A day or two after, however, I fell into serious disgrace. A part of my duties consisted in reviewing the current literature of the day; Bolton, Jim, and I, took that department among us, and I soon learned to sympathize with the tea-tasters, who are said to ruin their digestion by an incessant tasting of the different qualities of tea. The enormous quantity and variety of magazines and books that I had to "sample" in a few days brought me into such a state of mental dyspepsia, that I began to wish every book in the Red Sea. I really was brought to consider the usual pleas and tone of book notices in America to be evidence of a high degree of Christian forbearance. In looking over my share, however, I fell upon a novel of the modern, hot, sensuous school, in which glowing coloring and a sort of religious sentimentalism were thrown around actions and principles which tended directly to the dissolution of society. Here was exactly the opportunity to stem that tide of corruption against which Mr. Goldstick so solemnly had warned me. I made the analysis of the book a text for exposing the whole class of principles and practices it inculcated, and uttering my warning against corrupt literature; I sent it to the paper, and in it went. A day or two after Mr. Goldstick came into the office in great disorder, with an open letter in his hand. "What's all this?" he said; "here's Sillery and Peacham, blowing us up for being down on their books, and threatening to take away their advertising from us." Nobody seemed to know anything about it, till finally the matter was traced back to me. "It was a corrupt book, Mr. Goldstick," said I, with firmness, "and the very object you stated to me was to establish a just moral criticism." "Go to thunder! young man," said Mr. Goldstick, in a tone I had never heard before. "Have you no discrimination? are you going to blow us up? The _Great Democracy_, sir, is a great moral engine, and the advertising of this publishing house gives thousands of dollars yearly towards its support. It's an understood thing that Sillery and Peacham's books are to be treated handsomely." "I say, Captain," said Jim, who came up behind us at this time, "let me manage this matter; I'll straighten it out; Sillery and Peacham know me, and I'll fix it with them." "Come! Hal, my boy!" he said, hooking me by the arm, and leading me out. We walked to our lodgings together. I was gloriously indignant all the way, but Jim laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. "You sweet babe of Eden," said he, as we entered my room, "do get quiet! I'll sit right down and write a letter from the Boston correspondent on that book, saying that your article has created a most immense sensation in the literary circles of Boston, in regard to its moral character, and exhort everybody to rush to the book-store and see for themselves. Now, 'hush, my dear, lie still and slumber,' while I do it." "Why, do you mean to go to Boston?" said I.