as been to see me. Came in, glorious, at about
twelve o'clock, last night. Said he had been with "the boys." On
inquiry, found that "the boys," were certain baldish and grayish
old gentlemen that one sees or hears of in various important
stations of society. The Professor is one of the same set, but he
always talks as if he had been out of college about ten years,
whereas. . . [Each of these dots was a little nod, which the
company understood, as the reader will, no doubt.] He calls them
sometimes "the boys," and sometimes "the old fellows." Call him by
the latter title, and see how he likes it.--Well, he came in last
night glorious, as I was saying. Of course I don't mean vinously
exalted; he drinks little wine on such occasions, and is well known
to all the Peters and Patricks as the gentleman who always has
indefinite quantities of black tea to kill any extra glass of red
claret he may have swallowed. But the Professor says he always
gets tipsy on old memories at these gatherings. He was, I forget
how many years old when he went to the meeting; just turned of
twenty now,--he said. He made various youthful proposals to me,
including a duet under the landlady's daughter's window. He had
just learned a trick, he said, of one of "the boys," of getting a
splendid bass out of a door-panel by rubbing it with the palm of
his hand. Offered to sing "The sky is bright," accompanying
himself on the front-door, if I would go down and help in the
chorus. Said there never was such a set of fellows as the old boys
of the set he has been with. Judges, mayors, Congress-men, Mr.
Speakers, leaders in science, clergymen better than famous, and
famous too, poets by the half-dozen, singers with voices like
angels, financiers, wits, three of the best laughers in the
Commonwealth, engineers, agriculturists,--all forms of talent and
knowledge he pretended were represented in that meeting. Then he
began to quote Byron about Santa Croce, and maintained that he
could "furnish out creation" in all its details from that set of
his. He would like to have the whole boodle of them, (I
remonstrated against this word, but the Professor said it was a
diabolish good word, and he would have no other,) with their wives
and children, shipwrecked on a remote island, just to see how
splendidly they would reorganize society. They could build a
city,--they have done it; make constitutions and laws; establish
churches and lyceums; teach and pr