In the midst of all the bustle and to-do which so many things occasioned, as the old man and I were one evening sitting cheerfully on the bench at the door, conversing of what was to be done, that affliction, Mr. Waft, came with his peering eyes, and sat down unbidden beside us.

“Weel, gentlemen,” said he, “I have been long wishing to fall in with you when you had half an hour to spare for conversation; but ye are always so constantly busy, making money, as I hear, that I begin to doubt if it's ordained ever to be, or come to pass. No’ that there's any thing particular pressing in what I had to say, farther than to indulge a wee wishee I have in the corner of my bosom, to know the name ye intend to bestow on that capital city, every body says ye are going to build. I have been thinking that Hoskinsville would be pretty and poetical; but this afternoon Mr. Herbert, the schoolmaster, has put a new one into my head—don't you think Todopolis would be prime?”

I could discern by the way in which Mr. Hoskins bit his lip, though his visage was unchanged, that he was in high dudgeon at this impudence: for myself, I was frying.

“You never were farther astray in your whole life, Mr. Waft,” said I; “what could lead you to think we were two such fools as to call cities after our own names?—no, no, we’re of sober imaginings. It's to be called Nineveh.”

There never had been such a thought between us; I just said so, I cannot tell wherefore, to set the conjectures of the meddling bodie on another tack; but scarcely had I uttered the word, when Mr. Hoskins, taking the cigar he was smoking from his mouth, and striking off the ashes on the edge of the bench, said,—

“Nineveh! well, I guess, that might be pretty partikler popular too;—yes! it might serve—no bad settler's trap would be ‘at ‘ere Neenivye; but I was a calculating that Samary would do better, for there ain't yet no Samary in all York state.”