that the variations might be squared to the occasion.  My shoe bench I sold for a trifle, and my pegs and awls were consigned to the children for playthings.  The Tippecanoe side of politics being the most popular, as well as profitable, I tied to it at once; and on going to the “Coon-meeting” surprised and astonished every one with the power and arguments of my speech.  I may indeed humbly say, I flashed into greatness with the quickness of lightning.  Neither Cicero nor Lycurgus were ever, in their day, thought so well of by the multitudes.  It got noised about that Webster would have to give up to me.  And I am sure that if the elder Adams or Jefferson had been living, they would have been set down by the editors, in the gravest sentences they were capable of penning, as mere shadows in comparison.”

Here the major paused to make room for the Provincetown stage; a great yellow coach, full of passengers, which we had come upon suddenly.  The driver of the stage, not liking the slow pace in which old Battle was proceeding to make room for him, laid his whip briskly over his haunches, quickening his movements, but driving the major into a furious passion.  The sudden twitch landed us both upon the sandy road, under the pile of sheepskins we had used for a seat.  In this dilemma the major called loudly for assistance, swearing that if the stage driver would but stop he would give him battle to his satisfaction.  This only served to increase the mirth of the passengers, who rather encouraged their mischievous driver, now looking round and making grimaces at his adversary.  The major, however, was not long in extricating himself from the sheepskins, when, for want of a better weapon, he seized a string of tin pints, and running as fast as his short legs would carry him, hurled them one after another at the stage coach.  Ceasing to afford the passengers this amusement only when his wind gave out, the major swore by his military reputation that if they would only give him an opportunity he would whip the stageload before breakfast, and think it a mere trifle.  The coach now rolled out of sight, and the major sat down by the road side to contemplate the loss of his tin cups, which like spilled apples, were strewn along the sand.  It would not do to suffer so great a loss, so he girded up his nether garments, and commenced picking up his cups, lamenting their bruises as he strung them upon his string.  Finding that we sustained no other loss than that of the major’s temper, I set his team to rights, and, having mounted the sheepskins, we were ready to proceed on our journey.  “Such an insult as that offered to me when I was in the Mexican war,” said he, mounting over the wheel with one of those expletives much used among soldiers, “and I had demolished the lot at a stroke of my sword.  Zounds! why can’t stage drivers be gentlemen?”