_The Port-chuck_. Hullo, You-sir, did you know there was g-on-to be a race to-morrah? _Myself_. No. Who's g-on-to run, 'n'wher's't g-on-to be? _The Port-chuck_. Squire Mico and Doctor Williams, round the brim o' your hat. These two much-respected gentlemen being the oldest inhabitants at that time, and the alleged race-course being out of the question, the Port-chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his cheek, I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has been to make me sensitive and observant respecting this article of dress ever since. Here is an axiom or two relating to it. A hat which has been _popped_, or exploded by being sat down upon, is never itself again afterwards. It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to believe the contrary. Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic as its hat. There is always an unnatural calmness about its nap, and an unwholesome gloss, suggestive of a wet brush. The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in smoothing its dilapidated castor. The hat is the _ultimum moriens_ of "respectability." ----The old gentleman took all these remarks and maxims very pleasantly, saying, however, that he had forgotten most of his French, except the word for potatoes,--_pummies de tare_.--_Ultimum moriens_, I told him, is old Italian, and signifies _last thing to die_. With this explanation he was well contented, and looked quite calm when I saw him afterwards in the entry with a black hat on his head and the white one in his hand. ----I think myself fortunate in having the Poet and the Professor for my intimates. We are so much together, that we no doubt think and talk a good deal alike; yet our points of view are in many respects individual and peculiar. You know me well enough by this time. I have not talked with you so long for nothing, and therefore I don't think it necessary to draw my own portrait. But let me say a word or two about my friends. The Professor considers himself, and I consider him, a very useful and worthy kind of drudge. I think he has a pride in his small technicalities. I know that he has a great idea of fidelity; and though I suspect he laughs a little inwardly at times at the grand airs "Science" puts on, as she stands marking time, but not getting on, while the trumpets are blowing and the big drums beating,--yet I am sure he has a liking for his specialty, and a respect for its cultivators.