stops for breath, or to expectorate tobacco juice, and the ceremony is
concluded, and the candidate, respectable for the good clothes which he
wears this night as a rarity, follows his conductor to another door, where
he hopes for admission, the only impression on the candidate being, that
his right arm is weary from being elevated so long, and that he is coming
rapidly into good fellowship with men of high judicial standing, who
propose to give Abolitionists and Lincoln particular "hell under the shirt
tail." Again they knock and are challenged by an inside guardian, who
lectures the newly fledged Son, who having nodded sufficiently, is
conducted to the Ancient Brother in the West, so that the _Son_, reversing
the order of nature, begins rising in the West. The "Ancient Brother" is a
better reader, for here we find _brains_ for the first time, as it is the
leaders, as we have already said, who do all the thinking, unless,
perchance, the simple wretches find themselves in Camp Douglas, where they
begin thinking for themselves. While the Ancient Brother is reading to the
attentive comer, now happy in the thought that he has taken himself in out
of the _draft_, let us survey the sanctum sanctorum; but first let us
advance to the centre of the hall, where we find a piece of dirty oil
cloth the size of a door mat, and stepping upon this, with body erect and
turning our back upon the Ancient Brother, we find ourselves facing the
Grand Seignior, who, on our first introduction, is Judge Morris; we
salute, which we do by applying the palm of our right hand to the lips,
then turning the hand to his seigniorship and bringing our left hand
across the breast, which salutation being returned by the Grand Seignior,
who sits upon a raised platform and wields a gavel, we take seats wherever
our sense of cleanliness will permit, and where we hope there may be no
traveling minute messengers conveying ideas from one man's head to
another. On the north side of the room is another platform and desk, where
a guardian sits and addresses the candidate, who is supposed to lose his
way and to be set right by this guardian, and even if the candidate is