his bucket.  Having drank of the limpid water from one of his tin cups, and placed the bucket before old Battle, whom he patted with great fondness, the major next proceeded to take care of his disconsolate chickens, which for the last three miles had been keeping up an opera of discordant sounds, to his great annoyance.  Uncovering his coop, which he carried at the tail of his wagon, he set two tin cups of water before them, and scattered moistened meal at their feet, enjoining them to hold their peace in the future.  And while in the act of doing this, he reminded me that great men were exalted by small things, and however bemeaning the nursing of chickens might be regarded in a military man, there was in it a nobleness the great only could appreciate.  The chickens, however, did not seem to appreciate his sacrifice of dignity, for they devoured their food with an increase of music.  Having attended to the wants of his live stock, the major frisked round his wagon to see that his wares were all safe, and then commenced singing a song, as if a transport of joy had suddenly come over him.  “I tell you what it is, my friend,” said he, pausing in the middle of his tune, and drawing his favorite flask from his breast pocket, “the world ’ll think none the less of us for traveling thus shabbily.  There may be nothing courtly in the profession of tin-peddling, yet it is an honorable enterprise, and has its obstacles as well as other honorable enterprises.”  I besought him not to make himself uncomfortable on my account; that I was not yet so famous that I could not ride over the country on a tin-wagon, without feeling it a sacrifice of dignity.

We now sat down by the spring together, and proceeded to refresh ourselves with his crackers and cheese, to which I added a newly-baked pumpkin pie my mother, in the outpouring of her simplicity, had slipped into my haversack; and while regaling ourselves in this unpretending manner, the major, whose ardor was rather increased by the liquid he mixed with his water, resumed the recital of his first adventure in New York:  “Being desirous of facilitating the Quaker’s honesty, my companion, General Fopp, suggested an easy way of disposing of the matter.  The pocket-book, he said, no doubt contained an enormous amount, which the unlucky owner would be anxious to regain as early as possible in the morning, and to that end would advertise in all the newspapers, offering a large reward to the lucky finder, as an inducement for him to preserve his honesty.  The first step then would be to find a convenient place for counting the contents of the pocket-book, and considering the amount which could be properly offered the Quaker, as the reward of his honesty.  So, after consulting within myself for some few minutes, I followed my companion and the Quaker into the back parlor of a cigar shop, where we carefully counted the great roll of notes, and found the amount to be exactly four thousand three hundred and twenty-two dollars, which nice little sum,