his team, and dismounting in a trice, extended his hand with a
heartiness I was surprised to find in a stranger. "Jedediah Smooth,
the renowned fisherman, is my father, and I have set out in search
of fame and fortune," was my reply. At this he set his small, but
searching eyes upon me, and seemed confounded, the cause of which I
was not a little anxious to learn.

"Son of the worthiest of fathers!" he exclaimed, in a voice of great
earnestness, "my delight at meeting one whose fame as a politician
has preceded him, knows no bounds." Again he shook my hand
fervently, as a pleasing delirium seemed to have seized upon his
senses. "Accidents are sometimes equal to conquests," he continued.
"Know, then, that you confront Major Roger Sherman Potter, commonly
called Major Roger Potter. Like a titillation of the fancy, I have
been thrown up and down by the tide of political fortune and
misfortune until I became sickened of it, and resolved to seek
obscurity, and live like an honest man by the sale of tin, and such
wares as the good people of this remote part of the world might have
a demand for. You must not judge me by the calling necessity has now
forced me to follow, for I hold it right, and in strict accordance
with the nature of our institutions, that when fortune forsakes us,
we stand not upon the order of a reputation, which at best is but a
poor thing in time of need, but give ourselves manfully to any labor
by which our hands may preserve the honesty of our heads. It is much
better, I think, than following the fashion of our politicians, who
reward the people who send them to Congress by neglecting their duty
to the country, and studying those arts by which they can
appropriate to themselves the choicest spoils."

The Major now led his team a little out of the road, hung his feed