of my senatorial friend, I was placed at
once on genial terms with half the citizens of the
little town--from the shirt-sleeved nabob of the
county office to the droll wag of the favorite loafing-
place--the rules and by-laws of which resort, by
the way, being rudely charcoaled on the wall above
the cutter's bench, and somewhat artistically
culminating in an original dialect legend which ran
thus:

F'r instunce, now, when SOME folks gits
To relyin' on theyr wits,
Ten to one they git too smart
And SPILE it all, right at the start!
Feller wants to jest go slow
And do his THINKIN' first, you know,
'F I CAST'T THINK UP SOMEPIN' GOOD,
I SET STILL AND CHAW MY COOD!


And it was at this inviting rendezvous, two or
three evenings following my arrival, that the general
crowd, acting upon the random proposition of
one of the boys, rose as a man and wended its
hilarious way to the town hall.

"Phrenology," said the little, old, bald-headed
lecturer and mesmerist, thumbing the egg-shaped head
of a young man I remembered to have met that afternoon
in some law office; "phrenology," repeated