minently practical, and so a great law-giver, a legislator, a
great general, or orator, was each evening selected for their reading.
If it were not out of our track, we might tell here how much Layton
was amused by the strange, shrewd commentaries of his companion on the
characters of a classic age; or how he enjoyed the curious resemblances
Quackinboss would discover between the celebrities of Athens and Rome
and the great men of his own country. And many a time was the reader
interrupted by such exclamations as, "Ay, sir, just what J. Q. Adams
would have said!" or, "That 's the way our John Randolph would have
fixed it!"

But Quackinboss was not satisfied with the pleasure thus afforded to
himself, for, with native instinct, he began to think how all such
stories of knowledge and amusement might be utilized for the benefit of
the possessor.

"You must come to the States, Layton," he would say. "You must let our
people hear these things. They 're a main sharp, wide-awake folk, but
they ain't posted up about Greeks and Romans. Just mind me, now, and
you'll do a fine stroke of work, sir. Give them one of these pleasant
stories out of that fellow there, Herod--Herod--what d'ye call him?"

"Herodotus?"

"Ay, that's he; and then a slice out of one of those slapping speeches
you read to me t' other night. I'm blessed if the fellow did n't lay it
on like Point Dexter himself; and wind up all with what we can't match,
a comic scene from Aristophanes. You see I have his name all correct. I
ain't christened Shaver if you don't fill your hat with Yankee dollars
in every second town of the Union."

Layton burst out into a hearty laugh at what seemed to him a project
so absurd and impossible; but Quackinboss, with increased gravity,
continued,--

"Your British pride, mayhap, is offended by the thought of lecturin'
to us Western folk; but I am here to tell you, sir, that our own first
men--ay, and you 'll not disparage _them_--are a-doin' it every day.
It's not play-actin' I 'm speaking of. They don't go before a crowded
theatre to play mimic with face or look or voice or gesture. They 've
got a something to tell folk that's either ennobling or instructive.
They've got a story of some man, who, without one jot more of natural
advantages than any of those listening there, made himself a name to be
blessed and remembered for ages. They've to show what a thing a strong
will is when united with an honest heart; and how no man, no