he had too much sagacity not to be
perfectly aware of the advantage, to a tradesman, resulting from a prior
occupation of the ground. He had not lost everything in the
conflagration which destroyed his cart-body and calicoes; for, apart
from sundry little debts due him in the surrounding country, he had
carefully preserved around his body, in a black silk handkerchief,
a small wallet, holding a moderate amount of the best bank paper.
Bunce, among other things, had soon learned to discriminate between
good and bad paper, and the result of his education in this respect
assured him of the perfect integrity of the three hundred and odd
dollars which kept themselves snugly about his waist--ready to be
expended for clocks and calicoes, horn buttons and wooden combs, knives,
and negro-handkerchiefs, whenever their proprietor should determine upon
a proper whereabout in which to fix himself. Bunce had grown tired of
peddling--the trade was not less uncertain than fatiguing. Besides,
travelling so much among the southrons, he had imbibed not a few of
their prejudices against his vocation, and, to speak the truth, had
grown somewhat ashamed of his present mode of life. He was becoming
rapidly aristocratic, as we may infer from a very paternal and somewhat
patronizing epistle, which he despatched about this time to his elder
brother and copartner, Ichabod Bunce, who carried on his portion of the
business at their native place in Meriden, Connecticut. He told him, in
a manner and vein not less lofty than surprising to his coadjutor, that
it "would not be the thing, no how, to keep along, lock and lock with
him, in the same gears." It was henceforward his "idee to drive on his
own hook. Times warn't as they used to be;" and the fact was--he did not
say it in so many words--the firm of Ichabod Bunce and Brother was
scarcely so creditable to the latter personage as he should altogether
desire among his southern friends and acquaintances. He "guessed,
therefore, best haul off," and each--here Bunce showed his respect for
his new friends by quoting their phraseology--"must paddle his own
canoe."

We have minced this epistle, and have contented ourselves with providing
a scrap, here and there, to the reader--despairing, as we utterly do, to
gather from memory a full description of a performance so perfectly
unique in its singular compound of lofty vein, with the patois and
vulgar contractions of his native, and those common to his adopt