Your autograph-hunter has a funny way of acknowledging "the intrusion," and then going on to pile up the agony by asking, beside your own autograph, that you would "favor him with any from distinguished individuals that you may happen to have in your possession, for which he—or she—will be much obliged," etc.; and I have no doubt they will when I send them!

Now, I know this sounds unamiable; but there is a point when endurance comes to an end, and that is where persistent impertinence begins. Why don't they go to my friend Jack Smith? He is eminent. He will write autographs all day and all night for anybody who wants one, because he considers it a compliment, which I don't, as autographs go; and because Henry Clay never refused—and that would be the very reason I should; and because Jack has the chronic weakness of always saying Yes, when he should say No, and vice versa. I am afraid I shall have to buy my postage-stamps after this onslaught, instead of having them found by autograph-hunters, as I have had for some time; but I shall get off cheaply at that, and save temper, time, and ink beside. The mischief of expressing one's opinion on this and kindred subjects, in print, is this: that the rhinoceros-fellows you mean to hit always dodge it, in favor of some kind-hearted, sensitive soul whose feelings you wouldn't wound for a bushel of autographs, though you should have to sit up all night to write them. I didn't mean you at all, my dear sir or madam, because I know you really like me, good-for-nothing as I am; and, after all, it may be that I am only "riled" by that "furniture-polish man," who looked so much like a clergyman that Betty mistook him for one, and thought I really must go down if I were busy, and whose nose I should like to have anointed with his miserable "polish," for wasting one good hour of the morning, trying it on my furniture.