But as Irving did not particularize, I must. Peter would personate a dancing bear; and with the help of a shaggy overcoat pulled up about his ears, and a pair of black kid gloves, he being a small man, hardly taller than a good-sized bear, when standing up with his knees bent, the representation was not only surprisingly faithful, but sometimes absolutely startling. He would serve you out with passages from a new opera, taking all the parts himself, either separately or together, and with feet, hands, and voice, a table, a chair, and a paper trumpet extemporized for the occasion from a sheet of music-paper, would almost persuade you that a rehearsal was going on at your elbow. He would tie a couple of knots in his pocket-handkerchief, throw the rest of it over his hand so as to conceal the action, thrust his left forefinger into the lowest knot for a head, while the uppermost would go for a turban, spread out the middle finger and thumb, covered with the drapery, and make the figure bow and salaam, as if it were alive, to the unspeakable amazement of the little ones. Many years after this, I tried the same trick with the Aztec children, and drove the little monsters half crazy with delight. He would imitate rooks in their noisiest flights, by putting on a pair of black gloves, and spreading the fingers, and cawing; and butterflies alighting on a flower, by pressing his two hands together where they join the wrist, closing the fingers with a fluttering motion, and moving them this way and that, until it was quite impossible to misunderstand the representation; and he would give you a sailor's hornpipe at the dinner-table, by striping two of his fingers with a pen, drawing a face on the back of his hand, with vest and waistband to explain the trousers, and set you screaming as he went through the steps and flourishes on a plate, with the greatest possible seriousness and propriety. But enough. Let us now return to Blackwood. For my next paper he paid me ten guineas,--fifty dollars,--and, in reply to certain suggestions of mine, wrote as follows. I give this letter to show how much of a business man he was, and how well fitted for the duties of editorship. "EDINBURGH, 17 May, 1834. "DEAR SIR,--Yours of the 13th makes me feel very much ashamed at having so long delayed answering your two former favors. The truth is, that you have given me such a bill of fare of what you could furnish for our monthly entertainment, I felt it would be necessary to write you more at length than I had leisure for at the time I received your letter; and, like everything that is delayed at the proper moment, every day has presented excuses for procrastination.