The truth is, I am going to introduce to you an old gentleman, who had a large head, tolerably well filled with crotchets; and as it is such a common thing for people to raise a hue and cry against every body who has any oddities about him, I thought I would put you on your guard a little, by a word of apology for that entire race of people, who are odd because they cannot be any thing else.
This old gentleman, who, by the way, was a great friend of the little folks, is _Mike Marble_. I introduce him to you as an _old_ gentleman. But, although he was old, when I first saw him, I must not forget that he was young once--as young as any of my readers--and that he played his part as a boy, as well as his part as a man. There are a good many anecdotes afloat about him and his odd way of doing things, before he grew up to manhood. My grandfather knew him when he was a lad at school. I believe he and Mike were nearly of the same age.
That grandfather of mine, now I think of it, was a great story-teller. I have sometimes nearly half made up my mind, while casting about me, to find some new mine of stories for my young readers, that I would put my thinking cap on, and see if I could not recollect a budget of my grandfather's stories, large enough to fill a book. I am not sure but I will do so one of these days; and, if I do, I shall print the budget, depend upon it.
My grandfather and Mike Marble were as dear to each other as if they had been brothers. They lived not far apart, and went to school together. For some of Mike's crotchets I am indebted to this old friend of his. Others I picked up, here and there, among old people that knew him, and others still I got from a personal acquaintance with him in his old age.
You will excuse me, if I call him _Mike_ sometimes. He was always so called, when he was a boy, I believe. And while you are excusing me for calling him _Mike_--you see I take you to be very kind and obliging--you will please excuse me, also, if I happen to prefix the title of _Uncle_ to that nickname; for he was known, far and near, as _Uncle Mike_ in his later days.
It is true that _Michael_ was his name correctly and honestly spelled out. But it is equally true that Michael was a name to which he seldom had to answer. At school, and among his playmates, it was always _Mike_. I really believe, from what I have heard my grandfather say, that not half the boys and girls in his neighborhood could have been convinced, by any common arguments, that his name was Michael. Indeed, I remember having heard that once, when a schoolmate called the fellow by the long name, just to see how it would seem, he and the other boy both burst right out into a perfect roar of laughter over the sound of it. "For pity's sake," said he, when he got over his laughing fit, "don't call me by that hard name again, as long as I live;" and, as he seemed to be quite in earnest, none of the boys ever addressed him by any other name than _Mike_, after that.