highly-colored verses in praise of Cape Cod; and these my publisher,
who was by no means a tricky man, said had made a great stir in the
literary world. And his assertion I found confirmed by the critics,
who, with one accord, and without being paid, declared these verses
proof that the author possessed "a rare inventive genius." The
meaning of this was all Hebrew to me. My mother suggested that it
might be a figure of speech copied from Chaldean mythology.

Another cause of alarm for my morals, in the eyes of my father, was
the fact of my having made two political speeches. And these,
according to divers New York politicians, had secured Cape Cod to
General Pierce. And, as a reward for this great service, and to the
end of illustrating in some substantial manner (so it is written at
this day) their appreciation of a politician so distinguished, I was
waited upon by a delegation of the before-named politicians, (two of
whom came slightly intoxicated,) who had come, as they said, to
tender to me an invitation to visit New York. A public reception by
the Mayor and Council; a grand banquet at Tammany Hall; the honor of
being made one of its Sachems; free apartments and two charming
serenades at the New York Hotel; and divers suppers at very
respectable houses, were temptingly suggested as an inducement for
me to come out and take a prominent position. Indeed, such were the
representations of this distinguished delegation, that I began to
think the people of New York singularly rich and liberal, seeing
that they trusted their surplus money in the hands of persons who
were so loose of morals that they could find no other method of
spending it than suppering and serenading men of my obscure stamp.

But if my father was alarmed lest my morals should suffer by these
temptations, my mother would have answered to heaven for my virtue,