"Caught a Tartar!" said I, looking up at the colonel. "I think I have caught a Tartar. Time, place, and weapon, forsooth! Why what does the fellow mean?"

"Mr. L," said the colonel, " is my friend;" the last two words emphatic. "You will please keep guard upon your words when they relate to him. He has taken this step by my advice."

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"Your advice!" exclaimed I, astonished. Why it was by your advice I wrote the remarks he complains of." "I advised you to cut up the actors, but I said nothing about my worthy friend, Mr. L. You should censure only those who deserve it. But," waving his hand gracefully, "to the purpose. What time will you choose, what place and weapon, to give my friend the satisfaction of a gentleman ?"

"The satisfaction of a fool!" said I, in a passion again. "Pray, my good sir, tell your friend, as you call him, to play better, or I shall continue my remarks with increased asperity. I do not think the occasion worth risking my life for. I should be very sorry to kill your friend, and more sorry to be killed by him; but if he offer any insult to me, though I am unwilling to injure him, I shall know how to defend myself."

To my surprise Mr. L. himself, who, it appeared, had listened at the door, now rushed in, and, with a cane of more than ordinary weight and thickness, evidently procured with a view to a desperate assault and battery, walked up to me, his face red with rage, and lifting the bludgeon was proceeding to a very unequivocal symptom of hostility, when I took from my drawer a small uncharged pocket pistol, cocked it, and aimed at his head. He vanished with dramatic celerity. I should think the gentleman had sunk through one of his own trap doors,

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Now, sir," said I, addressing the colonel, who had fiercely walked toward the door. The more frightened he got, the more fierce he looked.

"Good morning, sir; good morning, sir," said he, and he also vanished.

I sat down and finished my paragraph on the independence of the press. About two months afterward I saw the whole affair in the Cahawba Democrat, wherein I was made to cut a sorry figure. The young man

with India rubber over shoes came in, and laid a copy of the United States Federal Republican on my table.

I then resolved to let the theatres alone, and for several numbers was silent on the subject, when one morning my respectable little friend, Monsieur Achille Barbierre, came into my office, took off his hat, made me three bows, and said:

"Monsieur Editor-Je suis bien fache dat you say no ting of de spectacle, de comedie, in your papier. I go tojours au spectacle-dat is way I have learn your language so parfaitment bien. Now I have peruse your papier tomorrow morning before breakfast in the afternoon—you nevair say someting about de comedie. I cannot no more be you abonne."

Saying this, he took a pinch of snuff-made me three bows, put on his hat, and was no longer numbered among my subscribers.

THE TRUMPET.

THE affairs of my paper now began to go on swimmingly. Several unexpected pieces of good fortune relieved my mind of a weighty burthen. Mr. Obadiah Thompson wrote me word on the margin of the Cahawba Democrat, (with the pen drawn over the writing,) that if I would publish some of his original poetry, he would not only leave off abusing me himself, and shut the flood gates of the United States Federal Republican, the Henry Clay Recorder, and the Macdonough Jacksonian, but he would puff me and my paper till he had puffed away the recollection of all unkind feeling. I must here stop one moment to pay a just tribute of admiration to the wonderful efficacy and consistency of the law, and at the same time explain how I came to receive communications first written on the margin of newspapers, and then erased. Although every one is pleased on receiving a letter, no one can bear to pay for it, and most people would at any time take six shillings worth of trouble to avoid eighteen pence postage. The conductors of newspapers were, often wont to interchange their familiar ideas upon matters and things by inscribing them upon their printed

sheets, thus cheating the post office department of innumerable small contributions. To avoid this, a law was enacted inflicting a penalty of fifty dollars for every similar offence. An editor from down east was soon informed against, but he proved that he had always drawn a line over his epistolary correspondence, which the court decided (although the words were not rendered illegible) was sufficient to take the offence out of the statute; and so they go on as usual, and snap their fingers under the very nose of the law.

In accordance with our new arrangement, I was soon as much bedaubed with praise as I had previously been with slander. My editorial articles were copied all over the United States, and although many papers re-printed them without credit, and sometimes as original communications, yet on the whole I found my fame rising rapidly. My subscribers increased in such numbers that I was about making some very extensive and profitable arrangement, by which the typographical beauty of the work should be increased, and some individuals of great talent enlisted in my service.

Every thing promised that I should establish myself on a higher eminence than ever editor reached before, when my flowery prospects were nearly blighted by a trumpet. In recapitulating the prominent features of my history, I am more than ever led to acquiesce in the justice of the poet,

"Great trees from little acorns grow,

Great streams from little fountains flow;"

but to be ruined by a trumpet! I can scarcely sit still enough to write while I think of it.

One unlucky night, when wearied with the drudgery of my business, I sought relaxation at one of the theatres. I will say nothing about the actors, thought I, lest I "interfere with them personally," as they call criticising them; but during the performance by the orchestra of a charming overture, I noticed that the combined harmony of the instruments was slightly interrupted by the sound of a trumpet, which, from some unaccountable cause, did not seem managed with its usual adroitness. I traced the discordant notes to a little

fat gentleman, who blew it till his cheeks were puffed out like a Boreas. I was reminded of Anthony Van Corlær, the trusty and immortal trumpeter of Peter the Headstrong, mentioned in Knickerbocker's History of New York, the only true and impartial book ever written. Like his predecessor he introduced sundry fanciful demisemiquavers, altogether original, which discovered the most wonderful genius for extempora neous musical composition; but the envious and wilful persons who composed the rest of the band, regardless of his variations, did never stop to listen, nor to let others listen, but played right ahead, whereby it sometimes occurred that they had reached the end of their tune when the trumpet was flourishing gracefully about in the middle. I thought I should do the worthy musician a favor by informing him of his mistake, and therefore took the earliest opportunity of indicting a few remarks, in a most amicable tone, requesting him to keep his trumpet within bounds. The next day I had all the orchestra round to my office, to read the article, one after the other. First came the violins-pale, thin, genteel looking gentlemen. They read it through, every word of it; all laughed-and some of them bought the number. Then came the bassoon and trombone. bassoon and trombone always look askew at the trumpet. Then the clarionet walked in and shook his sides at the downfall of his neighbor; and by and by entered the bass viol, and added his triumph to the destruction of the poor trumpet. The whole tribe, flute, horn, piano, cymbals, triangle, and kettle drums, were seen at short intervals, in great glee, the wind instruments in particular, visiting my office, as soon as it was buzzed around that the blower of the trumpet had been blown up himself, and even some of the leading chorus voices were heard congratulating themselves that the trumpeter had at length met his just deserts. I was at first pleased, then surprised, and afterward alarmed at the "sensation," as the phrase is, which my poor little unconscious paragraph prduced. Judge of my consternation, when the man with the overshoes said the trumpeter was neither more nor less than a man of immense fortune, entirely without family, and who had no other occupation, business, or idea in life but playing on his

The

trumpet. I might have written the theatre down with half the danger I incurred in meddling with this confounded trumpet. They told me also that his love of his instrument was only equalled by his love of revenge, and that it was certain he would never let me rest till he had inflicted some deep blow upon my interest.

Several weeks passed away, and I was flattering myself upon having escaped an impending calamity, when I found in one of the newspapers, whose editor I had mortally offended by praising a particular line of steam boats, with the owners of which the worthy gentleman had quarrelled, an article recommending to the admiration of the public a magnificent periodical, full of engravings, of a superior kind, and by far the cheapest and the best which had ever appeared in any country. In due time, the publication came forth, with nothing original in it but some insolent allusions to flimsy contemporaries. Every newspaper in the United States took up the cry, and gave each week a half column of puffs to the new publication. It was soon pompously announced that the original numbers were nearly all bought up, and that the list of subscribers was increasing so rapidly that the demand for the work could not be supplied. I could not conceive how a journal, with so little intrinsic merit, should have sprung so suddenly up, and excited such a ferment in the public. I at last traced it to the little trumpeter, who depending on his immense wealth, had started the work, and paid its way out of his own funds.

The public has been taken in so often by high sounding schemes, which turned out in the end to be bubbles, that I wonder he is not ashamed to show his face in the city; yet, so far from this being the case, the more he is caught the more ready and willing he seems to be so as some little fool of a fish, after having escaped from one hook swallows the very next he meets. It is strange that with his hundred thousand eyes he cannot see into things more accurately, and that being such a giant in strength he allows every cunning rogue to take hold of his nose, and lead him just where he pleases. The plain truth is, he is a great, good natured, foolish sort of animal, not troubled with