onished even myself.

In search of some house of entertainment, some public resort, I paced
all the streets of the Upper Town, but to no purpose. Occasionally,
lights in a drawing-room, and the sound of a piano, would tell where
some small evening party was assembled; or now and then, from a
lower story, a joyous roar of laughter, or the merry chorus of a
drinking-song, would bespeak some after-dinner convivialities; but
to mingle in scenes like these, I felt that I had yet a long road to
travel,--ay, to pass muster in the very humblest of those circles, what
a deal had I to learn! How much humility, how much confidence; what
deference, and what self-reliance; what mingled gravity and levity; what
shades and gradations of color, so nicely balanced and proportioned,
too, that, unresolved by the prism, they show no preponderating
tint,--make up that pellucid property men call "tact!" Ay, Con, that is
your rarest gift of all,--only acquire that, and you may dispense with
ancestry, and kindred, and even wealth itself; since he who has "tact"
participates in all these advantages, "_among his friends_."

As I mused thus, I had reached the "Lower Town," and found myself
opposite the door of a tavern, over which a brilliant lamp illuminated
the sign of "The British Grenadier,"--a species of canteen in high favor
with sergeants and quartermasters of the garrison. I entered boldly,
and with the intention of behaving generously to myself; but scarcely
had I passed the threshold than I heard a sharp voice utter in a
half-whisper, "Dang me if he an't in livery!"

I did not wait for more. My "tact" assured me that even there I was not
admissible; so I strolled out again, muttering to myself, "When a
man has neither friend nor supper, and the hour is past midnight, the
chances are it is 'time to go to bed;'" and with this sage reflection,
I wended my way towards a humble lodging-house on the quay, over which,
on landing, I read the words, "The Emigrant's Home."

CHAPTER XIV. HOW I 'FELL IN' AND 'OUT' WITH THE WIDOW DAVIS

For the sake of conciseness in this veracious history, I prefer making
the reader acquainted at once with facts and individuals, not by the
slow process in which the knowledge of them was acquired by myself,
but in all the plenitude which intimate acquaintance now supplies; and
although this may not seem to accord with the bit-by-bit and day-by-day
narrative of a life, it saves a world of time, some patience,