side--join the throng (they are all officials in embryo)--be sure and
look as serious as they do; and with them you will arrive at the
'White House' to take your place and chance.' Oh! chance! 'There is no
missing the way, Mr. Smooth; get behind some well-dressed citizen--one
who looks as if he were in pursuit of something the means of securing
which he had made sure. Follow that man!' I thanked him for his
civility,--he seemed one of Uncle Sam's bone-breakers, and sallied out
under the happy contemplation that a gentleman from Cape Cod was on a
par with the same species of mankind from South Carolina. It was true
that with what little aristocracy we boasted--and in that little there
was truly a great blessing, inasmuch as it illustrated the fact of
there being one spot on this earth where common sense had got the
better of refined sense--was founded in the possession of 'niggers,'
the number giving rank in the scale. In the small but very
aristocratic atmosphere of democratic South Carolina it had been
proposed to establish an order of the American garter, the means
entitling to membership being the possession of a very large number of
fat negroes and negresses: and to ingratiate the august order it was
proposed to make Colonel Wade Hampton first knight, and Lady Tyler
first knightess. The reader, Mr. Smooth feels assured, will pardon
this little digression, which he will set down to my love for that
darling little State.

"I soon muddled my way along with the crowd, among which there were
very long faces, very short faces, and faces from which nothing could
be extracted--the comic faces always kept behind! As a matter of
policy I got behind the man who had the longest and most quizzical
face; for he gave out signs of seeing daylight through political
darkness. I made his acquaintance, and found him of the free-and-easy
school. 'On your way to see the General, stranger?' I inquired, edging