ican friends, as I condoled with them on their
champion being beaten by a British subject; for, strange to say, Tac is
a Canadian horse. I therefore of course expressed the charitable wish
that an American horse might be found some day equal to the task of
wearing the champion trotting crown(!)--I beg pardon, not crown, but,
I suppose, cap of liberty. I need scarce say that it is not so much the
horse as the perfect teaming that produces the result; and all Tac's
training is exclusively American, and received in a place not very far
from Philadelphia, from which he gets his name. A friend gave me a lift
into Philadelphia, whence the iron horse speedily bore me to the great
republican Babylon, New York.

CHAPTER XVI.

_Home of the Pilgrim Fathers_.

Having made the necessary preparations, I again put myself behind the
boiling kettle, _en route_ to the republican Athens. The day was
intensely hot; even the natives required the windows open, and the dust
being very lively, we soon became as powdered as a party going down to
the Derby in the ante-railway days. My curiosity was excited on the way,
by seeing a body of men looking like a regiment of fox-hunters--all well
got up, fine stout fellows--who entered, and filled two of the
carriages. On inquiring who kept the hounds, and if they had good runs,
a sly smile stole across my friend's cheek as he told me they were
merely the firemen of the city going to fraternize with the ditto ditto
of Boston. It stupidly never occurred to me to ask him whether any
provision was made in case of a quiet little fire developing itself
during their absence, for their number was legion, and as active,
daring, orderly-looking fellows as ever I set eyes upon. Jolly apopletic
aldermen of our capital may forsake the green fat of their soup-making
deity, to be feasted by their Parisian fraternity, without inconvenience
to anybody, except it be to their fellow-passengers in the steamer upon
their return, if they have been over-fed and have not tempest-tried
organs of digestion. But a useful body like firemen migrating should, I
confess, have suggested to me the propriety of asking what substitutes
were left to perform, if need be, their useful duties; not having done
so, I am constrained to leave this important point in its present
painful obscurity.

A thundering whistle and a cloud of steam announce the top is off the
kettle, and that we have reached Boston. Wishing to take my own lu