eading-rooms of the hotels had from one to two dozen stretcher beds in
each of them. 'Twas getting on for midnight; Hope's taper was flickering
faintly, when a police-officer came to the rescue, and recommended us to
try a small boarding-house at which he was himself lodging. There, as an
especial favour, we got two beds put into a room where another lodger
was already snoring; but fatigue and sleep soon obliterated that fact
from our remembrance. Next morning, while lying in a half doze, I heard
something like the upsetting of a jug near my bedside, and then, a sound
like mopping up; suspicious of my company, I opened my eyes, and lo!
there was the owner of the third bed, deliberately mopping up the
contents of the jug he had upset over the carpet, with--what do you
think? His handkerchief? oh, no--his coat-tails? oh, no--a spare towel?
oh, no; the savage, with the most placid indifference, was mopping it up
with my sponge! He expressed so much astonishment when I remonstrated,
that I supposed the poor man must have been in the habit of using his
own sponge for such purposes, and my ire subsided gradually as he wrung
out the sponge by an endless succession of vigorous squeezes,
accompanying each with a word of apology. So much for my first night at
Washington.

We will pass over breakfast, and away to the Capitol. There it stands,
on a rising knoll, commanding an extensive panoramic view of the town
and surrounding country. The building is on a grand scale, and faced
with marble, which, glittering in the sunbeams, gives it a very imposing
appearance; but the increasing wants of this increasing Republic have
caused two wings to be added, which are now in the course of
construction. Entrance to the Senate and House of Representatives was
afforded to us with that readiness and courtesy which strangers
invariably experience. But, alas! the mighty spirits who had, by their
power of eloquence, so often charmed and spell-bound the tenants of the
senate chamber--where were they? The grave had but recently closed over
the last of those giant spirits; Webster was no more! Like all similar
bodies, they put off and put off, till, in the last few days of the
session, a quantity of business is hustled through, and thus no scope is
left for eloquent speeches; all is matter of fact, and a very
business-looking body they appeared, each senator with his desk and
papers before him; and when anything was to be said, it was expressed in
pl