same breath with HIMSELF--"the gifted but unfortunate
SWEENEY, sir--the unacknowledged author,
sir 'y gad, sir!--of the two poems that held you
spellbound to-night!"



A CALLER FROM BOONE

BENJ. F. JOHNSON VISITS THE EDITOR

It was a dim and chill and loveless afternoon in
the late fall of eighty-three when I first saw
the genial subject of this hasty sketch. From time
to time the daily paper on which I worked had been
receiving, among the general literary driftage of
amateur essayists, poets and sketch-writers, some
conceits in verse that struck the editorial head as
decidedly novel; and, as they were evidently the
production of an unlettered man, and an OLD man,
and a farmer at that, they were usually spared the
waste-basket, and preserved--not for publication,
but to pass from hand to hand among the members
of the staff as simply quaint and mirth-provoking
specimens of the verdancy of both the venerable
author and the Muse inspiring him. Letters as
quaint as were the poems invariably accompanied
them, and the oddity of these, in fact, had first called
attention to the verses. I well remember the general
merriment of the office when the first of the old