y were very
remarkable. The works of Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds are much favored, it
appears, by the class who believe in Mr. George F. Train's veracity and
eloquence; from these turbid fountains mine honest friend's conceptions
were drawn. I took some trouble to undeceive him, and partially
succeeded, chiefly by insisting upon the fact that--of all living
writers--the ingenious author of the "Mysteries of Everything" was
probably the man least qualified, by personal experience, to discourse
concerning the manners and customs of the upper, or even the educated,
classes. Slowly and reluctantly, the Baltimorean abandoned his cherished
ideal of the British aristocrat--a covert Caligula, with all modern
improvements--varying the monotony of orgies with interludes of murder
and rapine; the instrument of these pleasant vices being always ready in
the shape of a Frankenstein-monster, whose mission it is to tyrannize
perpetually over the guilty lordling or lady whose secret he holds;
doing a steady trade of two assassinations or abductions weekly; and
utterly inviolable by cord, shot, or steel, up to the final blue-fire
_tableau_ of the dreary drama. I believe that my mate is now prepared to
admit, that a certain amount of piety and chastity is not incompatible
with tenure of the highest dignities in the Anglican Church--that a
youth need not necessarily be a savage Sybarite, because he happens to
be heir to a dukedom--that matronly virtue may, with a struggle, be
retained even by a Countess--and that a man may possibly be a kindly
landlord, and even an honest farmer himself (that was the crowning
triumph), though born a belted Earl.

On the fourth day, I bethought myself of teaching my companion piquet
(no purely transatlantic game is in the least interesting, if the stakes
are nominal); he acquired it with the ready aptitude that seems natural
to Americans, and I soon had to drop the odds of the deal. We played
many hundred _parties_ for imaginary eagles; eventually I got a run, and
left off a good winner, which, as my opponent had not money enough to
buy tobacco, was highly satisfactory to every one concerned.

After a week's confinement to my room, I was allowed to take half an
hour's exercise daily in a narrow strip of yard just twenty-one paces
long; it was hedged in with kitchens and all sorts of disagreeable
buildings, but the additional space was not to be despised. On the first
evening after this concession, I was pacing