ured through the open doors, mingling with the perspiration of the
porters. On every side of him were busy clerks, with their suspenders
much in evidence, and Eliphalet paused once or twice to listen to
their talk. It was tinged with that dialect he had heard, since leaving
Cincinnati.

Turning a corner, Eliphalet came abruptly upon a prophecy. A great drove
of mules was charging down the gorge of the street, and straight at him.
He dived into an entrance, and stood looking at the animals in startled
wonder as they thundered by, flinging the mud over the pavements. A
cursing lot of drovers on ragged horses made the rear guard.

Eliphalet mopped his brow. The mules seemed to have aroused in him some
sense of his atomity, where the sight of the pillar of smoke and of the
black cattle had failed. The feeling of a stranger in a strange land
was upon him at last. A strange land, indeed! Could it be one with his
native New England? Did Congress assemble from the Antipodes? Wasn't the
great, ugly river and dirty city at the end of the earth, to be written
about in Boston journals?

Turning in the doorway, he saw to his astonishment a great store, with
high ceilings supported by columns. The door was stacked high with
bales of dry goods. Beside him was a sign in gold lettering, "Carvel and
Company, Wholesale Dry Goods." And lastly, looking down upon him with
a quizzical expression, was a gentleman. There was no mistaking the
gentleman. He was cool, which Eliphalet was not. And the fact is the
more remarkable because the gentleman was attired according to the
fashion of the day for men of his age, in a black coat with a teal of
ruffled shirt showing, and a heavy black stock around his collar. He had
a white mustache, and a goatee, and white hair under his black felt hat.
His face was long, his nose straight, and the sweetness of its smile had
a strange effect upon Eliphalet, who stood on one foot.

"Well, sonny, scared of mules, are you?" The speech is a stately drawl
very different from the nasal twang of Eliphalet's bringing up. "Reckon
you don't come from anywhere round here?"

"No, sir," said Eliphalet. "From Willesden, Massachusetts."

"Come in on the 'Louisiana'?"

"Yes, sir." But why this politeness?

The elderly gentleman lighted a cigar. The noise of the rushing mules
had now become a distant roar, like a whirlwind which has swept by. But
Eliphalet did not stir.

"Friends in town?" inquired the gentleman at le