cident which was to put a snapped end to this humbugging.

It came thus. All at once Mr. Carlyle abruptly asked me, in a manner or
with an intonation which sounded to me almost semi-contemptuous, "And
what kind of an American may you be?" (I _think_ he said "will you be?")
"German, or Irish, or what?"

To which I replied, not over amiably:--

"Since it interests you, Mr. Carlyle, to know the origin of my family, I
may say that I am descended from Henry Leland, whom the tradition
declares to have been a noted Puritan, and active in the politics of his
time,' and who went to America in 1636."

To this Mr. Carlyle replied:--

"I doubt whether any of your family have since been equal to your old
Puritan great-grandfather" (or "done anything to equal your old Puritan
grandfather"). With this something to the effect that we had done
nothing in America since Cromwell's Revolution, equal to it in importance
or of any importance.

Then a great rage came over me, and I remember _very_ distinctly that
there flashed through my mind in a second the reflection, "Now, if I have
to call you a d---d old fool for saying that, I _will_; but I'll be even
with you." When as quickly the following inspiration came, which I
uttered, and I suspect somewhat energetically:--

"Mr. Carlyle, I think that my brother, Henry Leland, who got the wound
from which he died standing by my side in the war of the rebellion,
fighting against slavery, was worth ten of my old Puritan ancestors; at
least, he died in a ten times better cause. And" (here my old "Indian"
was up and I let it out) "allow me to say, Mr. Carlyle, that I think that
in all matters of historical criticism you are principally influenced by
the merely melodramatic and theatrical."

Here Mr. Carlyle, looking utterly amazed and startled, though not at all
angry, said, for the first time, in broad Scotch--

"Whot's _thot_ ye say?"

"I say, Mr. Carlyle," I exclaimed with rising wrath, "that I consider
that in all historical judgments you are influenced only by the
melodramatic and theatrical."

A grim smile as of admiration came over the stern old face. Whether he
really felt the justice of the hit I know not, but he was evidently
pleased at the manner in which it was delivered, and it was with a deeply
reflective and not displeased air that he replied, still in Scotch--

"Na, na, I'm nae _thot_."

It was the terrier who had ferociously attacked the lion, and the lion
was