That day's work raised hope in every man's heart through the land. Said I not well that it was the most glorious of my life? I have but little more to say. I have said more than I meant to, more perhaps than was wise to say of my own glory. But the thought of those brave days of old makes one too talkative. I must tell you, however, how I at last came here. Judah Loring brought me home safe; he was a very honest fellow, and seeing the initials scratched on my butt-end, and 'Lexington' underneath, he went there on purpose to find to whom I belonged. My friend William claimed me, and I was again placed behind the old clock in the little parlor. His mother looked very calm, and almost happy, but not as she once did; she sighed heavily when William brought me home. William's wound in his arm healed after a while, but his arm was disabled. By great self-denial and exertion, his mother had got him into college, and he was to be a schoolmaster. The sight of me was painful to this good woman, and she gave me to uncle John who kept me safely and, on the whole, honorably till his son placed me here. There is one disgrace I have met with which, in good faith, however unwillingly, I ought to mention. Uncle John used me to kill skunks occasionally. This there was no great harm in doing, only he should not have talked about it. I disliked, it, however, exceedingly. Once, I am told, when he was in the South, some southern gentleman, for some trifling offense, challenged him. Uncle John was told that he, as the party challenged, might choose his weapons. "Well," he said to his enemy, "if you will wait till I can send for my skunk gun, I am ready for you." I have since, I do hate to say it, been called the skunk gun repeatedly. To be sure, no one that has any reverence in his nature speaks of me in this way. Uncle John had not much, but his son, the father of that little girl, treats me with due respect, and forbids them to call me the skunk gun. I was once the defender of liberty, and am ready to be so again. I was not made to kill skunks, those disgusting little animals. I hate to think of them. Pardon me for keeping you listening to me so long; I have done. I wish to hear now what that respectable-looking broadsword has to say. We two ought to be friends." "I was born a gentleman," said the broadsword. "I was always considered the sign, the symbol of one. Not many years since, a sword was so essential to the character of a gentleman that a man without one by his side, was, in fact, not considered a gentleman.