Thomas” [turning to me] “is
      decidedly the best hand at a cork leg; but if you should ever
      want an arm, my dear fellow, you must really let me recommend you
      to Bishop.” Here Pompey screwed on an arm. “We had rather hot work of it, that you may say. Now, you dog,
      slip on my shoulders and bosom! Pettitt makes the best shoulders,
      but for a bosom you will have to go to Ducrow.”

      “Bosom!” said I. “Pompey, will you _never_ be ready with that wig? Scalping is a
      rough process after all; but then you can procure such a capital
      scratch at De L’Orme’s.”

      “Scratch!”

      “Now, you nigger, my teeth! For a _good_ set of these you had
      better go to Parmly’s at once; high prices, but excellent work. I
      swallowed some very capital articles, though, when the big
      Bugaboo rammed me down with the butt end of his rifle.”

      “Butt end! ram down!! my eye! !”

      “O yes, by-the-by, my eye—here, Pompey, you scamp, screw it in ! Those Kickapoos are not so very slow at a gouge; but he’s a
      belied man, that Dr. Williams, after all; you can’t imagine how
      well I see with the eyes of his make.”

      I now began very clearly to perceive that the object before me
      was nothing more nor less than my new acquaintance, Brevet
      Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith. The manipulations of
      Pompey had made, I must confess, a very striking difference in
      the appearance of the personal man. The voice, however, still
      puzzled me no little; but even this apparent mystery was speedily
      cleared up. “Pompey, you black rascal,” squeaked the General, “I really do
      believe you would let me go out without my palate.”

      Hereupon, the negro, grumbling out an apology, went up to his
      master, opened his mouth with the knowing air of a horse-jockey,
      and adjusted therein a somewhat singular-looking machine, in a
      very dexterous manner, that I could not altogether comprehend. The alteration, however, in the entire expression of the
      General’s countenance was instantaneous and surprising. When he
      again spoke, his voice had resumed all that rich melody and
      strength which I had noticed upon our original introduction. “D—n the vagabonds!” said he, in so clear a tone that I
      positively started at the change, “D—n the vagabonds! they not
      only knocked in the roof of my mouth, but took the trouble to cut
      off at least seven-eighths of my tongue. There isn’t Bonfanti’s
      equal, however, in America, for really good articles of this
      description. I can recommend you to him with confidence,” [here
      the General bowed,] “and assure you that I have the greatest
      pleasure in so doing.”

      I acknowledged his kindness in my best manner, and took leave of
      him at once, with a perfect understanding of the true state of
      affairs—with a full comprehension of the mystery which had
      troubled me so long. It was evident. It was a clear case. Brevet
      Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith was the man—was _the man
      that was used up_. THE BUSINESS MAN


Method is the soul of business.—OLD SAYING. I am a business man. I am a methodical man. Method is the thing,
      after all. But there are no people I more heartily despise than
      your eccentric fools who prate about method without understanding
      it; attending strictly to its letter, and violating its spirit. These fellows are always doing the most out-of-the-way things in
      what they call an orderly manner. Now here, I conceive, is a
      positive paradox. True method appertains to the ordinary and the
      obvious alone, and cannot be applied to the _outré_. What
      definite idea can a body attach to such expressions as
      “methodical Jack o’ Dandy,” or “a systematical Will o’ the Wisp”? My notions upon this head might not have been so clear as they
      are, but for a fortunate accident which happened to me when I was
      a very little boy. A good-hearted old Irish nurse (whom I shall
      not forget in my will) took me up one day by the heels, when I
      was making more noise than was necessary, and swinging me round
      two or three times, d—d my eyes for “a skreeking little
      spalpeen,” and then knocked my head into a cocked hat against the
      bedpost. This, I say, decided my fate, and made my fortune. A
      bump arose at once on my sinciput, and turned out to be as pretty
      an organ of order as one shall see on a summer’s day. Hence that
      positive appetite for system and regularity which has made me the
      distinguished man of business that I am. If there is any thing on earth I hate, it is a genius. Your
      geniuses are all arrant asses—the greater the genius the greater
      the ass—and to this rule there is no exception whatever. Especially, you cannot make a man of business out of a genius,
      any more than money out of a Jew, or the best nutmegs out of
      pine-knots. The creatures are always going off at a tangent into
      some fantastic employment, or ridiculous speculation, entirely at
      variance with the “fitness of things,” and having no business
      whatever to be considered as a business at all. Thus you may tell
      these characters immediately by the nature of their occupations. If you ever perceive a man setting up as a merchant or a
      manufacturer, or going into the cotton or tobacco trade, or any
      of those eccentric pursuits; or getting to be a drygoods dealer,
      or soap-boiler, or something of that kind; or pretending to be a
      lawyer, or a blacksmith, or a physician—any thing out of the
      usual way—you may set him down at once as a genius, and then,
      according to the rule-of-three, he’s an ass. Now I am not in any respect a genius, but a regular business man. My day-book and ledger will evince this in a minute. They are
      well kept, though I say it myself; and, in my general habits of
      accuracy and punctuality, I am not to be beat by a clock. Moreover, my occupations have been always made to chime in with
      the ordinary habitudes of my fellowmen. Not that I feel the least
      indebted, upon this score, to my exceedingly weak-minded parents,
      who, beyond doubt, would have made an arrant genius of me at
      last, if my guardian angel had not come, in good time, to the
      rescue. In biography the truth is every thing, and in
      autobiography it is especially so—yet I scarcely hope to be
      believed when I state, however solemnly, that my poor father put
      me, when I was about fifteen years of age, into the
      counting-house of what be termed “a respectable hardware and
      commission merchant doing a capital bit of business!” A capital
      bit of fiddlestick!