A passing Something of a melancholy cast put it into my head to shake it, and to say, "Perhaps we all are."
"I don′t mean that," he answered; "I don′t take that wide range; I confine myself to the special case. Observe me well, my Christopher! Hopeless of getting rid, through any effort of my own, of any of the manuscripts among my Luggage,—all of which, send them where I would, were always coming back to me,—it is now some seven years since I left that Luggage here, on the desperate chance, either that the too, too faithful manuscripts would come back to me no more, or that some one less accursed than I might give them to the world. You follow me, my Christopher?"
"Pretty well, sir." I followed him so far as to judge that he had a weak head, and that the Orange, the Boiling, and Old Brown combined was beginning to tell. (The Old Brown, being heady, is best adapted to seasoned cases.)
"Years elapsed, and those compositions slumbered in dust. At length, Destiny, choosing her agent from all mankind, sent You here, Christopher, and lo! the Casket was burst asunder, and the Giant was free!"
He made hay of his hair after he said this, and he stood a-tiptoe.
"But," he reminded himself in a state of excitement, "we must sit up all night, my Christopher. I must correct these Proofs for the press. Fill all the inkstands, and bring me several new pens."
He smeared himself and he smeared the Proofs, the night through, to that
degree that when Sol gave him warning to depart (in a four-wheeler), few
could have said which was them, and which was him, and which was blots.
His last instructions was, that I should instantly run and take his
corrections to the office of the present Journal. I did so. They most
likely will not appear in print, for I noticed a message being brought
round from Beauford Printing House, while I was a throwing this
concluding statement on paper, that the ole resources of that
establishment was unable to make out what they meant. Upon which a
certain gentleman in company, as I will not more particularly name,—but
of whom it will be sufficient to remark, standing on the broad basis of a
wave-girt isle, that whether we regard him in the light of,— laughed,
and put the corrections in the fire.
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