out to give way under
him. Lot none dare to say in future that a tailor is but the ninth
part of a man. That reproach has been gloriously taken away from the
character of the cross-legged corporation by Neal Malone. He has wiped
it off like a stain from the collar of a second-hand coat; he has
pressed this wrinkle out of the lying front of antiquity; he has drawn
together this rent in the respectability of his profession. No. By him
who was breeches-maker to the gods--that is, except, like Highlanders,
they eschewed inexpressibles--by him who cut Jupiter's frieze jocks for
winter, and eke by the bottom of his thimble, we swear, that Neal Malone
was more than the ninth part of a man!

Setting aside the Patagonians, we maintain that two-thirds of mortal
humanity were comprised in Neal; and, perhaps, we might venture to
assert, that two-thirds of Neal's humanity were equal to six-thirds of
another man's. It is right well known that Alexander the Great was a
little man, and we doubt whether, had Alexander the Great been bred to
the tailoring business, he would have exhibited so much of the hero
as Neal Malone. Neal was descended from a fighting family, who had
signalized themselves in as many battles as ever any single hero
of antiquity fought. His father, his grandfather, and his great
grandfather, were all fighting men, and his ancestors in general, up,
probably, to Con of the Hundred Battles himself. No wonder, therefore,
that Neal's blood should cry out against the cowardice of his calling;
no wonder that he should be an epitome of all that was valorous and
heroic in a peaceable man, for we neglected to inform the reader that
Neal, though "bearing no base mind," never fought any man in his own
person. That, however, deducted nothing from his courage. If he did not
fight, it was simply because he found cowardice universal. No man would
engage him; his spirit blazed in vain; his thirst for battle was doomed
to remain unquenched, except by whiskey, and this only increased it. In
short, he could find no foe. He has often been known to challenge the
first cudgel-players and pugilists of the parish; to provoke men of
fourteen stone weight; and to bid mortal defiance to faction heroes of
all grades--but in vain. There was that in him which told them that an
encounter with Neal would strip them of their laurels. Neal saw all this
with a lofty indignation; he deplored the degeneracy of the times, and
thought it hard that the des