To conclude as I began: if there's a blighted public character going, I
am the party. And often as you have seen, do see, and will see, my
Works, it's fifty thousand to one if you'll ever see me, unless, when the
candles are burnt down and the Commercial character is gone, you should
happen to notice a neglected young man perseveringly rubbing out the last
traces of the pictures, so that nobody can renew the same. That's me.




CHAPTER IV--HIS WONDERFUL END


It will have been, ere now, perceived that I sold the foregoing writings.
From the fact of their being printed in these pages, the inference will,
ere now, have been drawn by the reader (may I add, the gentle reader?)
that I sold them to One who never yet--{2}

Having parted with the writings on most satisfactory terms,--for, in
opening negotiations with the present Journal, was I not placing myself
in the hands of One of whom it may be said, in the words of Another,
{2,}--resumed my usual functions. But I too soon discovered that peace
of mind had fled from a brow which, up to that time, Time had merely took
the hair off, leaving an unruffled expanse within.

It were superfluous to veil it,--the brow to which I allude is my own.

Yes, over that brow uneasiness gathered like the sable wing of the fabled
bird, as--as no doubt will be easily identified by all right-minded