_Bennett_ (soliloquises)—This boy’s rebuke is terrible. And now I am alone. O God! if I only had his integrity, I would make any sacrifice. That boy has got the principles of Washington in his breast, and the world will hear of him. No earthly power can crush the love of truth in the heart of that dear little boy. And now what shall I do? His merited castigation has unnerved and unmanned me. I know not which way to turn. I have but little money. I cannot get another boy so faithful as Johnny. I must strive to sell my papers in the stores alone, now that Johnny is gone, and, if I fail, I am forever ruined. But this won’t do. I must not despair. I must rally. (He arises, and paces his office rapidly, with compressed jaws and lips, and distended nostrils, and clenched fingers, and ferocious gesticulation.) I must not whine now. I must cut and smash, and detract and terrify the innocent, and levy thousands on the affluent, or I am forever lost. I have no associate, nor friend, nor kindred in all this land, and I can only degrade myself, as my aged parents are in the deep mountain glades of Scotland, and can never hear of my degradation. So I will be a devil. I will advertise for another boy, and if I get one who will conspire with me in my contemplated villainy, my fortunes will yet be vast. (He writes an advertisement, and puts it in the _New York Sun_.) (To be continued.) Peter Cooper’s Funny little Grocery-Groggery, at the Corner of the Bowery and Stuyversant Street, in 1820. PETER BEHIND THE COUNTER. _Enter Female Customer._ _Customer_—I want two candles, and a quart of soft soap, and a pint of gin. _Peter_—There’s the candles, and there’s the soap, and now I will get the gin. (Measures it.) And there’s the gin. _Customer_—Put it all down on the book. _Peter_—I will only put it on the slate, as I want you to pay me by Saturday evening. _Customer_—O, certainly. (She goes.) _Enter Jim, a Darkey._ _Jim_—Mr. Cooper, I want a plug of tobacco, and a glass of rum, and I will pay you on Saturday night, when I get my week’s wages. _Peter_—I can’t trust any more to-day, as I have just let a woman have some candles, soap, and gin on credit, and I shall ruin myself if I trust so much as I have recently. My capital is very small, and my credit is so bad that I have to pay cash for nearly all I buy, and if I trust much, I shall have to fail again, and shut up my little shop for ever. So, Jim, I can’t trust you any more. _Jim_—Then I will trade elsewhere. I have been drinking your rum for a long time, and I have always paid you for it, and I have got drunk many a time on your rum, and now you won’t let me have a glass on credit. You must have an iron heart.