has actually performed to make him preferable to George
Washington; but it is generally inferred, from the size of his
watch-seals and the lambency of his spectacles, that he has in some way
been more than a parent to the country; and the thousands now buying
some beneficent Petroleum stock, which he has to sell, are firmly
convinced that its sale is positively calculated to forever benefit the
human race.

Oh! that I were Ovid, or Anacreon, to describe fittingly the recent
little wedding entertainment, at which this excellently-aged teacher
and preserver of his species was fatly present, diffusing permission
for all mankind to be happy and not mind him. After beaming parentally
upon the officiating Mackerel chaplain, with a benignity inseparable
from the idea that all clergymen were the work of his hands, he took
the dimpled chin of the bride between his thumb add forefinger, and
says he:

"My children, I am an old, old man; but may ye be happy." Here he
kissed the bride. "Yes, my children," says the venerable Gammon, with a
blessing on the world in every tone of his buttery voice, "I am far
down in the vale of years; but may ye be very happy." And he kissed the
bride. "Still, my children," says the Venerable Gammon, with steaming
spectacles, "I would be willing to be even older, if my country desired
it; but may ye be forever happy." So he kissed the bride. "Oh!" says
the Venerable Gammon, abstractedly placing a benefactor's arm around
her waist, and looking benevolently about the room as though consenting
to its possession of four walls,--"Oh!" says he, "it is a privilege to
be old for such a cause as this; but may ye be supremely happy." At
this juncture he kissed the bride. "I am old enough," says the
venerable Gammon, "to be your brother." And he kissed every young woman
there.

Whereupon it was the general impression that an apostle was present;
and when the bridegroom subsequently hinted, in a disagreeable whisper,
that two bottles of port were enough to confuse the mind of a
Methuselah himself, there was a wonderful unanimity among the ladies as
to the probable misery of the bride's future life.

But wherefore, O, Eros, dost thou detain me in such scenes as these,
while the hoarse trumpet of bully Mars calls me to the field of
strategic glory? Hire an imaginary horse, my boy, at a fabulous
livery-stable, and, in fancy, trot beside me as I urge my architectural
steed, the Gothic Pegasus, toward the Mackere