He found him at last, then ran very fast,
With his gallant invaders behind him.

The various authors were astonished to find their productions in the
next issue of the _Messenger_ and were later dismayed when the verses
were read at a meeting of the Mosaic Club, each with the name of the
writer attached.

While editor of the _Messenger_, Dr. Bagby wrote occasionally for the
_Richmond Examiner_, thereby becoming associated in a friendly way
with its editor, John M. Daniel, whose brilliant and continuous fight
upon the administration at Richmond kept him vividly before the
public. Though the genial doctor deplored the aggressiveness of the
_Examiner_, he could not resist the temptation to employ his trenchant
pen in treating of public affairs. This led to his possession of the
famous latchkey which "fitted the door of the house on Broad Street,
opposite the African Church," a key of which he wrote that it "has its
charm," and certainly one which he made more enchanting to his readers
than any other such article has ever proved.

These two men, so different in view-point and expression, so similar
in principle and purpose, met in Washington in 1861 at Brown's Hotel,
that famous old hostelry dear to the Southern heart in the years
before the tide of war swept the old Washington away forever and
brought a new South to take the place of the old plantation life.
Congenial as they were in many ways, the possession of the latchkey,
Dr. Bagby tells us, did not argue an intimate personal relation, as
the fancy of the brilliant editor of the _Examiner_ was apparently
changeable, and wavered when he discovered that his assistant neither
played chess nor talked sufficiently to inspire him to conversational