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many of our tumblers are broken, that I came to ask if she would sell me a few.’
One day, when he was walking quickly up the Bowery, his foot slipped on a piece of orange-peel, and he fell prostrate on the sidewalk.
He started up instantly, and turning to a young man behind him, he said, ‘Couldst thou have done that any better?’
He very often mingled with affairs in the street, as he passed along.
One day, when he saw a man beating his horse brutally, he stepped up to him and said, very seriously, ‘Dost thou know that some people think men change into animals when they die?’
The stranger's attention was arrested by such an unexpected question, and he answered that he never was acquainted with anybody who had that belief.
‘But some people do believe it,’ rejoined Friend Hopper; ‘and they also believe that animals may become men. Now I am thinking if thou shouldst ever be a horse, and that horse should ever be a man, with such a temper as thine, the chance is thou wilt get some cruel beatings.’
Having thus changed the current of his angry mood, he proceeded to expostulate with him in a friendly way; and the poor beast was reprieved, for that time, at least.
He could imitate the Irish brogue very perfectly; and it was a standing jest with him to make every Irish stranger believe he was a countryman.
During
Boston, J. P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington; London; Low and Company, 1854.
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