practical joke and his glass of Madeira, which had made at least three
voyages round the Cape. His temperament, like his person, was just
unctuous enough to enable him to slip comfortably through life.

Happily for his own comfort, he had but a speaking acquaintance with
politics. He was not a blue Federalist, and he never d'd the Democrats.
With unconscious skill he shot the angry rapids of discussion, and swept,
by a sure instinct, toward the quiet water on which he liked to ride. In
the counting-room or the meeting of directors, when his neighbors waxed
furious upon raking over some outrage of that old French infidel, Tom
Jefferson, as they called him, sending him and his gun-boats where no
man or boat wants to go, Mr. Gray rolled his neck in his white cravat,
crossed his legs, and shook his black-gaitered shoe, and beamed, and
smiled, and blew his nose, and hum'd, and ha'd, and said, "Ah, yes!"
"Ah, indeed?" "Quite so!" and held his tongue.

Mr. Savory Gray minded his own business; but his business did not
mind him. There came a sudden crash--one of the commercial earthquakes
that shake fortunes to their foundations and scatter failure on every
side. One day he sat in his office consoling his friend Jowlson, who
had been ruined. Mr. Jowlson was terribly agitated--credit gone--fortune
wrecked--no prospects--"O wife and children!" he cried, rocking to and
fro as he sat.

"My dear Jowlson, you must not give way in this manner. You must
control your feelings. Have we not always been taught," said Mr. Gray,
as a clerk brought in a letter, the seal of which the merchant broke
leisurely, and then skimmed the contents as he continued, "that riches
have wings and--my God!" he ejaculated, springing up, "I am a ruined
man!"