 was no longer any remedy!
    Unless people are more than commonly disagreeable, it is my foolish habit to
contract a kindness for them. The better part of my companion's character, if it
have a better part, is that which usually comes uppermost in my regard, and
forms the type whereby I recognize the man. As most of these old Custom-House
officers had good traits, and as my position in reference to them, being
paternal and protective, was favorable to the growth of friendly sentiments, I
soon grew to like them all. It was pleasant, in the summer forenoons, - when the
fervent heat, that almost liquefied the rest of the human family, merely
communicated a genial warmth to their half-torpid systems, - it was pleasant to
hear them chatting in the back entry, a row of them all tipped against the wall,
as usual; while the frozen witticisms of past generations were thawed out, and
came bubbling with laughter from their lips. Externally, the jollity of aged men
has much in common with the mirth of children; the intellect, any more than a
deep sense of humor, has little to do with the matter; it is, with both, a gleam
that plays upon the surface, and imparts a sunny and cheery aspect alike to the
green branch, and gray, mouldering trunk. In one case, however, it is real
sunshine; in the other, it more resembles the phosphorescent glow of decaying
wood.
    It would be sad injustice, the reader must understand, to represent all my
excellent old friends as in their dotage. In the first place, my coadjutors were
not invariably old; there were men among them in their strength and prime, of
marked ability and energy, and altogether superior to the sluggish and dependent
mode of life on which their evil stars had cast them. Then, moreover, the white
locks of age were sometimes found to be the thatch of an intellectual tenement
in good repair. But, as respects the majority of my corps of veterans, there
will be no wrong done, if I characterize them generally as a set of wearisome
old souls, who had gathered nothing worth preservation from their varied
experience of life. They seemed to have flung away all the golden grain of
practical wisdom, which they had enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting,
and most carefully to have stored their memories with the husks. They spoke with
far more interest and unction of their morning's breakfast, or yesterday's,
to-day's, or to-morrow's dinner, than of the shipwreck
