“Copp’s Hill? It recalled many a boyish prank. One sport engaged our youthful leisure. It was called ‘Follow your leader.’ It was considered as a testimony to one’s courage when, by acclamation, he was elected to leadership! The game was simple; but the results, always amusing, were sometimes somewhat too stimulating for pleasure. The leader started upon a run, with a long trail of boys in a line behind him, whom he endeavored to throw off by doing things which they were not strong enough or skilful or daring enough to imitate. If twenty boys started, half would drop away, after a sharp run, by mere want of breath; another section could be thrown off by some feat that terrified them. “We recall one memorable chase. Called to the head of the column, I plunged down Margaret’s Lane, up Prince and back, up toward Copp’s Hill, reducing my followers, by sheer exhaustion, one-half. A brick house was going up; into it I dashed, ran up the ladder, walked along the floor-joists, and let myself down by a rope attached to a guy on the front. Only six or seven could follow. A large mortar-bed lay near by. I dashed into that, wading through the slush. Five came out on the other side with me. Tough five! They followed me into a shop, right back into the adjacent parlor, out at a side-door, though some of the last got the yard-stick well laid on by the indignant shop-keeper, and the last one out came dripping from a pail of water which a woman flung after ‘the nasty varmints,’ as she styled us. Many other feats did we, but in vain. The five would stick. I remember that a large part of Copp’s Hill had been dug down for filling the ‘Causeway,’ leaving a precipitous face—well, say fifty feet high to the eyes, but, if measured, perhaps twenty feet. Ascending the hill, I drew near the verge, a little hesitant to venture the plunge. But to confess that I dare not do _anything_ would be disgraceful, and so, with but a moment’s pause, I jumped for a little crumbling foothold half-way down, and off from that, as soon as on it, to the bottom, which I reached in a heap, with dirt and stones and two boys following after! Not stopping to rub my shins, rejoicing that only two were left, and desperate, I took my way to the near wharf where ‘Billy Gray’s’ ships used to be, climbed the side, ran along the deck, up the bowsprit, far out, and then, with a spring, off into deep water! Down, down, down we went, and seemed likely to go on for ever. At length the descent stopped, and we rose again to the surface—O joy!—to see the two boys standing on the bowsprit! They did not dare! That day’s work established our reputation! We know how Alexander felt! Cæsar and Napoleon can tell us nothing new about the glories of victory!” That his country honesty was not altogether proof against the temptations of his life in the city is shown by a description he gives, in “Eyes and Ears,” of his successful attempt to purloin a six-pound cannon-ball from the Navy-Yard: