'Talking of a man's making a hero of himself, reminds me of an old friend of mine, who is fond of telling long stories about fights and quarrels that he has had in his day, and who always makes his hearer his opponent for the time, so as to give effect to what he is saying. Not long ago I met him on 'Change, at a business hour, when all the commercing multitudes of the city were together, and you could scarcely turn, for the people. The old fellow fixed his eye on me; there was a fatal fascination in it. Getting off without recognition, would have been unpardonable disrespect. In a moment, his finger was in my button-hole, and his rheumy optics glittering with the satisfaction of your true _bore_, when he has met with an unresisting subject. I listened to his common-places with the utmost apparent satisfaction. Directly, he began to speak of an altercation which he once had with an officer in the navy. He was relating the _particulars_. 'Some words,' said he, 'occurred between _him_ and _me_. Now you know that he is a much younger man than I am; in fact, about _your_ age. Well, he '_made use of an expression_' which I did not exactly like. Says I to him, says I, 'What do you mean by that?' 'Why,' says he to me, says he, 'I mean just what I say.' Then I began to burn. There was an impromptu elevation of my personal dandriff, which was unaccountable. I didn't waste words on him; I just took him in this way,' (here the old _spooney_ suited the action to the word, by seizing the collar of my coat, before the assemblage,) 'and says I to him, says I, 'You infernal scoundrel, I will punish you for your insolence on the spot!' and the manner in which I shook him (just in _this_ way) was really a warning to a person similarly situated.' 'I felt myself at this moment in a beautiful predicament; in the midst of a large congregation of business people; an old gray-headed man hanging, with an indignant look, at my coat-collar; and a host of persons looking on. The old fellow's face grew redder every minute; but perceiving that he was observed, he lowered his voice in the _detail_, while he lifted it in the worst places of his colloquy. 'You infernal scoundrel, and caitiff, and villain,' says I, 'what do you mean, to insult an elderly person like myself, in a public place like this?' and then, said he, lowering his malapropos voice, 'then I shook him, _so_.' 'Here he pushed me to and fro, with his septuagenarian gripe on my collar, as if instead of a patient much bored _friend_, I was his deadly enemy. When he let go, I found myself in a _ring_ of spectators. 'Shame, shame! to insult an old man like him!' was the general cry. 'Young puppy!' said an elderly merchant, whose good opinion was my heart's desire, 'what excuse have you for your conduct?'