etting his head
shot off.

But he softened when he looked at the accounts and saw that I had
actually booked the unparalleled number of thirty-three new subscribers,
and had the vegetables to show for it, cordwood, cabbage, beans, and
unsalable turnips enough to run the family for two dears!

HOW THE AUTHOR WAS SOLD IN NEWARK--[Written about 1869.]

It is seldom pleasant to tell on oneself, but some times it is a sort of
relief to a man to make a confession. I wish to unburden my mind now,
and yet I almost believe that I am moved to do it more because I long to
bring censure upon another man than because I desire to pour balm upon my
wounded heart. (I don't know what balm is, but I believe it is the
correct expression to use in this connection--never having seen any
balm.) You may remember that I lectured in Newark lately for the young
gentlemen of the-----Society? I did at any rate. During the afternoon
of that day I was talking with one of the young gentlemen just referred
to, and he said he had an uncle who, from some cause or other, seemed to
have grown permanently bereft of all emotion. And with tears in his
eyes, this young man said, "Oh, if I could only see him laugh once more!
Oh, if I could only see him weep!" I was touched. I could never
withstand distress.

I said: "Bring him to my lecture. I'll start him for you."

"Oh, if you could but do it! If you could but do it, all our family
would bless you for evermore--for he is so very dear to us. Oh, my
benefactor, can you make him laugh? can you bring soothing tears to those
parched orbs?"

I was profoundly moved. I said: "My son, bring the old party round.
I have got some jokes in that lecture that will make him laugh if there
is any laugh in him; and if they miss fire, I have got some others that
will make him cry or kill him, one or the other." Then the young man
blessed me, and wept on my neck, and went after his uncle. He placed him
in full view, in the second row of benches, that night, and I began on
him. I tried him with mild jokes, then with severe ones; I dosed him
with bad jokes and riddled him with good ones; I fired old stale jokes
into him, and peppered him fore and aft with red-hot new ones; I warmed
up to my work, and assaulted him on the right and left, in front and
behind; I fumed and sweated and charged and ranted till I was hoarse and
sick and frantic and furious; but I never moved him once--I never started
a smil