"J.B. BOOTH."

It will be observed that after the word "friend" an [s] follows in
brackets. In the original the word was followed by a small mark which
might or might not give it the plural form. It could be read either
"friend" or "friends"; but as we do not usually find ourselves called
upon to bury more than one friend at a time, the hasty reader would
not notice the mark, but would read it "friend." So did I; and only
afterward, in consequence of the _dénouement_, did I notice that it
might be read in the other way.

Taking my hat, I stepped into the street. Gas in those days was not;
an occasional lantern, swung on a wire across the intersection of the
streets, reminded us that the city was once French, and suggested the
French Revolution and the cry, "_À la lanterne!_" First I went to my
neighbor, the mayor of the city, in pursuit of the desired information.
A jolly mayor was he,--a Yankee melted down into a Western man,
thoroughly Westernized by a rough-and-tumble life in Kentucky during
many years. Being obliged to hold a mayor's court every day, and knowing
very little of law, his chief study was, as he expressed it, "how to
choke off the Kentucky lawyers." Mr. Mayor not being at home, I turned
next to the office of another naturalized Yankee,--a Yankee naturalized,
but never Westernized. He was one of those who do not change their mind
with their sky, who, exiled from the dear hills of New England, can
never get away from the inborn, inherent Yankee. He was a Plymouth man,
and religiously preserved every opinion, habit, and accent which he had
brought from Plymouth Rock. When Kentucky was madly Democratic and wept
over the dead Jefferson as over her saint, he had expressed the opinion
that it would have been well for the country, if he had died long