Salmagundi; or, The whim-whams and opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, esq. [pseud.] and others. By William Irving, James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving. Printed from the original ed., with a preface and notes by Evert A. Duyckinck.

I MIGHT HAVE HAD HER. 227
much longer he might have spun the thread of his doubts had he
not been roused from this state of indecision, by the news that
his mistress had married an attorney's apprentice, whom she had
seen the Sunday before at church; where he had excited the
applauses of the whole congregation by the invincible gravity
with which he listened to a Dutch sermon. The young people
in the neighborhood laughed a good deal at my uncle on the
occasion, but he only shrugged his shoulders, looked mysterious,
and replied, " Tut boys! I might have had her."
NOTE BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.
Our publisher, who is busily engaged in printing a celebrated work,
which is perhaps more generally read in this city than any other book,
not excepting the Bible-I mean the New York Directory-has begged
so hard that we will not overwhelm him with too much of a good thing,
that we have, with Langstaff's approbation, cut short the residue of uncle
John's amours. In all probability it will be given in a future number,
whenever Launcelot is in the humor for it-he is such an odd —but
mum, for fear of another suspension.