rt dilated upon his adventures at New
Orleans and elsewhere, under Abou Ben Butler. He says Butler is a great
man, but a d--d scoundrel. I have heard Hobart say something like this
at least a thousand times, and am pleased to know that his testimony on
this point is always clear, decisive, and uncontradictory.

My visitors are gone. The cars are bunting against each other at the
depot. The katydids are piping away on the old, old story. The trees
look like great shadows, and unlike the substantial oaks they really
are. The camps are dark and quiet. This is all I can say of the night
without.

In a little booth made of cedar boughs is a table, on which sputters a
solitary tallow candle, in a stick not remarkable for polish. This light
illuminates the booth, and reveals to the observer--if there be one,
which is very unlikely, for those who usually observe have in all
probability retired--a wash basin, a newspaper, a penknife, which
originally had two blades, but at present has but one, and that one very
dull, a gentleman of say thirty, possibly thirty-five, two steel pens,
rusty with age, an inkstand, and one miller, which miller has repeatedly
dashed his head against the wick of the candle and discovered that the
operation led to unsatisfactory results. Wearied, disappointed, and
disheartened, the miller now sits quietly on the table, mourning,
doubtless, over the unpleasant lesson which experience has taught him.
His head is now wiser; but, alas! his wings are shorter than they were,
and of what use is his head without wings? He feels very like the man
who made a dash for fame, and fell wounded and bleeding on the field, or
the child who, for the first time, discovers that all is not gold that
glitters. The gentleman referred to--and I trust it may be no stretch of
the verities to call him a gentleman--leans over the table writing. He
has an abundant crop of dark hair on his head, under his chin, and on
his upper lip. He is not just now troubled with a superabundance of
flesh, or, in other words, no one would suspect him of being fat. On the
contrary, he might remind one of the lean kine, or the prodigal son who
had been feeding on husks. He is wide awake at this late hour of the
night, from which I conclude he has slept more or less during the day.
No one, to look at this gentleman, would take him to be a remarkable
man; in fact, his most intimate friends could not find it in their
hearts to bring such an accusation