But, I will say no more on the subject. I have allowed you to have the free benefit of my opinions--such as they are--at your private valuation, no discount allowed! You don't seem pleased--what is it that you say? You want to hear about my doings; and not my opinions? Bless me! How very impatient you are. I was only just going to continue my story! How can you hear about me without hearing my opinions also? I dare say they may not appear palatable to you. There is no accounting for tastes; and, as you probably know, "veritas odium parit!" Still, you cannot separate a man and his opinions; they are inseparable. Fancy an individual without an opinion of his own! Why, he would be a nonentity--a thing! Don't talk nonsense. CHAPTER TEN. A HARD FIGHT. Across the wide Atlantic-- It drives me almost frantic, To watch the breakers breaking, and hear their dull, low roar!-- My soul is winging madly; And my eyes are peering sadly, As I span the long, long distance from my home-girt shore! I was disgusted with America in more ways than one. Being of a hopeful, castle-building temperament, I had sanguinely thought that I would meet with employment there at once; and, be able to master in some unknown, mysterious way, the great art of money-making, on the very instant that I landed in the New World! I really imagined it, I think, to be an enchanted place, where every newly-arrived person became magically changed into a sort of Midas on a small scale; transforming everything he touched, if not into gold--the days of California were now over--at all events into Washington "eagles," or Mexican silver dollars, or even greenbacks, which were better than nothing, although greasy and not acknowledged at their nominal value. Upon my word, I really believe that that was my secret opinion concerning America before I actually crossed the Atlantic! Probably, I would not have told you so had you asked me then; but I think that was my real idea about it. It was to me an Eldorado, where ill-luck was undreamt of; and where I should be able to heap up riches without the slightest out-of-the-way exertion on my part, in an incredibly short space of time:--riches that would enable me to return home, in the character of a millionaire, in a year or two at the outside, and claim Min's hand from the then-unresisting Mrs Clyde! Was I not a fool? Pray, say so, if you think it.--_I_ won't mind, bless you! for, I know that there are more such in the world besides myself, eh? I soon found out my mistake.