ys, and with an insufferable air of superiority, too, as
though to say, "None of your shuffling with me, Potts! That will do all
mighty well with the outer world, but _I_ am not to be humbugged. You
never devised a scheme in your life that I was not by at the cookery,
and saw how you mixed the ingredients and stirred the pot! No, no, old
fellow, all your little secret rogueries will avail you nothing here!"

Had these words been actually addressed to me by a living individual, I
could not have heard them more plainly than now they fell upon my ear,
uttered, besides, in a tone of cutting, sarcastic derision. "I will
stand this no longer!" cried I, springing up from my seat and flinging
my cigar angrily away. "I 'm certain no man ever accomplished any high
and great destiny in life who suffered himself to be bullied in this
wise; such irritating, pestering impertinence would destroy the temper
of a saint, and break down the courage and damp the ardor of the
boldest. Could great measures of statecraft be carried out--could
battles be won--could new continents be discovered, if at every
strait and every emergency one was to be interrupted by a low voice,
whispering, 'Is this _all_ right? Are there no flaws here? You live in a
world of frailties, Potts. You are playing at a round game, where every
one cheats a little, and where the Drogueries are never remembered
against him who wins. Bear that in your mind, and keep your cards
"up."'"

When I was about to take my ticket, a dictum of the great moralist
struck my mind: "Desultory reading has slain its thousands and tens
of thousands;" and if desultory reading, why not infinitely more so
desultory acquaintance? Surely, our readings do not impress us as
powerfully as the actual intercourse of life. It must be so. It is
in this daily conflict with our fellow-men that we are moulded and
fashioned; and the danger is, to commingle and confuse the impressions
made upon our hearts, to cross the writing on our natures so often that
nothing remains legible! "I will guard against this peril," thought I.
"I will concentrate my intentions and travel alone." I slipped a crown
into a guard's hand, and whispered, "Put no one in here if you can help
it" As I jogged along, all by myself, I could not help feeling that one
of the highest privileges of wealth must be to be able always to buy
solitude,--to be in a position to say, "None shall invade me. The
world must contrive to go round without