Yet your sharp fellows—what a feast of enjoyment have they, in a world made up expressly to their hands of duller clay? Men who, smiling kindly, will cheat you before your very eyes, with a consciousness of self-power, that you cannot, with all your acuteness, tell under which thimble “the little joker” happens to be. Is there rare enjoyment in this? There must be, you will think, or why is it so perseveringly followed in nearly all the dealings of man with man. Your eyes are your market, my friend—keep them open. I’ll warrant you, that my dismal friend, who is singing so sadly out in the street over his bivalves, says in his heart—“the world is mine oyster,” and has as high an opinion of his own sagacity, as any dealer in broad-cloths or sugars, and will trick you as nicely with a specimen oyster, as the best of them. You shall buy them, upon looking at the one he opens for you—but be not amazed, oh, weak and trusting purchaser, at the shrunken forms of the shell-fish when thou openest the kettle! Call not hard names after the departing vendor—it is the way of life—a specimen is the same, all the world over. The departure from the _principle_ is the exception, not the rule. Not to say any thing about copper, a friend of mine was ruined by Patent Pumps—not dancing shoes, for he was a Quaker—but a very plain water-pump. He invested his all, as purchaser of the _right_, after seeing the model, which was very ingeniously devised to supply the famishing cattle of all the farm-houses in the country, at the shortest notice, with a steady supply from never-failing wells. There were not less than thirty thousand farmers anxiously waiting at that instant to buy the article at twenty dollars each. The inventor was poor, and needed ready money, or he never would have parted with it for ten times the sum agreed to be given. The only difficulty, with the new owner, was to find logs to be bored, and men as borers—it was a bore decidedly, and nothing but energy and perseverance could have surmounted these obstacles. But somehow, though the model worked bravely—even the ruin of its owner, pumping him dry—the water was obstinate in coming above its level in large bodies, and in consequence, the enterprise was water-logged. And so failing in the water business, he became a member of the Sons of Temperance, and took his revenge by putting down that water, that wouldn’t come up. And this man was an editor, like yourself, Jeremy, with a great fund of knowledge, and should have known better—at least so his friends said, and that was all the comfort they gave him.