He told us what had become of the
      eighty-three lost tragedies of Æschylus; of the fifty-four
      orations of Isæus; of the three hundred and ninety-one speeches
      of Lysias; of the hundred and eighty treatises of Theophrastus;
      of the eighth book of the conic sections of Apollonius; of
      Pindar’s hymns and dithyrambics; and of the five and forty
      tragedies of Homer Junior. There was Ferdinand Fitz-Fossillus Feltspar. He informed us all
      about internal fires and tertiary formations; about aëriforms,
      fluidiforms, and solidiforms; about quartz and marl; about schist
      and schorl; about gypsum and trap; about talc and calc; about
      blende and horn-blende; about mica-slate and pudding-stone; about
      cyanite and lepidolite; about hematite and tremolite; about
      antimony and calcedony; about manganese and whatever you please. There was myself. I spoke of myself;—of myself, of myself, of
      myself;—of Nosology, of my pamphlet, and of myself. I turned up
      my nose, and I spoke of myself. “Marvellous clever man!” said the Prince. “Superb!” said his guests;—and next morning her Grace of
      Bless-my-Soul paid me a visit. “Will you go to Almack’s, pretty creature?” she said, tapping me
      under the chin. “Upon honor,” said I. “Nose and all?” she asked. “As I live,” I replied. “Here then is a card, my life. Shall I say you will be there?”

      “Dear Duchess, with all my heart.”

      “Pshaw, no!—but with all your nose?”

      “Every bit of it, my love,” said I:—so I gave it a twist or two,
      and found myself at Almack’s. The rooms were crowded to
      suffocation. “He is coming!” said somebody on the staircase. “He is coming!” said somebody farther up. “He is coming!” said somebody farther still. “He is come!” exclaimed the Duchess. “He is come, the little
      love!”—and, seizing me firmly by both hands, she kissed me thrice
      upon the nose. A marked sensation immediately ensued. “_Diavolo!_” cried Count Capricornutti. “_Dios guarda!_” muttered Don Stiletto. “_Mille tonnerres!_” ejaculated the Prince de Grenouille. “_Tousand teufel!_” growled the Elector of Bluddennuff. It was not to be borne. I grew angry. I turned short upon
      Bluddennuff. “Sir!” said I to him, “you are a baboon.”

      “Sir,” he replied, after a pause, “_Donner und Blitzen!_”

      This was all that could be desired. We exchanged cards. At
      Chalk-Farm, the next morning, I shot off his nose—and then called
      upon my friends. “_Bête!_” said the first. “Fool!” said the second. “Dolt!” said the third. “Ass!” said the fourth. “Ninny!” said the fifth. “Noodle!” said the sixth. “Be off!” said the seventh. At all this I felt mortified, and so called upon my father. “Father,” I asked, “what is the chief end of my existence?”

      “My son,” he replied, “it is still the study of Nosology; but in
      hitting the Elector upon the nose you have overshot your mark. You have a fine nose, it is true; but then Bluddennuff has none. You are damned, and he has become the hero of the day. I grant
      you that in Fum-Fudge the greatness of a lion is in proportion to
      the size of his proboscis—but, good heavens! there is no
      competing with a lion who has no proboscis at all.”




X-ING A PARAGRAB


      As it is well known that the ‘wise men’ came ‘from the East,’ and
      as Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head came from the East, it follows
      that Mr. Bullet-head was a wise man; and if collateral proof of
      the matter be needed, here we have it—Mr. B. was an editor. Irascibility was his sole foible, for in fact the obstinacy of
      which men accused him was anything but his foible, since he
      justly considered it his forte. It was his strong point—his
      virtue; and it would have required all the logic of a Brownson to
      convince him that it was ‘anything else.’

      I have shown that Touch-and-go Bullet-head was a wise man; and
      the only occasion on which he did not prove infallible, was when,
      abandoning that legitimate home for all wise men, the East, he
      migrated to the city of Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, or some
      place of a similar title, out West. I must do him the justice to say, however, that when he made up
      his mind finally to settle in that town, it was under the
      impression that no newspaper, and consequently no editor, existed
      in that particular section of the country. In establishing ‘The
      Tea-Pot’ he expected to have the field all to himself. I feel
      confident he never would have dreamed of taking up his residence
      in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis had he been aware that, in
      Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, there lived a gentleman named John
      Smith (if I rightly remember), who for many years had there
      quietly grown fat in editing and publishing the
      ‘Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis Gazette.’ It was solely,
      therefore, on account of having been misinformed, that Mr.
      Bullet-head found himself in Alex—— suppose we call it Nopolis,
      ‘for short’—but, as he did find himself there, he determined to
      keep up his character for obst—for firmness, and remain. So
      remain he did; and he did more; he unpacked his press, type,
      etc., etc., rented an office exactly opposite to that of the
      ‘Gazette,’ and, on the third morning after his arrival, issued
      the first number of ‘The Alexan’—that is to say, of ‘The Nopolis
      Tea-Pot’—as nearly as I can recollect, this was the name of the
      new paper. The leading article, I must admit, was brilliant—not to say
      severe. It was especially bitter about things in general—and as
      for the editor of ‘The Gazette,’ he was torn all to pieces in
      particular. Some of Bullet-head’s remarks were really so fiery
      that I have always, since that time, been forced to look upon
      John Smith, who is still alive, in the light of a salamander. I
      cannot pretend to give all the ‘Tea-Pot’s’ paragraphs verbatim,
      but one of them runs thus:

      ‘Oh, yes!—Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! The editor over the way
      is a genius—O, my! Oh, goodness, gracious!—what is this world
      coming to? Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!’

      A philippic at once so caustic and so classical, alighted like a
      bombshell among the hitherto peaceful citizens of Nopolis. Groups
      of excited individuals gathered at the corners of the streets. Every one awaited, with heartfelt anxiety, the reply of the
      dignified Smith. Next morning it appeared as follows:

      ‘We quote from “The Tea-Pot” of yesterday the subjoined
      paragraph: “Oh, yes! Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! Oh, my! Oh,
      goodness! Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!” Why, the fellow is all O! That
      accounts for his reasoning in a circle, and explains why there is
      neither beginning nor end to him, nor to anything he says.