h a--

"How are ye, Cap'm? Gaw damn ye! Haw, haw, aw!"--and reeled onward,
brimful of spirituous good-nature.

Four days more had I in Charleston, waiting from tide to tide for a
chance to sail to New York, and listening from hour to hour for the guns
of Fort Sumter. Sunday was a day of excitement, a report spreading that
the Floridians had attacked Fort Pickens, and the Charlestonians feeling
consequently bound in honor to fight their own dragon. Groups of earnest
men talked all day and late into the evening under the portico and in
the basement-rooms of the hotel, besides gathering at the corners and
strolling about the Battery. "We must act." "We cannot delay." "We ought
not to submit." Such were the phrases that fell upon the ear oftenest
and loudest.

As I lounged, after tea, in the vestibule of the reading-room, an
eccentric citizen of Arkansas varied the entertainment. A short, thin
man, of the cracker type, swarthy, long-bearded, and untidy, he was
dressed in well-worn civilian costume, with the exception of an old
blue coat showing dim remnants of military garniture. Heeling up to a
gentleman who sat near me, he glared stupidly at him from beneath a
broad-brimmed hat, demanding a seat mutely, but with such eloquence of
oscillation that no words were necessary. The respectable person thus
addressed, not anxious to receive the stranger into his lap, rose and
walked away, with that air of not, having seen anything so common to
disconcerted people who wish to conceal their disturbance. Into the
vacant place dropped the stranger, stretching out his feet, throwing
his head back against the wall, and half closing his eyes with the
drunkard's own leer of self-sufficiency. During a few moments of
agonizing suspense the world waited. Then from those whiskey-scorched
and tobacco-stained lips came a long, shrill "Yee-p!"

It was his exordium; it demanded the attention of the company; and
though he had it not, he continued:--

"I'm an Arkansas man, _I_ am. I'm a big su-gar planter, _I_ am. All
right! Go a'ead! I own fifty niggers, _I_ do. Yee-p!"

He lifted both feet and slammed them on the floor energetically, pausing
for a reply. He had addressed all men; no one responded, and he went
on:--

"I'm for straightout, immedit shession, _I_ am. I go for 'staining
coursh of Sou' Car'lina, _I_ do. I'm ready to fight for Sou' Car'lina.
I'm a Na-po-le-on Bonaparte. All right! Go a'ead! Yee-p! Fellahs don't
know me here. I'