s
with animals, so with men. Only one President ever had a President for a
son. Let every cow make her own name, and every man achieve his own
position. It is no great credit to a fool that he had a wise grandfather.
Many an Ayrshire and Hereford has had the hollow-horn and the foot-rot.
Both man and animal are valuable in proportion as they are useful. "Mike's"
cow beat my full-blooded.

CHAPTER VII.

THE DREGS IN LEATHERBACKS' TEA-CUP.

We have an earlier tea this evening than usual, for we have a literary
friend who comes about this time of the week, and he must go home to retire
about eight o'clock. His nervous system is so weak that he must get three
or four hours sleep before midnight; otherwise he is next day so cross and
censorious he scalps every author he can lay his hand on. As he put his
hand on the table with an indelible blot of ink on his thumb and two
fingers, which blot he had not been able to wash off, I said, "Well, my old
friend Leatherbacks, what books have you been reading to-day?"

He replied, "I have been reading 'Men and Things.' Some books touch only
the head and make us think; other books touch only the heart and make us
feel; here and there one touches us under the fifth rib and makes us laugh;
but the book on 'Men and Things,' by the Rev. Dr. C.S. Henry, touched me
all over. I have felt better ever since. I have not seen the author but
once since the old university days, when he lectured us and pruned us and
advised us and did us more good than almost any other instructor we ever
had. Oh, those were grand days! No better than the present, for life grows
brighter to me all the time; but we shall not forget the quaint, strong,
brusque professor who so unceremoniously smashed things which he did not
like, and shook, the class with merriment or indignation. The widest awake
professorial room in the land was Dr. Henry's, in the New York University.
But the participators in those scenes are all scattered. I know the
whereabouts of but three or four. So we meet for a little while on earth,
and then we separate. There must be a better place somewhere ahead of us.

"I have also been looking over a book that overhauls the theology and moral
character of Abraham Lincoln. This is the only kind of slander that is
safe. I have read all the stuff for the last three years published about
Abraham Lincoln's unfair courtships and blank infidelity. The protracted
discussion has made only one impress