The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter

my feelings by suggesting that the most interesting part of it was yet to come. We had now pursued our journey some fifteen miles under a

reminded me that great men were exalted by small things, and however bemeaning the nursing of chickens might be regarded in a military man, there was in it a nobleness the great only could appreciate. The chickens, however, did not seem to appreciate his sacrifice of dignity, for they devoured their food with an increase of music. Having attended to the wants of his live stock, the major frisked round his wagon to see that his wares were all safe, and then commenced singing a song, as if a transport of joy had suddenly come over him. "I tell

honesty. So, after consulting within myself for some few minutes, I followed my companion and the Quaker into the back parlor of a cigar shop, where we carefully counted the great roll of notes, and found the amount to be exactly four thousand three hundred and twenty-two dollars, which nice little sum, together with papers of great value, showing the owner, one Henry Paterson, to be a man of large dealings in Wall-street, were entrusted to my care. My companion expressed his inability to trust himself with so large an amount of property, especially as the servants at his hotel were proverbially inclined to take liberties with other people's goods. At my request, he said he thought two hundred and fifty dollars would be a moderate consideration, since the owner would no doubt value the restoration of his property at twice that sum. I was not possessed of so large a sum; but being anxious not to wrong the Quaker, whose quiet demeanor completely won my confidence, I produced one hundred and fifty dollars, which he accepted, saying it was

to dissolve both our brains, and the major cutting short the thread of his story by

as he said, an unlimited control over them. I carefully consulted the columns of the Herald. And though I discovered in the editor a love for sharpening up his battle-axe, and making splinters of his fellows at least twice a week, not a gleam of light was thrown upon the man whose loss I felt it in my heart would be his ruin. I contemplated the wants and anxieties of those who sought to make them known therein, and smiled at the curious manner in which a thousand ambitious individuals expressed their readiness to supply the wants of others. I turned to the Tribune. But neither in the gravely-spun philosophy of its editorials, nor among the pearls of its advertisement columns, could I find a word to relieve my anxiety. The sages who are supposed by

hirt was bedazzled with seemed to brighten, while his face radiated smiles, in which it was not difficult to read that he set me down for a simpleton. He took the pocket-book into his hand, and saluting me by my military title, inquired how many banks my companion

utation, my money, my hopes of a foreign mission-all were gone. I expressed my regret that the man should have so little respect for his military reputation. The clerk, however, relieved me on that point, by stating that nothing in the world was easier than to be a general in New York, and that the individual who had gained a victory over me

per comments; for indeed the comments were of a character that might have satisfied a major of much more renown. One sagacious fellow, after reciting what he was pleased to set down as my political history, and the political history of all my shoemaker ancestors, at whose honest calling he tipped a sneer, as is common with the learned men of our very republican press, expressed his regret that so sharp a politician should have been made the victim of an ordinary sharper, but thought it quite likely we had been visiting temples of the unclean together, such being the favorite resorts of politicians. An