vegetable (to my horticultural eye) running marvellously to seed in that
organ. The first thing I saw, on looking up at the sound of footsteps,
was the said nose coming toward me, among the sweet-corn tassels. Nose
of a decidedly Hebraic cast,--the bearer respectably dressed, though his
linen had an unwholesome sallowness, and his cloth a shiny,
much-brushed, second-hand appearance.

Without a word he walks up to me, bows solemnly, and pulls from his
pocket (I thought he was laying his hand on his heart) the familiar,
much-worn weapon of his class,--the folded, torn yellow paper, ready to
fall to pieces as you open it,--in short, the respectable beggar's
certificate of character. With another bow (which gave his nose the
aspect of the beak of a bird of prey making a pick at me) he handed the
document. I found that it was dated in Milwaukee, and signed by the
mayor of that city, two physicians, three clergymen, and an editor, who
bore united testimony to the fact that Jacob Menzel--I think that was
his name--the bearer, any way,--was a deaf mute, and, considering that
fact, a prodigy of learning, being master of no less than five different
languages (a pathetic circumstance, considering that he was unable to
speak one); moreover, that he was a converted Jew; and, furthermore, a
native of Germany, who had come to this country in company with two
brothers, both of whom had died of cholera in St. Louis in one day; in
consequence of which affliction, and his recent conversion, he was now
anxious to return to Fatherland, where he proposed to devote his life to
the conversion of his brethren;--the upshot of all which was that good
Christians and charitable souls everywhere were earnestly recommended to
aid the said Jacob Menzel in his pious undertaking.

I was fumbling in my pocket for a little change wherewith to dismiss
him,--for that is usually the easiest way of getting off your premises
and your conscience the applicant for "aid," who is probably an
impostor, yet possibly not,--when my eye caught the words (for I still
held the document), "would be glad of any employment which may help to
pay his way." The idea of finding employment for a man of such a large
nose and little body, such extensive knowledge and diminutive legs--who
had mastered five languages yet could not speak or understand a word of
any one of them,--struck me as rather pleasant, to say the least; yet,
after a moment's reflection,--wasn't he the very th