and class, was a man of protean
employment--joiner, barber, and what not. No doubt he had much pithy and
fluent conversation, all of which escapes us. He certainly impressed the
Hon. Theodore Atkinson as a person of uncommon parts, for the Honorable
Secretary of the Province, like a second Haroun Al Raschid, often
summoned the barber to entertain him with his company. One evening--and
this is the only reproducible instance of the doctor's readiness--Mr.
Atkinson regaled his guest with a diminutive glass of choice Madeira.
The doctor regarded it against the light with the half-closed eye of
the connoisseur, and after sipping the molten topaz with satisfaction,
inquired how old it was. "Of the vintage of about sixty years ago," was
the answer. "Well," said the doctor reflectively, "I never in my life
saw so small a thing of such an age." There are other mots of his on
record, but their faces are suspiciously familiar. In fact, all the
witty things were said aeons ago. If one nowadays perpetrates an
original joke, one immediately afterward finds it in the Sanskirt. I
am afraid that Dr. Joseph Moses has no very solid claims on us. I have
given him place here because he has long had the reputation of a wit,
which is almost as good as to be one.

VII. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES

THE running of the first train over the Eastern Road from Boston to
Portsmouth--it took place somewhat more than forty years ago--was
attended by a serious accident. The accident occurred in the crowded
station at the Portsmouth terminus, and was unobserved at the time. The
catastrophe was followed, though not immediately, by death, and that
also, curiously enough, was unobserved. Nevertheless, this initial
train, freighted with so many hopes and the Directors of the Road, ran
over and killed--LOCAL CHARACTER.

Up to that day Portsmouth had been a very secluded little community, and
had had the courage of its seclusion. From time to time it had calmly
produced an individual built on plans and specifications of its own,
without regard to the prejudices and conventionalities of outlying
districts. This individual was purely indigenous. He was born in the
town, he lived to a good old age in the town, and never went out of the
place, until he was finally laid under it. To him, Boston, though only
fifty-six miles away, was virtually an unknown quantity--only fifty-six
miles by brutal geographical measurement, but thousands of miles distant
in effect.