"Years elapsed, and those compositions slumbered in dust. At length,
Destiny, choosing her agent from all mankind, sent You here, Christopher,
and lo! the Casket was burst asunder, and the Giant was free!"

He made hay of his hair after he said this, and he stood a-tiptoe.

"But," he reminded himself in a state of excitement, "we must sit up all
night, my Christopher. I must correct these Proofs for the press. Fill
all the inkstands, and bring me several new pens."

He smeared himself and he smeared the Proofs, the night through, to that
degree that when Sol gave him warning to depart (in a four-wheeler), few
could have said which was them, and which was him, and which was blots.
His last instructions was, that I should instantly run and take his
corrections to the office of the present Journal. I did so. They most
likely will not appear in print, for I noticed a message being brought
round from Beauford Printing House, while I was a throwing this
concluding statement on paper, that the ole resources of that
establishment was unable to make out what they meant. Upon which a
certain gentleman in company, as I will not more particularly name,--but
of whom it will be sufficient to remark, standing on the broad basis of a
wave-girt isle, that whether we regard him in the light of,--{3} laughed,
and put the corrections in the fire.




FOOTNOTES