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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.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
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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 outre. 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
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will) took me up one day by the heels, when I was making more noise than was necessary, and swinging me
round two or 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! However, the
consequence of this folly was, that in two or three days, I had to be sent home to my button-headed family in a
high state of fever, and with a most violent and dangerous pain in the sinciput, all around about my organ of
order. It was nearly a gone case with me then -- just touch-and-go for six weeks -- the physicians giving me up
and all that sort of thing. But, although I suffered much, I was a thankful boy in the main. I was saved from
being a "respectable hardware and commission merchant, doing a capital bit of business," and I felt grateful to
the protuberance which had been the means of my salvation, as well as to the kindhearted female who had
originally put these means within my reach.
The most of boys run away from home at ten or twelve years of age, but I waited till I was sixteen. I don't
know that I should have gone even then, if I had not happened to hear my old mother talk about setting me up
on my own hook in the grocery way. The grocery way! -- only think of that! I resolved to be off forthwith, and
try and establish myself in some decent occupation, without dancing attendance any longer upon the caprices
of these eccentric old people, and running the risk of being made a genius of in the end. In this project I
succeeded perfectly well at the first effort, and by the time I was fairly eighteen, found myself doing an
extensive and profitable business in the Tailor's Walking-Advertisement line.
I was enabled to discharge the onerous duties of this profession, only by that rigid adherence to system which
formed the leading feature of my mind. A scrupulous method characterized my actions as well as my
accounts. In my case it was method -- not money -- which made the man: at least all of him that was not made
by the tailor whom I served. At nine, every morning, I called upon that individual for the clothes of the day.
Ten o'clock found me in some fashionable promenade or other place of public amusement. The precise
regularity with which I turned my handsome person about, so as to bring successively into view every portion
of the suit upon my back, was the admiration of all the knowing men in the trade. Noon never passed without
my bringing home a customer to the house of my employers, Messrs. Cut & Comeagain. I say this proudly,
but with tears in my eyes -- for the firm proved themselves the basest of ingrates. The little account, about
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