The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 565 pages of information about The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter.

The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 565 pages of information about The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter.
up his battle-axe, and making splinters of his fellows at least twice a week, not a gleam of light was thrown upon the man whose loss I felt it in my heart would be his ruin.  I contemplated the wants and anxieties of those who sought to make them known therein, and smiled at the curious manner in which a thousand ambitious individuals expressed their readiness to supply the wants of others.  I turned to the Tribune.  But neither in the gravely-spun philosophy of its editorials, nor among the pearls of its advertisement columns, could I find a word to relieve my anxiety.  The sages who are supposed by the knowing ones to jot things down in that very consistent inconsistent journal, had likewise forgotten to mention my name; which apparent neglect much discomposed my mind.  I was, however, somewhat relieved by a friend, who informed me that it was in their true spirit.  One of the waiters told me with an air of great wisdom, that the Tribune never took up military men except to set them down with bruises.  This waiter was a gifted Irishman, and a great politician.  During a sweet little touch of a rebellion, or a famine (which are about the same) in his country, he had read the Tribune twice a day to his wife, Biddy Regan, who expressed herself delighted at the forked lightning style it then kept up in defense of the rights of her fifty first cousins.

“Eleven o’clock arrived, but no General Fopp came.  Anxious to relieve myself of the treasure, I approached the highly perfumed and somewhat rotund clerk, whose bows were worth at least a quarter eagle, and related the story of my adventure to him.  The jewels his shirt was bedazzled with seemed to brighten, while his face radiated smiles, in which it was not difficult to read that he set me down for a simpleton.  He took the pocket-book into his hand, and saluting me by my military title, inquired how many banks my companion of the adventure proposed to start in Wall Street.  Just then I remembered that the generous fellow did propose starting ten or so; and, in addition, that he pledged one half of Wall Street that, at no very distant day, I would be president of these United States.

“The clerk now smilingly counted the bills, all of which he pronounced, to my utter astonishment, on banks that existed only in the mischievous imagination of some knight of the order of vagabonds, which ruled the city, moulding things to its liking, and had fortified itself in a castle of brass.  I stood as if transfixed to the floor.  My reputation, my money, my hopes of a foreign mission-all were gone.  I expressed my regret that the man should have so little respect for his military reputation.  The clerk, however, relieved me on that point, by stating that nothing in the world was easier than to be a general in New York, and that the individual who had gained a victory over me was no doubt one of that particular species of military heroes so numerously dispersed about all the street corners of Broadway, and who now and then find it good for their health and courage to take a trip to Europe, where titles command better attention.  As for the Quaker, Greely Hanniford, he was no doubt a major of the General’s division.

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The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.