--that is, a little of it: (1) He has belonged
to as many as five different religious denominations; last March
he withdrew from the deaconship in a Congregational Church and the
Superintendency of its Sunday School, in a speech in which he said that
for many months (it runs in my mind that he said 13 years,) he had been
a confirmed infidel, and so felt it to be his duty to retire from the
flock.

2. After being a republican for years, he wanted me to buy him a
democratic newspaper. A few days before the Presidential election,
he came out in a speech and publicly went over to the democrats; he
prudently "hedged" by voting for 6 state republicans, also.

The new convert was made one of the secretaries of the democratic
meeting, and placed in the list of speakers. He wrote me jubilantly of
what a ten-strike he was going to make with that speech. All right--but
think of his innocent and pathetic candor in writing me something like
this, a week later:

"I was more diffident than I had expected to be, and this was increased
by the silence with which I was received when I came forward; so I
seemed unable to get the fire into my speech which I had calculated
upon, and presently they began to get up and go out; and in a few
minutes they all rose up and went away."

How could a man uncover such a sore as that and show it to another? Not
a word of complaint, you see--only a patient, sad surprise.

3. His next project was to write a burlesque upon Paradise Lost.

4. Then, learning that the Times was paying Harte $100 a column for
stories, he concluded to write some for the same price. I read his first
one and persuaded him not to write any more.

5. Then he read proof on the N. Y. Eve. Post at $10 a week and meekly
observed that the foreman swore at him and ordered him around "like a
steamboat mate."

6. Being discharged from that post, he wanted to try agriculture--was
sure he could make a fortune out of a chicken farm. I gave him $900
and he went to a ten-house village a miles above Keokuk on the river
bank--this place was a railway station. He soon asked for money to buy a
horse and light wagon,--because the trains did not run at church time on
Sunday and his wife found it rather far to walk.

For a long time I answered demands for "loans" and by next mail
always received his check for the interest due me to date. In the most
guileless way he let it leak out that he did not underestimate the value
of his custom to me