and I never wish to see him. But to college was America sent,--to be
"hazed," and taunted, and called "E Plury," and his beak and claws
inquired after, through the freshman year. I never knew how he went
through,--I mean, with what feelings. Of course, he was the first
scholar. But that, even, must have been but a small consolation.

The worst of all was, he was sensitive about his name,--whether because
it had been used to torment him, and so, like poor worn-out Nessus,
he wrapped more closely his poisoned scarf, (I like scarf better than
shirt,)--or whether he had, in the course of his law-studies and
men-studies, come to think it really mattered very little what a man's
name was in the beginning; at all events, he had no notion of dismissing
his own.

My own secret hope had been, that, by an Act of the Legislature, which
that very season had changed Pontifex Parker to Charles Alfred Parker,
Mr. Sampson might be accommodated with a name less unspeakably national.
Dear me! Alfred, Arthur, Albert,--if he must begin with A.

"A was an Archer, and shot at a frog."

I should even prefer Archer. It needn't be Insatiate Archer. So I kept
turning over and over the painful subject, one evening,--I mean, of
course, in my mind, for I had not really broached this matter of
legislative action. Luckily, "he" had brought in the new edition of
George Herbert's Works. We were reading aloud, and "he" read the chapter
of "The Parson in Sacraments." At the foot was an extract from "The
Parish Register" of Crabbe, which he read, unconscious of the way in
which I mentally applied it. Indeed, I think he scarcely thought of his
own name at that time. But I did, twenty-four times in every day. This