emolument, and that a "pull" with the powers that be was essential to
secure any prize. My change in religious sentiments debarred me from
the pulpit, and I had no friends influential enough to give me a
profitable position as a teacher in New England.

After making many applications, and enduring many hopes deferred which
make the heart sick, I struck out for New York one dark, rainy night,
with only $10 in my pocket to seek my fortune in that so-called
"Modern Sodom and Gomorrah." I knew no one in that great city, and on
my arrival before daylight in a dismal drenching storm, I entered the
nearest hotel to obtain some much needed sleep.

A villainous looking servitor showed me to a cold barn-like room where
I found no way of locking the door, so I barricaded the entrance with
the bureau, placing the chair on top as a burglar alarm. The scant
bedclothes were so short that one extremity or the other must freeze,
so I compromised by protecting the "midway plaisance," and in my
cramped quarters, thought with envy of Dr. Root of Byfield, who was
said to stretch his long legs out the window to secure plenty of room
for himself, and a roost on his pedal extremities for his favorite
turkeys.

I was on the point of falling into the arms of Morpheus in the land of
Nod, when a stealthy attempt to open the door sent the chair with a
crash to the floor. Yelling at the top of my voice, "Get out of that,
or I'll put a bullet through you!" I heard a form tumble down the
steep stairs, and muffled curses which reminded me of the lines in the
Hohenlinden poem: "It is Iser (I sir) rolling rapidly."

At the first dawn of a dismal day I crept down the dirty stairs, and