d in any thing they undertake. In a state of 'mellow'
mental abstraction, while lamenting that the trade of one's early days
might not likewise be the trade of one's latter years, he unconsciously
utters his thoughts aloud:

''SAWING wood's going all to smash,' said he, 'and that's where
every thing goes what I speculates in. This here coal is doing us
up. Ever since these black stones was brought to town, the
wood-sawyers and pilers, and them soap-fat and hickory-ashes men,
has been going down; and, for my part, I can't say as I see what's
to be the end of all their new-fangled contraptions. But it's
always so; I'm always crawling out of the little end of the horn.
I began life in a comfortable sort of a way; selling oysters out
of a wheel-barrow, all clear grit, and didn't owe nobody nothing.
Oysters went down slick enough for a while, but at last cellars
was invented, and darn the oyster, no matter how nice it was
pickled, could poor Dill sell; so I had to eat up capital and
profits myself. Then the 'pepree-pot smoking' was sot up, and went
ahead pretty considerable for a time; but a parcel of fellers come
into it, said my cats wasn't as good as their'n, when I know'd
they was as fresh as any cats in the market; and pepree-pot was no
go. Bean-soup was just as bad; people said kittens wasn't good
done that way, and the more I hollered, the more the customers
wouldn't come, and them what did, wanted tick. Along with the boys
and their pewter fips, them what got trust and didn't pay, and the
abusing of my goods, I was soon fotch'd up in the victualling
line--and I busted for the benefit of my creditors. But genius
riz. I made a raise of a horse and saw, after being a wood-piler's
prentice for a while, and working till I was free, and now here
comes the coal to knock this business in the head.' . . . 'I
WONDER if they wouldn't list me for a Charley? Hollering oysters
and bean-soup has guv' me a splendid woice; and instead of
skeering 'em away, if the thieves were to hear me singing out, my
style of doing it would almost coax 'em to come and be took up.
They'd feel like a bird when a snake is after it, and would walk
up, and poke their coat collars right into my fist. Then, after a
while, I'd perhaps be promoted to the fancy business of pig
ketching, which, though it is werry light and werry