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� not an unbiased witness by the bye, for he has hated
old Patten ever since the row with poor Levison, when Pat-
ten threatened to throw Leslie out of window � a thing he
might, or might not, have accomplished � Leslie, I say,
reports how Patten was detested by merchants &c, when
in the Custom-house.   I can well fancy how odious he�d be
when he took a whim of dislike, or was entreated to hurry
a little.     I wonder, sometimes, how such a man has any
friends.  Yet, I suppose there must be a class who having no
sensitiveness, no feelings to be trampled on, mistake his dog-
ged opinionativeness for rough sense and think him a tough
honest man.       I think, in spite of this case, that he was originally for
an office-holder rather honest (if one may call it so) than
otherwise.     I think that he would have set out with a resolve
to be brutally independent � he warnt agoing to be fooled by
any of them fellows, but to do just what he thought right
&c &c.   But he would slide into conniving � still with a show
of brutal independence which would deceive himself � at his
jackall�s holding out an itching palm.      It�s all summed
up in the sentence �If you�ve a mind to pay some-
body else &c, that�s none of my business!� Thats Patten
all over.       Poor Mrs P. has been much exercised about it,
asked me, over the dinner table, if I�d read it in the Tri-
bune. (Funnily, the Tribune, Patten�s pet paper has the most
severe account of it � most of the folks in the house, too, are
Tribune readers!)       I said I had; when she launched
out into a flood of incoherent explanations, assertions, dec-
larations, and all manner of skimble-skamble stuff �
involving vilification of the man Russell, who brings the