with true honor the next man you meet, third; and then, presto!--although
it were needed that the floor of the parlor should open, and a little
black-bearded Merlin be shot up like Jack in a box, as you saw in
Humpty-Dumpty,--the right person, who knows the right thing, will appear,
and your ignorance will be solved.

What happened to me last week when I was trying to find the History of
Yankee Doodle? Did it come to me without my asking? Not a bit of it.
Nothing that was true came without my asking. Without my asking, there
came that stuff you saw in the newspapers, which said Yankee Doodle was a
Spanish air. That was not true. This was the way I found out what was
true. I confessed my ignorance; and, as Lewis at Bellombre said of that
ill-mannered Power, I had a great deal to confess. What I knew was, that
in "American Anecdotes" an anonymous writer said a friend of his had seen
the air among some Roundhead songs in the collection of a friend of his at
Cheltenham, and that this air was the basis of Yankee Doodle. What was
more, there was the old air printed. But then that story was good for
nothing till you could prove it. A Methodist minister came to Jeremiah
Mason, and said, "I have seen an angel from heaven who told me that your
client was innocent." "Yes," said Mr. Mason, "and did he tell you how to
prove it?" Unfortunately, in the dear old "American Anecdotes," there was
not the name of any person, from one cover to the other, who would be
responsible for one syllable of its charming stories. So there I was! And
I went through library after library looking for that Roundhead song, and
I could not find it. But when the time came that it was necessary I should
know, I confessed ignorance. Well, after that, the first man I spoke to
said, "No, I don't know anything about it. It is not in my line. But our
old friend Watson knew something about it, or said he did." "Who is
Watson?" said I. "O, he's dead ten years ago. But there's a letter by him
in the Historical Proceedings, which tells what he knew." So, indeed,