that an election for President was to take place in a few days. These
struggles of commonplace individuals for the privilege of residing in
a vulgar town like Washington were without interest to me. So I
answered,--

"Oh, any of them. They are all alike to me."

"You don't mean to say," here another of the party loudly broke in,
"that Breckenridge and Lincoln are the same to you?"

The young man wore long hair and a black dress-coat, though it was
morning. His voice was nasal, and his manner intrusive. I crushed
him with a languid "Yes." He was evidently abashed, and covered his
confusion by lighting a cigar and smoking it with the lighted end in
his mouth. This is a habit of many persons in the South, who hence are
called Fire-Eaters.

Mellasys Plickaman here changed the subject to horses, which I _do_
understand, and my visitors presently departed.

"How happily the days of Thalaba went by!"

as the poet has it. My Saccharissa and myself are both persons of a
romantic and dreamy nature. Often for hours we would sit and gaze
upon each other with only occasional interjections,--"How warm!" "How
sleepy!" "Is it not almost time for lunch?" As Saccharissa was not in
herself a beautiful object, I accustomed myself to see her merely as a
representative of value. Her yellowish complexion helped me in imagining
her, as it were, a golden image which might be cut up and melted down.
I used to fancy her dresses as made of certificates of stock, and