versation. With a
kind feeling towards him, we in general permitted him to pay our bills
for us whenever we dined together at tavern or chop-house, merely to
gratify the little fellow's vanity, which I have already hinted to be
excessive.

He had this evening made many ineffectual attempts to shine, but was at
last obliged to content himself with opening his mouth for the
admission, not for the utterance, of good things. He was evidently
unhappy, and a rightly constituted mind could not avoid pitying his
condition. As jug, however, succeeded jug, he began to recover his
self-possession; and it was clear, about eleven o'clock, when the fourth
bottle of potteen was converting into punch, that he had a desire to
speak. We had been for some time busily employed in smoking cigars,
when, all on a sudden, a shrill and sharp voice was heard from the midst
of a cloud, exclaiming, in a high treble key--

"_Humphries told me_"----

We all puffed our Havannahs with the utmost silence, as if we were so
many Sachems at a palaver, listening to the narration which issued from
the misty tabernacle in which Humpy Harlow was enveloped. He unfolded a
tale of wondrous length, which we never interrupted. No sound was heard
save that of the voice of Harlow, narrating the story which had to him
been confided by the unknown Humphries, or the gentle gliding of the
jug, an occasional tingle of a glass, and the soft suspiration of the
cigar. On moved the story in its length, breadth, and thickness, for
Harlow gave it to us in its full dimensions. He abated it not a jot. The
firmness which we displayed was unequalled since the battle of Waterloo.
We sat with determined countenances, exhaling smoke and inhaling punch,
while the voice still rolled onward. At last Harlow came to an end; and
a Babel of conversation burst from lips in which it had been so long
imprisoned. Harlow looked proud of his feat, and obtained the thanks of
the company, grateful that he had come to a conclusion. How we finished
the potteen--converted my bottle of rum into a bowl--(for here Jack
Ginger prevailed)--how Jerry Gallagher, by superhuman exertions,
succeeded in raising a couple of hundred of oysters for supper--how the
company separated, each to get to his domicile as he could--how I found,
in the morning, my personal liberty outraged by the hands of that
unconstitutional band of gens-d'armes created for the direct purposes of
tyranny, and held up to the indignation