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Wilkinson and Browne will suit most admirably as eaters and laughers, and, I believe, in all other particulars. Charles Williamson has not returned from Europe, but is hourly expected. My right of franking letters will cease on the 23d of this month, so that you are not to expect pamphlets, &c., by the mail. God bless thee. Washington, March 13, 1805.

It was only at such times when the mortifications to appear so greatly embarrassed became stronger than the embarrassment itself that I could by will power force my head to a straight construction and look out upon my spectators firmly. On the second day of my ordeal, so facing the laughers, I found myself facing straight into the monocle of my half-brother and ill-wisher, Prince Caravacioli.

The band plays a dirge on the way to the cemetery, but when it turns back, and the mourning carriages are out of hearing, it strikes up, "Darktown is Out To-night." That is natural but there are women whose laughter is like the whirring of whips. Why is it that certain kinds of laughter seem to spoil something hidden away from the laughers?

Three 'rickshas, but we couldn't get them apparently private. These Portuguese are a rich brown, like some of the Indians. Some of the blacks have the long horse beads and very long chins of the negroes of the picture books; but most of them are exactly like the negroes of our Southern States round faces, flat noses, good-natured, and easy laughers.

Three 'rickshas, but we couldn't get them apparently private. These Portuguese are a rich brown, like some of the Indians. Some of the blacks have the long horse heads and very long chins of the negroes of the picture books; but most of them are exactly like the negroes of our Southern States round faces, flat noses, good-natured, and easy laughers.

"That is good news, anyhow," spoke forth a rough-looking, good-natured man near by, and the listeners, who were in that excited state of weariness and waiting that they were ready to laugh or cry as the slightest occasion offered, burst forth into roars of laughter, which rang back among the crowds behind and enticed them to join, though I suppose not twenty of the laughers knew what the joke was, if indeed there was one.

Speakers, leaders in science, clergymen better than famous, and famous too, poets by the half-dozen, singers with voices like angels, financiers, wits, three of the best laughers in the Commonwealth, engineers, agriculturists, all forms of talent and knowledge he pretended were represented in that meeting.

The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers.

To light and festive natures the solemnity of the zealous brethren furnished copious matter of ridicule. At length a time came when the laughers began to look grave in their turn. The rigid, ungainly zealots, after having furnished much good sport during two generations, rose up in arms, conquered, ruled, and, grimly smiling, trod down under their feet the whole crowd of mockers.

For I know that we laughers have a gross cousinship with the most high, and it is this contrast and perpetual quarrel which feeds a spring of merriment in the soul of a sane man. Since I could now see such a wonder and it could work such things in my mind, therefore, some day I should be part of it. That is what I felt.