XIX.

THE BEST-NATURED MAN IN THE WORLD.*

its

A YIELDING temper, when not carefully watched and curbed, is one of the most dangerous of faults. Like unregulated generosity, it is apt to carry owner into a thousand difficulties, and, too frequently, to hurry him into vice, if not into crimes. But as it is of advantage to others while inflicting injury upon its possessor, it has, by the common consent of mankind, received a fine name, which covers its follies and promotes its growth. This easiness of disposition, which is a compound of indolence, vanity, and irresolution, is known and applauded as "good-nature;" and, to have reached the superlative

*By J. C. Neal.

degree, so as to be called the "best-natured fellow in the world—almost too good-natured for his own good," is regarded as a lofty merit.

The "best-natured fellow in the world" is merely a convenience; very useful to others, but worse than useless to himself. He is the bridge across the brook, and men walk over him. He is the wandering pony of the Pampas, seeking his own provender, yet ridden by those who contribute not to his support. He giveth up all the sunshine, and hath nothing but chilling shade for himself. He waiteth at the table of the world, serveth the guests, who clear the board, and, for food and pay, give him fine words, which culinary research hath long since ascertained cannot be used with profit, even in the buttering of parsnips. He is, in fact, an appendage, not an individuality; and when worn out, as he soon must be, is thrown aside to make room for another, if another can be had. Such is the result of excessive compliance and obsequious good-nature. It plundereth a man of his spine, and converteth him into a flexile willow, to be bent and twisted as his companions choose, and, should it please them, to be wreathed into a fish-basket.

Are there any who doubt of this? Let them inquire for one Leniter Salix, and ask his opinion.

Leniter may be ragged, but his philosophy has not so many holes in it as might be inferred from the state of his wardrobe. Nay, it is the more perfect on that account; a knowledge of the world penetrates the more easily when, from defective apparel, we approach the nearer to our original selves. Leniter's hat is crownless, and the clear light of knowledge streams without impediment upon his brain. He is not bound up in the strait jacket of prejudice, for he long since pawned his solitary vest, and his coat, made for a Goliath, hangs about him as loosely as a politician's principles, or as the purser's shirt in the poetical comparison. Salix has so long bumped his head against a stone wall, that he has knocked a hole in it, and like Cooke, the tragedian, sees through his error. He has speculated as extensively in experience as if it were town lots. The quantity of that article he has purchased, could it be made tangible, would freight a seventy-four;— were it convertible into cash, Croesus would be a Chelsea pensioner to Salix. But unluckily for him, there are stages in life when experience itself is more ornamental than useful. When, to use a forcible expression-when a man is "done,”-it matters not whether he has as much experience as Samson had hair, or as Bergami had whisker-he

can do no more. Salix has been in his time so much pestered with duns, "hateful to gods and men," that he is done himself.

"The sun was rushing down the west," as Banim has it, attending to its own business, and, by that means, shedding benefit upon the world, when Leniter Salix was seen in front of a little grocery, the locale of which shall be nameless, sitting dejectedly upon a keg of mackerel, number 2. He had been "the best-natured fellow in the world,” but, as the geologists say, he was in a state of transition, and was rapidly becoming up to trap. At all events, he had his nose to the grindstone, an operation which should make men keen. He was houseless, homeless, penniless, and the grocery man had asked him to keep an eye upon the dog, for fear of the midsummer catastrophe which awaits such animals when their snouts are not in a birdcage. This service was to be recompensed with a cracker, and a glass of what the shopman was pleased to call racky mirackilis, a fluid sometimes termed "railroad," from the rapidity with which it hurries men to the end of their journey. Like many of the best-natured fellows in the world, Salix, by way of being a capital companion, and of not being different from others, had acquired rather

a partiality for riding on this "railroad," and he agreed to keep his trigger eye on the dog.

"That's right, Salix. I always knowed you were the best-natured fellow in the world."

H-u-m-p-s-e!" sighed Salix, in a prolonged, plaintive, uncertain manner, as if he admitted the fact, but doubted the honour; "h-u-m-p-s-e! but, if it wasn't for the railroad, which is good for my complaint, because I take it internally to drive out the perspiration, I've a sort of a notion Carlo might take care of himself. There's the dog playing about without his muzzle, just because I'm goodnatured; there's Timpkins at work making money inside, instead of watching his own whelp, just because I'm good-natured; and I'm to sit here doing nothing instead of going to get a little job a man promised me down town, just because I'm good-natured. I can't see exactly what's the use of it to me. It's pretty much like having a bed of your own, and letting other people sleep in it, soft, while you sleep on the bare floor, hard. It wouldn't be so bad if you could have half, or quarter of the bed; but no-these good friends of mine, as I may say, turn in, take it all, roll themselves up in the kivering, and won't let us have a bit of sheet to mollify the white pine sacking bottom, the which