intellectual community might find his own hobby
in those stables.

"Think," cried Uncle Jack,--"think of the march of mind; think of the
passion for cheap knowledge; think how little quarterly, monthly, weekly
journals can keep pace with the main wants of the age! As well have a
weekly journal on politics as a weekly journal on all the matters still
more interesting than politics to the mass of the public. My 'Literary
Times' once started, people will wonder how they had ever lived without
it! Sir, they have not lived without it,--they have vegetated; they have
lived in holes and caves, like the Troggledikes."

"Troglodytes," said my father, mildly,--"from trogle, `a cave,' and
dumi, 'to go under.' They lived in Ethiopia, and had their wives in
common."

"As to the last point, I don't say that the public, poor creatures, are
as bad as that," said Uncle Jack, candidly; "but no simile holds good in
all its points. And the public are no less Troggledummies, or whatever
you call them, compared with what they will be when living under the
full light of my 'Literary Times.' Sir, it will be a revolution in the
world. It will bring literature out of the clouds into the parlor, the
cottage, the kitchen. The idlest dandy, the finest fine lady, will find
something to her taste; the busiest man of the mart and counter will
find some acquisition to his practical knowledge. The practical man will
see the progress of divinity, medicine, nay, even law. Sir, the Indian
will read me under the banyan; I shall be in the seraglios of the East;
and over my sheets the American Indian will smoke the calumet of peace.
We shall reduce politics to its proper level in the affairs of life;
raise literature to its due place in the thoughts and business of
men. It is a grand thought, and my heart swells with pride while I
contemplate it!"

"My dear Jack," said my father, seriously, and rising with emotion, "it
is a grand thought, and I honor you for it. You are quite right,--it
would be a revolution! It would educate mankind insensibly. Upon my
life, I should be proud to write a leader, or a paragraph. Jack, you
will immortalize yourself!"

"I believe I shall," said Uncle Jack, modestly; "but I have not said a
word yet on the greatest attraction of all."

"Ah! and that?"

"The Advertisements!" cried my uncle, spreading his hands, with all
the fingers at angles, like the threads of a spider's wed. "The
advertisements--oh, think of them!--a pe