I suppose all of you
have had the pocket-book fever when you were little?--What do I mean? Why,
ripping up old pocket-books in the firm belief that bank-bills to an
immense amount were hidden in them.--So, too, you must all remember some
splendid unfulfilled promise of somebody or other, which fed you with
hopes perhaps for years, and which left a blank in your life which nothing
has ever filled up.--O.T. quitted our household carrying with him the
passionate regrets of the more youthful members. He was an ingenious
youngster; wrote wonderful copies, and carved the two initials given above
with great skill on all available surfaces. I thought, by the way, they
were all gone; but the other day I found them on a certain door which I
will show you some time. How it surprised me to find them so near the
ground! I had thought the boy of no trivial dimensions. Well, O.T. when he
went, made a solemn promise to two of us. I was to have a ship, and the
other a mar_tin_-house (last syllable pronounced as in the word _tin_).
Neither ever came; but, oh, how many and many a time I have stolen to the
corner,--the cars pass close by it at this time,--and looked up that long
avenue, thinking that he must be coming now, almost sure, as I turned to
look northward, that there he would be, trudging toward me, the ship in
one hand and the mar_tin_-house in the other!
[You must not suppose that all I am going to say, as well as all I have
said, was told to the whole company.
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