what not. Here's liberty-hall, said he; chew, or smoke, or spit as you please ;-do as you like here; we'll throw off all resarve now; but mind that cursed nigger; he has a foot like a cat, and an ear for every keyhole-don't talk too loud.

"Well, Sam, said he, I'm glad to see you too, my boy; it put's me in mind of old times. Many's the lark you and I have had together in Slickville, when old Hunks—(it made me start, that he meant Mr. Hopewell, and it made me feel kinder dandry at him, for I wouldn't let any one speak disrespectful of him afore me for nothin', I know,)—when old Hunks thought we was abed. Them was happy days-the days o' light heels and light hearts. I often think on 'em, and think on 'em too with pleasure. Well, Ahab, says I, I don't gist altogether know as I do; there are some things we might gist as well a'most have left alone, I reckon; but what's done is done, that's a fact. Ahem! said he, so loud, I looked round and I seed two niggers bringin' in the breakfast, and a grand one it was-tea and coffee and Indgian corn cakes, and hot bread and cold bread, fish, fowl, and flesh, roasted, boiled, and fried; presarves, pickles, fruits; in short, everything a'most you could think on. You needn't wait, said Ahab, to the blacks; I'll ring for you, when I want you; we'll help ourselves.

"Well, when I looked round and seed this critter alivin' this way, on the fat o' the land, up to his knees in clover like, it did pose me considerable to know how he worked it so cleverly, for he was thought always, as a boy, to be rather more than half onder-baked, considerable soft-like. So says I, Ahab, says I, I calculate you'r like the cat we used to throw out of minister's garret-winder, when we was aboardin' there to school. How so, Sam? said he. Why, says I, you always seem to come on your feet some how or other. You have got a plaguy nice thing of it here; that's a fact, and no mistake

(the critter had three thousand dollars a year); how on airth did you manage it? I wish in my heart I had ataken up the trade o' preachin' too; when it does hit it does capitally, that's sartain. Why, says he, if you'll promise not to let on to any one about it, I'll tell you. I'll keep dark about it, you may depend, says I. I'm not a man that can't keep nothin' in my gizzard, but go right off and blart out all I hear. I know a thing worth two o' that, I guess. Well, says he, it's done by a new rule I made in grammar-the feminine gender is more worthy than the neuter, and the neuter more worthy than the masculine; I gist soft sawder the women. It 'taint every man will let you tickle him; and if you do, he'll make faces at you enough to frighten you into fits; but tickle his wife, and it's electrical-he'll laugh like anything. They are the forred wheels, start them, and the hind ones foller of course. Now it's mostly women that tend meetin' here; the men-folks have their politics and trade to talk over, and what not, and ain't time; but the ladies go considerable rigular, and we have to depend on them, the dear critters. I gist lay myself out to get the blind side o' them, and I sugar and gild the pill so as to make it pretty to look at and easy to swaller. Last Lord's day, for instance, I preached

Well, I drew such a pictur

on the death of the widder's son. of the lone watch at the sick bed, the patience, the kindness, the tenderness of women's hearts, their forgiving disposition -(the Lord forgive me for saying so, tho', for if there is a created critter that never forgives, it's a woman; they seem to forgive a wound on their pride, and it skins over and looks all healed up like, but touch 'em on the sore spot agin, and see how cute their memory is)-their sweet temper, soothers of grief, dispensers of joy, ministrin' angels. I make all the virtues of the feminine gender always-then I wound up with a quotation from Walter Scott. They all like poetry, do the

ladies, and Shakspeare, Scott, and Byron are amazin' favorites; they go down much better than them old-fashioned staves o' Watts.

'Oh, woman, in our hour of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade

By the light quivering aspen made;

When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou.'

If I didn't touch it off to the nines it's a pity. I never heerd you preach so well, says one, since you was located here. I drew from natur', says I, a squeezin' of her hand. Nor never so touchin', says another. You know my moddle, says I, lookin' spooney on her. I fairly shed tears, said a third; how often have you drawn them from me! says I. So true, says they, and so nateral, and truth and natur' is what we call eloquence. I feel quite proud, says I, and considerable elated, my admired sisters,-for who can judge so well as the ladies of the truth of the description of their own virtues? I must say, I felt somehow kinder inadequate to the task too, I said, for the depth and strength of beauty of the female heart passes all understandin'.

"When I left 'em I heerd 'em say, ain't he a dear man, a feelin' man, a sweet critter, a'most a splendid preacher; none o' your mere moral lecturers, but a rael right down genuine gospel preacher. Next day I received to the tune of one hundred dollars in cash, and fifty dollars produce, presents from one and another. The truth is, if a minister wants to be popular he should remain single, for then the gals all have a chance for him; but the moment he marries he's up a tree, his flint is fixed then; you may depend it's gone goose with

them arter that; that's a fact. No, Sam; they are the pillars of the temple, the dear little critters. And I'll give you a wrinkle for your horn, perhaps you ain't got yet, and it may be some use to you when you go down atradin' with the benighted colonists in the outlandish British provinces. The road to the head lies through the heart. Pocket, you mean, instead of head, I guess, said I; and if you don't travel that road full chissel it's a pity.-Well, says I, Ahab, when I go to Slickville I'll gist tell Mr. Hopewell what a most precious superfine, superior darn'd rascal you have turned out; if you ain't No. 1, letter A, I want to know who is, that's all. You do beat all, Sam, said he; it's the system that's vicious, and not the preacher. If I didn't give 'em the soft sawder they would neither pay me nor hear me; that's a fact. Are you so soft in the horn now, Sam, as to suppose that the gals would take the trouble to come to hear me tell 'em of their corrupt natur' and fallen condition; and first thank me, and then pay me for it! Very entertainin' that, to tell 'em the worms will fatten on their pretty little rosy cheeks, and that their sweet plump flesh is nothin' but grass, flourishin' to day, and to be cut down withered and rotten to-morrow; ain't it? It ain't in the natur' o' things, if I put them out o'concait o' themselves, I can put them in concait o' me; or that they will come down handsome, and do the thing ginteel, its gist onpossible. It warn't me made the system, but the system made me. The voluntary don't work well.

System or no system, said I, Ahab, you are Ahab still, and Ahab you'll be to the eend of the chapter. You may decaive the women by soft sawder, and yourself by talkin' about systems, but you won't walk into me so easy, I know. It ain't pretty at all. Now, said I, Ahab, I told you I wouldn't blow you, nor will I. I will neither speak o' things past nor things present I know you wouldn't, Sam, said he; you were

always a good feller. But its on one condition, says I, and that is that you allow Polly Bacon a hundred dollars a-year -she was a good gall and a decent gall when you first know'd her, and she's in great distress now at Slickville, I tell you. That's onfair, that's onkind, Sam, said he; that's not the clean thing; I can't afford it; it's a breach o' confidence this, but you got me on the hip, and I can't help myself; say fifty dollars, and I will. Done, said I, and mind you're up to the notch, for I'm in earnest-there's no mistake. Depend upon me, said he, and, Sam, said he, a shakin' hands along with me at partin',-excuse me, my good feller, but I hope I may never have the pleasure to see your face ag'in. Ditto, says I; but mind the fifty dollars a-year, or you will see me to a sartinty-good b'ye."

A year after Sam Slick and his companion found themselves entering Thebes, not the Egyptian nor the Grecian city, but a little hamlet formed of five or six wooden houses, to which the inhabitants had given that illustrious name, probably with a view to annoy and bother future geographers. All the doors were shut, not a man was in the streets. In the midst of the general silence, you saw the mason's trowel standing in a heap of mortar, the scaffolding up, the joiner's tools as if just laid aside and everything denoting a sudden cessation of labor. At last they found a tavern open, and in it's only room the tavern-keeper smoking. "I calculate," said Sam, entering, "that you ain't the only inhabitant of this location." "I reckon not," was the reply," they are all gone to the woods to hear the preacher of the new Korkornites." "I guess," says Sam, "I never heard of them fellers afore. What is a Korkornite ?" They can tell you themselves; I don't know. All that I know is, that there's a religious bee, which they call a meetin' or a stir."