you shall have the means to cancel the claim of Mr. Post. Take the lamp and retire, Stephen, and you will go to your repose with my most fervent blessing.” And as I was about to go, with his hand upon the latch, he gazed, and lingered, and hesitated, and advanced and embraced me as never before, and while he kissed my forehead, his copious and burning tears rolled down my pallid cheeks. We parted in silence, as neither could speak. I arose early, and went to the Post-office, and before meridian, father gave me the money, which I sent to Mr. Post, which made me the happiest being in Providence. The students of Brown University daily came for letters, with some of whom I formed the warmest friendship, and I soon discovered my superficiality through their superior intelligence, and I resolved to emerge from the ignorance and superstition that beclouded my intellect, and made me unhappy. I studied Greek and Latin very hard during my leisure hours, and recited to Hartshorn, Farnsworth, and Gay, and made rapid advances. The clerks became jealous soon after I embarked in my intellectual enterprise, and strove to prejudice Gen. Mallett against me, assuring him that I did not come to the office early in the morning, and let them go to breakfast, although I hastened to the office immediately after I closed my morning meal, and sometimes without it, to please the clerks. They also told him that I studied during office hours, and neglected those who called for letters. Gen. Mallett believed their fallacious accusations, and often severely denounced me, and I left the Post-office, with the approbation of my father, and began the study of law with Gen. Thomas F. Carpenter, one of the most eminent lawyers of Rhode Island, and a man of noble nature. Gen. Mallett soon requested me to return, by direction of Gov. Fenner, who was the constant personal and political friend of my father more than forty years. I returned, but the clerks again conspired, and apparently gave Mallett no peace—although I learned that Mallett himself, if not their instigator, was, at least, their fellow conspirator, which aroused a hundred tigers in my breast. The clerks adduced another batch of colored charges, and Mallett belched a scathing phillippic, when I sprang like a panther at his throat, and gently squeezed and hugged him like a bear, until he showed his lying and vituperating tongue, and rolled his phrenzied eyes, when he made a superhuman effort, and eluded my nails and fingers, and fled into his private office, whither I pursued him. My father was in the printing office of Wm. Simons on the floor above, and hearing my blows and awful anathema of Mallett, and scratches, and gouges, and wild cat screeches and echos, he rushed down stairs, and into the private office of Mallett, and locked the door, and put the key in his pocket, to conceal us from the public gaze; and after a desperate conflict, he dragged me from Mallett, who