ed in a brawl in a
brothel. I have seen Representatives fighting in a bar-room like so many
rowdies, and I have heard them use language that would disgrace a beggar
in his drink. I need not allude to the many outrageous scenes which have
been enacted in the councils of the nation; for the newspapers have
already given them sufficient publicity.

Leaving Washington, I journeyed South, and, after many adventures which
the limits of this work will not permit me to describe, I arrived in the
City of New Orleans. I had no difficulty in procuring a lucrative
situation as reporter on a popular daily newspaper; and enjoyed free
access to all the theatres and other places of amusement.--I remained in
New Orleans just one year; but, not liking the climate,--and finding,
moreover, that I was living too "_fast_," and accumulating no money,--I
resolved to "pull up stakes" and start in a Northerly direction.
Accordingly, I returned to Philadelphia.

It would have been much better for me had I remained in New Orleans, for
the hardest kind of times prevailed in the "Quaker City," on my arrival
there. It was almost impossible to obtain employment of any description;
and many actors, authors and artists, as well as mechanics, were most
confoundedly "hard up." I soon exhausted the contents of my purse; and,
like the Prodigal Son, "began to be in want."

One fine day, in a very disconsolate mood, I was wandering through an
obscure street, when I encountered a former lady acquaintance, whom, I
trust, the reader has not forgotten.

But the particulars of that unexpected encounter, and the details of
what subsequently transpired, are worthy of a separate chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[E] It is singular, but it is true, that a few nights prior to the
tragical occurrences which I am about to relate, I saw, in a dream, a
perfect and exact fore-shadow of the whole melancholy affair! Who can
explain this mystery?

CHAPTER V

_I encountered a lady acquaintance, and, like a knight errant of old,
became the champion of beauty._

A musical voice pronounced my name; and looking up, I saw a very
handsome woman seated at the window of a rather humble wooden tenement,
the first floor of which was occupied as a cheap grocery. I immediately
recognised my old acquaintance, Mrs. Raymond, the pretty widow of the
fashionable boarding-house in William street, New York--she who had
carried on an intrigue with Mr. Romaine. I have, in a former chapter,