you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the price
of your children's food for a swig half so delicious? Now, for the first
time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good by; and,
whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply, at the
old stand. Who next? O, my little friend, you are let loose from
school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory
of certain taps of the ferule, and other school-boy troubles, in a
draught from the Town Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young
life. Take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a
fiercer thirst than now! There, my dear child, put down the cup, and
yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over
the paving-stones, that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them. What!
he limps by, without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers
were meant only for people who have no wine-cellars. Well, well, sir,--
no harm done, I hope! Go draw the cork, tip the decanter; but, when your
great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If
gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the
Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not
scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs, and laps eagerly out
of the trough. See how lightly he capers away again! Jowler, did your
worship ever have the gout?

Are you all satisfied? Then wipe your mouths, my good friends; and,
while my spout has a moment's leisure, I will delight the town with a few
historical reminiscences. In far antiquity, beneath a darksome shadow of
venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of the leafstrewn earth, in the
very spot where you now behold me, on the sunny pavement. The water was
as bright and clear, and deemed as precious, as liquid diamonds. The
Indian sagamores drank of it, from time immemorial, till the fatal deluge
of the fire-water burst upon the red men, and swept their whole race away