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 _denouement_, 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, "_A 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
before,--for which expression he came near being lynched. He was the
most unpopular and the most indispensable man in the city,--they could
live neither with him nor without him. He founded and organized the
insurance companies, the public schools, the charitable associations,
the great canal, the banking-system,--in short, all Yankee institutions.
The city was indebted to him for much of its prosperity, but disliked
him while it respected him. For he spared no Western prejudice; he
remorselessly criticized everything that was not done as Yankees do it:
and the most provoking thing of all was that he never made a mistake; he
was always right.

Finding no one at home, and so not being able to learn about the price
of lots in the church-yard, I walked on to the hotel, and asked to see
Mr. J.B. Booth. I was shown into a private parlor, where he and another
gentleman were sitting by a table. On the table were candl