The Humors of Falconbridge A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes
enterprise, he was led to abandon those occupations, which, if persevered in, would probably have been triumphant. His life was a constant series of changes, in which ill-luck seems to have continually triumphed, because ill-luck was not sufficiently striven with. In all these mutations, it will be the solace of those who knew and loved him, that however his judgment may have led him astray from worldly advantage, his heart was always constant to his family. Affectionate and generous in disposition, he was true to them; and he persevered in laboring for them under every disadvantage. Altering his position—at times an editor—at times an assistant-editor—anon changing his business as new hopes were roused in his bosom—and then being a mere writer, depending upon the sale of his fugitive sketches for the means of support—in all these experiments with Fortune, he was ever true to the fond spirit which gently ruled at home. For the great purposes, and high moral lessons of existence, a faithful, constant heart has a wealth richer and more bountiful than can be bought with gold.

   A keen, genteely dressed, gentlemanly man "put up" at Beltzhoover's Hotel, in Baltimore, one day some years ago, and after dining very sumptuously every day, drinking his Otard, Margieux and Heidsic, and smoking his "Tras," "Byrons," and "Cassadoras," until the landlord began to surmise the "bill" getting voluminous, he made the clerk foot it up and present it to our modern Don Cæsar De Bazan, who, casting his eye over the long lines of perpendicularly arranged figures, discovered that—which in no wise alarmed him, however—he was in for a matter of a cool C!

   "Ah! yes, I see;

    well

   , I presume it's all right, all correct, sir, no doubt about it," says Don Cæsar.

   "No doubt at all, sir," says the polite clerk,—"we seldom present a bill, sir, until the gentlemen are about to leave, sir; but when the bills are unusually large, sir—"

   "Large, sir? Large, my dear fellow"—says the Don—"bless your soul, you don't call

    that

   large? Why, sir, a—a—that is, when I was in Washington, at Gadsby's, sir, bless you, I frequently had my friends of the Senate and the Ministers to dine at my rooms, and what do you suppose my bills averaged a week, there, sir?"

   "I can't possibly say, sir—must have counted up very


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