ite soles of their broad black feet.

When, therefore, I heard the young fellow's exclamation, I looked round
the table with curiosity to see what it meant. At the further end of it
I saw a head, and a small portion of a little deformed body, mounted on
a high chair, which brought the occupant up to a fair level enough for
him to get at his food. His whole appearance was so grotesque, I felt
for a minute as if there was a showman behind him who would pull him
down presently and put up Judy, or the hangman, or the Devil, or some
other wooden personage of the famous spectacle. I contrived to lose the
first part of his sentence, but what I heard began so:--

----by the Frog-Pond, when there were frogs in it, and the folks used
to come down from the tents on 'Lection and Independence days with
their pails to get water to make egg-pop with. Born in Boston; went to
school in Boston as long as the boys would let me.--The little man
groaned, turned, as if to look round, and went on.--Ran away from
school one day to see Phillips hung for killing Denegri with a
loggerhead. That was in flip days, when there were always two or three
loggerheads in the fire. I'm a Boston boy, I tell you,--born at North
End, and mean to be buried on Copps' Hill, with the good old
underground people,--the Worthylakes, and the rest of 'em. Yes,
Sir,--up on the old hill, where they buried Captain Daniel Malcolm in a
stone grave, ten feet deep, to keep him safe from the red-coats, in
those old times when the world was frozen up tight and there wasn't but
one spot open, and that was right over Faneuil Hall,--and black enough
it looked, I tell you! There's where my bones shall lie, Sir, and
rattle away when the big guns go off at the Navy Yard opposite! You
can't make me ashamed of the old place! Full of crooked little
streets;--I was born and used to run round in one of 'em----

----I should think so,--said that young man whom I hear them call
"John,"--softly, not meaning to be heard, nor to be cruel, but thinking
in a half-whisper, evidently.--I should think so; and got kinked up,
turnin' so many corners.--The little man did not hear what was said,
but went on,--

----full of crooked little streets; but I tell you Boston has opened,
and kept open, more turnpikes that lead straight to free thought and
free speech and free deeds than any other city of live men or dead
men,--I don't care how broad their streets are, nor how high their
steeples!

----H