Our hermit drew himself closer to the table, and spreading his arms upon it, leaned forward with the serious air of a man prepared to discuss a grave thing. "Buttons," he repeated. Then clearing his throat he began, "In the course of your long and, I hope, well spent life, has it never come with thunderbolt conviction on you that all washerwomen, clear-starchers, getters up of fine linen, or under whatever name Eve's daughters--for as Eve brought upon us the stern necessity of a shirt, it is but just that her girls should wash it--under whatever name they cleanse and beautify flax and cotton, that they are all under some compact, implied or solemnly entered upon amongst themselves and their non-washing, non-starching, non-getting up sisterhood, that by means subtle and more mortally certain, they shall worry, coax, and drive all bachelors and widowers soever into the pound of irredeemable wedlock? Has this tremendous truth, sir, never struck you?' "'How?--by what means?' we asked. "'Simply by buttons.' answered the hermit, bringing down his clenched fist upon the table. "We knew it--we looked incredulous. "'See here, sir,' said the Hermit, leaning still farther across the table, 'I will take a man, who on his outstart in life, set his hat a-cock at matrimony--a man who defies Hymen and all his wicked wiles. Nevertheless, sir, the man must have a shirt, the man must have a washerwoman, Think you that that shirt returning from the tub, never wants one, two--three buttons? Always, sir, always. Sir, though I am now an anchorite I have lived in your bustling world, and seen--ay, quite as much as anyone of its manifold wickedness. Well, the man--the buttonless man--at first calmly remonstrates with his laundress. He pathetically wrings his wrists at her, and shows his condition. The woman turns upon him her wainscot face and promises amendment. The thing shall never happen again. Think you the next shirt has its just and lawful number of buttons? Devil a bit!'" In "The Bright Poker," he seems to pay a compliment under a guise of sarcasm:--