the Captain gave him an invitation to the Tower,--more, I suspect, out
of compliment to my mother than from the unbidden impulse of his own
inclinations. But Mr. Tibbets politely declined it. During his stay at
the brick house he had received and written a vast number of letters,--
some of those he received, indeed, were left at the village post-office,
under the alphabetical addresses of A. B. or X. Y.; for no misfortune
ever paralyzed the energies of Uncle Jack. In the winter of adversity
he vanished, it is true; but even in vanishing, he vegetated still. He
resembled those algae, termed the Prolococcus nivales, which give a
rose-color to the Polar snows that conceal them, and flourish
unsuspected amidst the general dissolution of Nature. Uncle Jack, then,
was as lively and sanguine as ever; though he began to let fall vague
hints of intentions to abandon the general cause of his fellow-
creatures, and to set up business henceforth purely on his own account,
--wherewith my father, to the great shock of my belief in his
philanthropy, expressed himself much pleased. And I strongly suspect
that when Uncle Jack wrapped himself up in his new double Saxony and
went off at last, he carried with him something more than my father's
good wishes in aid of his conversion to egotistical philosophy.

"That man will do yet," said my father, as the last glimpse was caught
of Uncle Jack standing up on the stage-coach box, beside the driver,
partly to wave his hand to us as we stood at the gate, and partly to
array himself more commodiously in a box-coat with six capes, which the
coachman had lent him.

"Do you think so, sir?" said I, doubtfully. "May I ask why?"

Mr. Caxton.--"On the cat principle,--that he tumbles so lightly. You
may throw him down from St. Paul's, and the next time you see him he