In vain, and
repeatedly, did I struggle with circumstances that for ever foiled me in
my desires; until, in a rash and accursed hour, when chance, and you,
and the devil, threw the opportunity for crime in my path! It did not
escape me, and--but you know the rest."
"I do, but would rather hear you tell it. When you speak thus, you put
me in mind of some of the stump-speeches you used to make when you ran
for the legislature."
"Ay, that was another, and not the least of the many reverses which my
ambition was doomed to meet with. You knew the man who opposed me; you
know that a more shallow and insignificant fop and fool never yet dared
to thrust his head into a deliberative assembly. But, he was rich, and I
poor. He a potato, the growth of the soil; I, though generally admitted
a plant of more promise and pretension--I was an exotic! He was a
patrician--one of the small nobility--a growth, _sui generis_, of the
place--"
"Damn your law-phrases! stop with that, if you please.
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