ched all the way from Philadelphia. Mr. Crede was the
embodiment of the enterprising spirit of the place, and often of an
evening he called me in to see the new fashionable things his barges had
brought down the Ohio. The next day certain young sparks would drop into
my room to waylay the belles as they came to pick a costume to be worn
at Mr. Nickle's dancing school, or at the ball at Fort Finney.

The winter slipped away, and one cool evening in May there came a negro
to my room with a note from Colonel Clark, bidding me sup with him at
the tavern and meet a celebrity.

I put on my best blue clothes that I had brought with me from Richmond,
and repaired expectantly to the tavern about eight of the clock, pushed
through the curious crowd outside, and entered the big room where
the company was fast assembling. Against the red blaze in the great
chimney-place I spied the figure of Colonel Clark, more portly than
of yore, and beside him stood a gentleman who could be no other than
General Wilkinson.

He was a man to fill the eye, handsome of face, symmetrical of figure,
easy of manner, and he wore a suit of bottle-green that became him
admirably. In short, so fascinated and absorbed was I in watching him as
he greeted this man and the other that I started as though something had
pricked me when I heard my name called by Colonel Clark.

"Come here, Davy," he cried across the room, and I came and stood
abashed before the hero. "General, allow me to present to you the
drummer boy of Kaskaskia and Vincennes, Mr. David Ritchie."

"I hear that you drummed them to victory through a very hell of torture,
Mr. Ritchie," said the General. "It is an honor to grasp the hand of one
who did such service at such a tender age."

General Wilkinson availed himself of that honor, and encompassed me with
a smile so benignant, so winning in its candor, that I could only mutter
my acknowledgment, and Colonel Clark must needs apologize, laughing, for
my youth and timidity.

"Mr. Ritchie is not good at speeches, General," said he, "but I make
no doubt he will drink a bumper to your health before we sit down.
Gentlemen," he cried, filling his glass from a bottle on the table, "a
toast to General Wilkinson, emancipator and saviour of Kentucky!"

The company responded with a shout, tossed off the toast, and sat
down at the long table. Chance placed me between a young dandy from
Lexington--one of several the General had brought in his train--