"'Who would have thought," said Irving at the age of sixty-three to another of those nine lads, "that we should ever have lived to be two such respectable old gentlemen!" About this time Irving and a friend named James K. Paulding proposed to start a paper, to be called "Salmagundi." It was an imitation of Addison's _Spectator_, and consisted of light, humorous essays, most of them making fun of the fads and fancies of New York life in those days. The numbers were published from a week to a month apart, and were continued for about a year. The young men had no idea of making money by the venture, for they were then well-to-do; but to their surprise it proved a great success, and the publisher is said to have made ten or fifteen thousand dollars out of it. He afterwards paid the editors four hundred dollars each. Irving now visited Philadelphia, Boston, and other places. He thought of trying for a government office, and was tempted into politics. His description of his experience is amusing enough. "Before the third day was expired, I was as deep in mud and politics as ever a moderate gentleman would wish to be; and I drank beer with the multitude; and I talked handbill-fashion with the demagogues, and I shook hands with the mob--whom my heart abhorreth. 'Tis true, for the two first days I maintained my coolness and indifference.... But the third day--ah! then came the tug of war. My patriotism all at once blazed forth, and I determined to save my country! O, my friend, I have been in such holes and corners; such filthy nooks, sweep offices, and oyster cellars!" He closes by saying that this saving one's country is such a sickening business that he wants no more of it. CHAPTER VI "DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER" On October 26, 1809, there appeared in the _New York Evening Post_ the following paragraph: "DISTRESSING. "Left his lodgings, some time since, and has not since been heard of, a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker. As there are some reasons for believing he is not entirely in his right mind, and as great anxiety is entertained about him, any information concerning him left either at the Columbian Hotel, Mulberry street, or at the office of this paper, will be thankfully received. "P.S. Printers of newspapers will be aiding the cause of humanity in giving an insertion to the above." Two weeks later a letter was printed in the _Evening Post_, signed "A Traveler," saying that such a gentleman as the one described had been seen a little above King's Bridge, north of New York, "resting himself by the side of the road." Ten days after this the following letter was printed: "_To the Editor of the Evening Post_: