tially_ of course, how it came about.

When I first came to Boston, as a matter of course, I spent much of my
time in surveying "the lions," dipping into this, and peeping into that;
promenading the Common and climbing the stupendous stairway of Bunker
Hill; ransacking the forts, islands, beautiful Auburn, &c., &c.

Finally, I went into the State House, but as this notable building was
undergoing some repairs, placards were tacked up about the doors,
prohibiting persons from strolling about the capitol. The attendant was
very polite, and told me, and several others desirous to see the
building inside, that if we called in the course of a few days, we could
be gratified, but for the present no one but those engaged about the
work, were allowed to enter. I persisted so closely in my desire to
examine the interior, while on the spot, that the man, when the rest of
the visitors had gone, relented, and I was not only allowed to see what
I should see, but he _toted_ me "round."

We sauntered into the Assembly Chamber, surveyed and learned all the
particulars of that, peered into the side-rooms, closets, &c., and then
came to the Senate Chamber. This you know is something finer than the
country meeting house, or circus-looking Assembly Chamber, where the
"fresh-men," or green members from Hard-Scrabble, Hull, Squantum,
etc.,--incipient Demostheneses, and sucking Ciceros, first tap their
gasometers "in the haouse." Here I found the venerable pictures of the
ancient _mugs_, who have figured as Governors, &c., of the commonwealth,
from the days of Puritan Winthrop to the ever-memorable Morton, who,
strange as it may appear, was really elected Governor, though a
double-distilled Democrat. Bucklers, swords, drums and muskets, that
doubtless rattled and banged away upon Bunker Hill, were duly, carefully
and critically examined, and as a finale to my debut in the Senate, I
mounted the Speaker's stand, and spouted about three feet of Webster's
first oration at Bunker Hill. To be sure, my audience was _small_, but
_it_ was duly attentive, and as I waved my hands aloft, and thumped my
ribs, after the most approved system of patriotic vehemence of the day,
he--my audience--opened his mouth, and stretched his eyes to the size of
dinner plates, at my prodigious slaps at eloquence; the very ears of the
_canvased_ governors seemed pricked up, and I descended the stand big as
Mogul, insinuated "a quarter" into the palm of the polite attendan