he lot in
contemplation, or a prime little situation just adjoining, or tight in
front. This done, we wait until the palace is half-way up, and then we
pay some tasty architect to run us up an ornamental mud hovel, right
against it; or a Down-East or Dutch Pagoda, or a pig-sty, or an
ingenious little bit of fancy work, either Esquimau, Kickapoo, or
Hottentot. Of course we can't afford to take these structures down under
a bonus of five hundred per cent upon the prime cost of our lot and
plaster. Can we? I ask the question. I ask it of business men. It would
be irrational to suppose that we can. And yet there was a rascally
corporation which asked me to do this very thing--this very thing! I did
not reply to their absurd proposition, of course; but I felt it a duty
to go that same night, and lamp-black the whole of their palace. For
this the unreasonable villains clapped me into jail; and the gentlemen
of the Eye-Sore trade could not well avoid cutting my connection when I
came out.

The Assault-and-Battery business, into which I was now forced to
adventure for a livelihood, was somewhat ill-adapted to the delicate
nature of my constitution; but I went to work in it with a good heart,
and found my account here, as heretofore, in those stern habits of
methodical accuracy which had been thumped into me by that delightful
old nurse--I would indeed be the basest of men not to remember her
well in my will. By observing, as I say, the strictest system in all my
dealings, and keeping a well-regulated set of books, I was enabled to
get over many serious difficulties, and, in the end, to establish myself
very decently in the profession. The truth is, that few individuals, in
any line, did a snugger little business than I. I will just copy a page
or so out of my Day-Book; and this will save me the necessity of blowing
my own trumpet--a contemptible practice of which no high-minded man will
be guilty. Now, the Day-Book is a thing that don't lie.

"Jan. 1.--New Year's Day. Met Snap in the street, groggy. Mem--he'll
do. Met Gruff shortly afterward, blind drunk. Mem--he'll answer, too.
Entered both gentlemen in my Ledger, and opened a running account with
each.

"Jan. 2.--Saw Snap at the Exchange, and went up and trod on his toe.
Doubled his fist and knocked me down. Good!--got up again. Some trifling
difficulty with Bag, my attorney. I want the damages at a thousand, but
he says that for so simple a knock down we can't lay them at