutter, showing
he had most unwillingly been _goaded_ by the attacks of malevolent
wretches into an unavoidable course of defence. Of course, spotless
innocence came out triumphant. Mr. Barnum's system of innocence was
truly admirable. When he had concocted some monstrous cock-and-bull
curiosity, he was wont to advertise that "it was with very great
reluctance that he presented this unprecedented marvel to the world, as
doubts had been expressed as to its genuineness--doubts inspired by the
actually apparently incredible amount of attraction in it. All that we
ask of an enlightened and honest public is, that it will pass a fair
verdict and decide whether it be a humbug or not." So the enlightened
public paid its quarters of a dollar, and decided that it _was_ a humbug,
and Barnum abode by their decision, and then sent it to another city to
be again decided on.

I returned to Philadelphia, and to my father's house, and occupied myself
with such odds and ends of magazine and other writing as came in my way,
and always reading and studying. I was very much depressed at this time,
yet not daunted. My year in New York had familiarised me with
characteristic phases of American life and manners; my father thought I
had gone through a severe mill with rather doubtful characters, and once
remarked that I should not judge too harshly of business men, for I had
been unusually unfortunate in my experience.

A not unfrequent visitor at our house in Philadelphia was our near
neighbour, Henry C. Carey, the distinguished scholar and writer on
political economy, who had been so extensively robbed of ideas by
Bastiat, and who retook his own, not without inflicting punishment. He
was a handsome, black-eyed, white-haired man, with a very piercing
glance. During the war, when men were sad and dull, and indeed till his
death, Mr. Carey's one glorious and friendly extravagance was to assemble
every Sunday afternoon all his intimates, including any distinguished
strangers, at his house, round a table, in rooms magnificently hung with
pictures, and give everybody, _ad libitum_, hock which cost him sixteen
shillings a bottle. I occasionally obliged him by trans