cordial manner, and inquired how my health had been since he had
seen me last. That was more than my professional meekness could endure,
so I reproached him with his rascality and abuse of hospitality towards
me, adding that I expected he would now repay me what he had so
unceremoniously taken from me while I was asleep. General Meyer looked
perfectly aghast, and calling me a liar, a scoundrel, and a villain, he
rushed upon me with his drawn bowie-knife, and would have indubitably
murdered me, had he not been prevented by a tall powerful chap, to whom,
but an hour before, I had lent, or given, five dollars, partly from fear
of him and partly from compassion for his destitution.

"The next day I started for Houston, where I settled, and preached to
old women, children, and negroes, while the white male population were
getting drunk, swearing, and fighting, just before the door of the
church. I had scarcely been there a month when a constable arrested me
on the power of a warrant obtained against me by that rascally Meyer.
Brought up before the magistrate, I was confronted with the blackguard
and five other rascals of his stamp, who positively took their oaths
that they had seen me taking the pocket-book of the general, which he
had left accidentally upon the table in the bar of Tremont's. The
magistrate said, that out of respect for the character of my profession
he would not push the affair to extremities, but that I must immediately
give back the two hundred dollars Meyer said I had stolen from him, and
pay fifty dollars besides for the expenses. In vain I remonstrated my
innocence; no choice was left to me but to pay or go to gaol.

"By that time I knew pretty well the character of the people among whom
I was living; I knew there was no justice to whom I could apply; I
reckoned also that, if once put in gaol, they would not only take the
two hundred and fifty dollars, but also the whole I possessed. So I
submitted, as it was the best I could do; I removed immediately to
another part of Texas, but it would not do. Faith, the Texans are a very
ugly set of gents."

"And Meyer," I interrupted, "what of him?"

"Oh!" replied the parson, "that is another story. Why, he returned to
New Orleans, where, with his three sons, he committed an awful murder
upon the cashier of the legislature; he was getting away with twenty
thousand dollars, but being caught in the act, he was tried, sentenced,
and hanged, with all his hopeful p