Through all of Puffer's dreams that night
there glided a graceful form; a pair of bright
dark eyes glanced hither and thither like
meteors, in all the motions of the dance; sometimes
he was moving by its side, sometimes it
parted from him, and when she left his hand,
ah! how keen a pang shot through his heart!
But gliding, and glancing, and full of cheerful
images as were his dreams—whatever the mazes,
whatever the turns, the pirouettes, the long
country dances, the perspective always closed
with the fair dancer's wearing a great green
hood, and an old woman's head thrust inside,
chattering and bobbing up and down. He had
danced a score or more cotillons, reels, and flings—
always with the same ending, when, at length,
the old head seemed somehow to get fixed upon
the young shoulders, the old body without a head
galloped off, and the fair young form was left,
chasseing, double-headed, among the trees.
This was too much for mortal patience to bear,
and Puffer waked up. His first business,
when he had fairly recovered himself, was to
recall the dark-eyed young lady, in all her
agreeable proportions, one by one, and replace
her in his mind as she had been when he had
stretched himself to sleep. Lately as he had
looked upon her, it was something of an effort;
at one time he would fix her in a graceful attitude
bending forward to move, her head
slightly turned back toward him, but then the
eyes, or the motion of the arm, or the smile
that had played upon her lip, would escape him,
and he would begin again. He went puzzling
on in this way, even till he was dressed, though
this did not prevent his appareling himself
with great skill and judgment; drawing out,
from the very bottom of a drawer, where it had
been laid religiously aside for some select occasion,
a bright blue neckcloth; arraying his new
buff vest, which he had worn to the ball to
marked advantage, and disposing of his handsome
blue coat so that every wave and plait
should tell. With the two tasks, his mind, it
must be confessed, was sufficiently engaged;
and when he had laid the last lock in its exact
place upon his brow, and succeeded in recalling
the dark-eyed young lady, in all her beauty,
even down to the neat shoe-tie (that his
dreams had not forgotten), it came into his
head, as opportunely as one could wish, that
he ought to go down to Mr. Fishblatt's at whose
entertainment he had first met the dark-eyed
young lady, and have a little gossip, just by
way of relief! The day had, in this way,
glided past dinner-time, and he thought the pleasing
idleness of the morning had fairly purchased
the afternoon as an extension of his holyday.

When he reached the house of Mr. Fishblatt,
the door, in compliment to the pleasant weather,
stood wide open; and Puffer, having established
a sufficient friendship to warrant it, proceeded
at once to the small supplemental room
in the rear, where Mr. Halsey Fishblatt held
his lair. Here he found Mr. Fishblatt in his
arm-chair, holding, in a firm gripe, a wet sheet,
which he regarded with a steady gaze. At his
side there was a wooden stool, on the top of
which lay a pile of damp newspapers. The
reading of the wet sheet seemed to move Mr.
Fishblatt greatly; his teeth were firmly fixed,
and a thick sweat, as though it had steamed up
from the newspaper, stood upon his brow. His
attention was so entirely engrossed, that notwithstanding
the unusual gloss and neatness
of Puffer's apparel, he merely nodded to him as
he came in, and, unfixing one of his arms,
waived him to a seat. As soon as one side of
the paper was finished—very little, apparently,
to the satisfaction of Mr. Fishblatt—he gave
the sheet a gentle shake, and, letting it fall
into a current of air which set in from the entry,
he turned a leaf, and folding it back, fixed
himself upon the fresh side.

Glancing aside not once, but ranging up and
down the solid columns as steadily as a plough-horse
in a furrow, Mr. Fishblatt finished his
acre or half acre of print.

“This is certainly an astonishing circumstance,”
he exclaimed, folding his paper, laying
it upon his knee, and smiting it with his
open palm, breathing now for the first time

[figure description] Page 257.[end figure description]

freely; “an astonishing circumstance; on
Monday, Busts of the Bladder made that pungent
sally, and here it's Saturday, and no rejoinder
from Flabby—what can this mean?”

At this moment a series of shouting boys
streamed by in the street, whose voices, at
their very top, were broken in passing through
the long hall and up a flight of stairs. Mr.
Fishblatt, however, whose ear was better practised,
started up with a stern smile upon his
face, and proceeding to the stairhead, called
down. Shuffling feet were heard in answer,
and tossing down a coin of small dimensions
upon the entry-floor, merely said, “The Puncheon,”
and returned to his seat. In a second
or two the frowzy-headed servant-girl, with
her hair all abroad, appeared at the door, and
presented to him a fresh sheet, which he fastened
upon with great eagerness.

“As I thought,” said Mr. Fishblatt, glancing
rapidly down the columns. “An `Extra Puncheon,
' pretending to give late news from the
Capitol, but containing, in reality, Flabby's
long-expected reply. Capital! capital” cried
Mr. Fishblatt, as he hurried on; “Flabby's
called Busts a drunken vagabond, in the Puncheon
of Wednesday-week; Busts called Flabby
a hoary reprobate, in Monday's Bladder, and
now Flabby calls Busts a keg of Geneva bitters—
says the bung's knocked out and the staves
well coopered. Capital! this alludes to a
thrashing in front of the Exchange, in which
Busts had his eye blacked and a couple of ribs
beaten in. Give us plenty of newspapers!”
pursued Mr. Halsey Fishblatt, starting from
his chair in the furor of his enthusiasm. “They
make a people happy and intelligent and virtuous.
The press, sir, the press is the palladium
of liberty, and the more palladiums we
have, the freer we are—of course. See here,
sir, here's a big palladium, and here's a little
palladium.” At this he held forth to Puffer's
gaze, first the mammoth sheet, and then the
dwarf, and brandishing them in the air, proceeded:
“This”—referring to the small sheet—
“is edited by a couple of overgrown boys in
Williamsburg, who do their own press-work—
this by an undergrown man in Ann street, who
does his thinking on the other side of the Atlantic.
Never mind that—give us more. This
people can never be free, Mr. Hopkins, thoroughly
and entirely free, till every man in
the country edits a newspaper of his own; till
every man issues a sheet every morning, in
which he's at liberty to speak of every other
man as he chooses. The more we know
each other, the better we'll like each other—
so let us have all the private affairs, the business
transactions, and domestic doings of every
man in the United States, set forth in a small
paper, in a good pungent style, and then we
may begin to talk of the advancement of the
human race. That's what I call the cheap
diffusion of knowledge; a pennyworth of scandal
on every man's breakfast-table, before he
goes to business.”

Mr. Fishblatt having refreshed himself and
his hearer with a tumbler each of lemonade,
from the mantel (the probable remains of a
last night's entertainment), was about to resume,
when he was brought to a pause by the
sudden entrance of the frowzy-haired servant-girl,
who brought him a parcel from the postman
who was distributing the southern and
western mail.

“Ah! what have we here?” said Mr. Fishblatt,
taking the parcel from her hand. “`The
Nauvoo Bludgeon,' `Potomac Trumpet,' `Western
Thundergust,' something rich in each, I
will warrant. `The corporal,' says the Nauvoo
Bludgeon,” pursued Mr. Fishblatt, reading
from the newspapers, as he unfolded them;
“`the corporal, we are glad to see, has resumed
his editorial chair. There are few men in the
press in the United States, that could be better
spared than Tomkins; there is a raciness about
his paragraphs, his humor is so delicate, his
good taste so marked and prominent in all he
writes. In a word, we couldn't spare Tompkins.”
' Mr. Fishblatt unfolded another paper,
remarking that the corporal edited the Potomac
Trumpet—and here it was, a day's date later
than the Bludgeon. “`Our friend Smith of the
Bludgeon,”' continued Mr. Fishblatt, reciting
from the Trumpet, “`has our thanks for the
handsome manner in which he has alluded to
our recovery from a critical sickness. Smith,
we owe you one, and will pay you as soon as
you are on your back—if not sooner. We
were passing down Market lane, yesterday,
when we heard a voice. `Tompkins,' said the
voice; `Hollo!' We looked up—it was Grigsby—
our old friend Grigsby, of Clambake point.
He understood us, and we passed on. Do you
take, Smith?”'

Having despatched these, Mr. Fishblatt
came to the Western Thundergust. The Thundergust
was in a furious rage; they had been
purloining his jokes, and he wouldn't tolerate
it any longer.

“We have submitted long enough,” said the
Thundergust, “to the unbridled plunderings of
the Nauvoo Bludgeon and the Potomac Trumpet.
We mean to put a stop to it; and, to begin at the
beginning, we would like to ask the man of the
Bludgeon where he got that phrase, `In a word,
we couldn't spare Tompkins?' Does he recollect
the Thundergust of Wednesday, the 15th
of July? If he doesn't, we can refresh his
memory. `In a word,' said we, speaking of
an article of furniture in our late office, `we
couldn't spare our cedar-wood desk.' There—
we think we have pinned the Bludgeon man to
the wall, and now we'll dispose of him of the
Trumpet, by suggesting whether it wouldn't be
better for him to buy a copy of the works of
Mr. Joseph Miller at once, rather than be at
the trouble of stealing his jokes from all the
newspapers in the country? We only suggest
it;—while we are on the point, we might as
well say that the anecdote of Grigsby, in the
last Trumpet was stolen as it stands, from the

[figure description] Page 258.[end figure description]

first number of this paper, where the reader
will find it printed at the head of the first
column of the second page. Paste-boy, scratch
off the `Trumpet'—it'll be your turn next, Mr.
Bludgeon; so you're on your good behavior!”

Just then, and before Mr. Fishblatt could
dive deeper into the beauties of the press, an indifferently-dressed
gentleman in a heated face
and damp hair, rushed in, stumbling at the
threshold in his haste, and pitching forward,
but taking the precaution to knock his hat
tight with one hand as he stumbled.

“Heavens and earth!” exclaimed the damp-haired
stranger, as soon as he recovered himself,
“it's passed!”

“It is?” echoed Mr. Fishblatt, in a hollow
and sepulchral tone.

“It is, sir,” responded the stranger, wildly.

“What! you don't say, sir,” continued Mr.
Fishblatt, gazing steadily at him, “that the
bill for clearing the navigation of the upper
Wabash has passed?”

The stranger did; and he had in his hat an
accurate report of the debate. It had been
brought in by special express for the Junk Bottle.
An express-rider, by-the-by, had broken
his neck in coming through New Jersey, and
the messenger had pitched into the office of the
Junk Bottle with such precipitation with his
parcel, as to have struck the senior editor
where he knocked all the wind out of him; so
that they needn't look for any leader to-morrow.
He would take off his hat and they
would get at the particulars. The damp-haired
stranger did so; set his hat upon the floor—
planted one foot upon a chair-seat near by,
and bending forward, so that the sweat dropped
on the paper as he read, proceeded to furnish
the following account, which was heralded in
the Junk Bottle with the portrait of a small fat
cherub, flying at the top of his speed, his
cheeks distended, and a trumpet at his mouth,
from which issued the word “Postscript!” in a
loud, bold type. It was from the Washington
correspondent of the Junk Bottle.

“I can hardly hold the quill in my hand with
joy at the news I am about to communicate—
news that will, I am satisfied, thrill the whole
country from one end to the other. The bill
for clearing the navigation of the upper
Wabash was passed last night between eleven
and twelve o'clock, after a most animated and
stormy debate, in which the emissaries of power
put forth their utmost strength. Their subterfuges,
their cavils, and cries of `Order' were,
however, of no avail. The bill had a clear majority
of five, and the country is safe. Of the
true-hearted men who distinguished themselves
on the side of justice and patriotic principle,
Peter Alfred Brown, of Massachusetts, was
pre-eminently conspicuous. He was seen everywhere
during the debate, animating, exhorting,
encouraging—from his place in the house;
sometimes, in the energy of his extraordinary
powers, standing up in his chair, and sometimes
addressing the house from his desk-top, where
he took his station at last, and maintained it
for better than an hour, during which he delivered
one of the most remarkable and wonderful
speeches of the present epoch. There
are few men, in any age or country, to be compared
with Peter Alfred Brown. I subjoin a
hasty outline of a few of the most striking passages
in the debate.

“Mr. Buffum, of Kentucky, in opening the
discussion, remarked that the country was in
imminent danger, much more imminent than
he was willing to confess. The people expected
much and they got nothing. A crisis
had arrived which must be met. He need not
describe to them the present condition of the
whole region around the upper Wabash. It
was little better than a desert; trade, by the
obstruction of navigation, had fallen off to nothing—
the grass in the neighboring meadows
was four feet high—vessels of transportation
were sticking, absolutely sticking in the mud
at the wharves, and the cartmen went about
the streets whistling dirges and psalm-tunes.

“Mr. Woddle, of South Carolina, who rose in
reply to Mr. Buffum, would not answer for the
consequences, if the bill before the house
should become a law. His (Mr. W.'s) constituents
were in a highly inflamed and excited
state of mind on the subject of the proposed
clearing. If the upper Wabash (they asked)
was once made navigable, what would become
of the Little Pedee? Why, it would sink to
a third-rate stream, and in the place of the
honorable gentleman's whistling cartmen, they
would have a stagnant marsh, full of musical
bullfrogs. He (Mr. W.) respected the constitution
of the country, and so did his constituents;
but, should this bill pass, he could not
promise that a flag, with some terrible device,
would not be seen flying, in twenty-four hours
after the news, from the walls of Charleston.

“It was at this juncture, that Peter Alfred
Brown, of Massachusetts, rose. Every eye
was upon him; and, without faltering for a
moment, he entered upon the subject. He
showed clearly, in a masterly effort of better
than two hours, that the constitution had manifestly
contemplated the object in the proposed
bill. He showed, so that the blindest and most
jaundiced eye could not fail to see it, that the framers
had provided for the very contingency that
had now arisen. He would not occupy the time
of the house in pointing out the express clause in
the constitution covering the present case;
but he proved, by an ingenious and elaborate
train of reasoning, in something less than an
hour, that the entire scope of that instrument
went to such an effect. In a peroration, never
surpassed in the house, he begged them to stand
by the constitution. His arms trembled, as he
held up to their view a printed copy which he
held in his hand; and when he sat down, the
universal conviction was that he could not be
answered. Notwithstanding this feeling, he
was immediately followed by Marc Anthony
Daggers, the notorious member from Virginia,

p265-262 [figure description] Page 259.[end figure description]

who poured out upon the head of the illustrious
Brown the vials of his wrath. There was
no epithet of denunciation he did not heap upon
the head of that distinguished man. `Sir,'
said Daggers, turning so as to face Mr. Brown,
who sat complacent and unmoved, writing a
letter at his desk, `sir, you are a disgrace and
a contumely to the American Congress; a pedlar
of logic, and a wholesale dealer in falsehood
and fable. Where you were born, sir,
the land, in sympathy with you, breeds nothing
but copperheads and toadstools; the soil is
rocky as your bosom, steril as your brain.'
Here there were loud cries of order, but Daggers
went on without heeding them in the least.
Brown was a buffalo, ready to plunge his horns
into the vitals of his country; he was a volcanic
fire, a monster, a doting idiot, and a political
mountebank.

“At nine o'clock in the evening, to which
hour they had been kept listening to the tirade
of Mr. Marc Anthony Daggers, Mr. Blathering,
of Missouri, obtained the floor. His effort was
in every way worthy of his matured powers
and reputation. For fourteen years he (Mr.
B.) had labored, single-handed and alone, to
obtain justice for the citizens of Indiana, Illinois,
and Missouri. For fourteen years he had
cried at the top of his lungs to the people of
the United States, to render their right to the
residents on the Wabash. The Wabash was
still obstructed, and if he, like Curtius of old,
could, by casting himself headlong in, reverse
the spell and open the river, he was ready, at
any moment, for the sacrifice. All he asked
was an hour's notice, and an opportunity to
say `Farewell,' a last farewell, to his wife and
children.

“The upper Wabash, Mr. Speaker, is a
stream rising in the interior of Indiana, at
about the latitude of 40°, &c. (Here he produced
several maps, and quoted freely from
two piles of books before him, which occupied
about an hour and a half delightfully.) He
closed with an appeal to the house, which surpassed
anything ever heard before within its
walls. I need only give you the concluding
sentence, to show you the magnificent stamp of
the whole.

“`If I were now standing upon the summit
of the Chippewavan mountains, instead of the
floor of this house, and were suddenly and unexpectedly
seized with the icy pangs of death,—
if I saw that my last hour had come, and
that but one more breath was left me to draw,
I would say with that last breath, so that I
might be heard by every man in America,
“Clear the Wabash! in Heaven's name careen
its mighty bottom, and let its waters flow
in a mercantile tide into the Ohio at Shawneetown,
and into the Mississippi at Big
swamp!”'

“The bill was engrossed at twenty minutes
past eleven, and at twelve was sent to the senate
for concurrence. There was an unexampled
rush toward the stalls in the lobby and
the hotels on the Avenue, the moment the
house was adjourned. This tended somewhat
to allay the excitement. Thank God, the
country is safe!”

“Curse that Junk Bottle!” cried Mr.
Fishblatt, who had watched closely the reading
of the Washington letter, “it's always
bringing unpleasant news by express in advance
of the mail. Our trade is ruined, sir.
New York is a dead herring. All Kentucky,
Indiana, Illinois, will flow into the Wabash,
the Wabash into the Ohio, the Ohio into the
Mississippi, and the Mississippi makes a mouth
at New Orleans. Where does that bring us?
Not an Indiana turkey, nor a Kentucky ham,
nor an Illinois egg, reaches the New York market
henceforth for ever. In ten years you may
expect to see this mighty metropolis a heap of
ruins, and auctioneers going about knocking
down the rubbish in lots to suit purchasers.
What do they mean by passing such bills?”
Mr. Fishblatt turned to Puffer; the damp-haired
stranger, released from the steadfastness
of his gaze, hastily resumed his hat—to the
crown of which he restored his paper—and escaped
to dispense his news in some other quarter
of the town. Puffer, who had stood aside,
pondering in his own way, on the subject of
the upper Wabash, and, turning it about in his
mind till he got it in a light that pleased him,
looked at Mr. Fishblatt, but made no answer.
But when Mr. Fishblatt added, “I'll go and
see my friend, Mr. Samuel Sammis, and have
this explained—will you join me, Puffer?” he
started from his revery and said it was the very
best thing they could do. In a moment he
threw down the newspaper, with which his
fingers had been toying, held his hat in his
hand, and was ready to issue forth on the instant.
Now, this alacrity on the part of Puffer—
must we confess it?—was owing to an
unavoidable accident: Mr. Samuel Sammis
was the father of the dark-eyed young lady!