rest of her sex, peculiarly open to impositions,--and who at
once disorganized her own tongue to suit his. This was affected by the
contraction of the syllables of some words, the addition of syllables to
others, and an ingenious disregard for tenses and the governing powers
of the verb. The same singular law which impels people in conversation
with foreigners to imitate their broken English governed the family in
their communications with him. He received these evidences of his power
with an indifference not wholly free from scorn. The expression of his
eye would occasionally denote that his higher nature revolted from them.
I have no doubt myself that his wants were frequently misinterpreted;
that the stretching forth of his hands toward the moon and stars might
have been the performance of some religious rite peculiar to his own
country, which was in ours misconstrued into a desire for physical
nourishment. His repetition of the word "goo-goo,"--which was subject to
a variety of opposite interpretations,--when taken in conjunction with
his size, in my mind seemed to indicate his aboriginal or Aztec origin.

I incline to this belief, as it sustains the impression I have already
hinted at, that his extreme youth is a simulation and deceit; that he
is really older and has lived before at some remote period, and that his
conduct fully justifies his title as A Venerable Impostor. A variety of
circumstances corroborate this impression: His tottering walk, which is
a senile as well as a juvenile condition; his venerable head, thatched
with such imperceptible hair that, at a distance, it looks like a mild
aureola, and his imperfect dental exhibition. But beside these physical
peculiarities may be observed certain moral symptoms, which go to
disprove his assumed youth. He is in the habit of falling into
reveries, caused, I have no doubt, by some circumstance which suggests
a comparison with his experience in his remoter boyhood, or by some
serious retrospection of the past years. He has been detected lying
awake, at times when he should have been asleep, engaged in curiously
comparing the bed-clothes, walls, and furniture with some recollection
of his youth. At such moments he has been heard to sing softly to
himself fragments of some unintelligible composition, which probably
still linger in his memory as the echoes of a music he has long
outgrown. He has the habit of receiving strangers with the familiarity
of one who had m