es, fine coaches, and one of them drivers you read of. Well, there
was nine 'insiders,' and I don't believe there ever was a stage full of
Christians ever started before, so chuck full of music.

"There was a beautiful young lady going to one of the Cincinnati
academies; next to her sat a Jew peddler,--Cowes and a market; wedging
him was a dandy black-leg, with jewelry and chains around about his
breast and neck enough to hang him. There was myself, and an old
gentleman with large spectacles, gold-headed cane, and a jolly,
soldering-iron-looking nose; by him was a circus-rider, whose breath was
enough to breed yaller fever and could be felt just as easy as cotton
velvet! A cross old woman came next, whose look would have given any
reasonable man the double-breasted blues before breakfast; alongside of
her was a rale backwoods preacher, with the biggest and ugliest mouth
ever got up since the flood. He was flanked by the low comedian of the
party, an Indiana Hoosier, 'gwine down to Orleans to get an army
contrac' to supply the forces, then in Mexico, with beef.

"We rolled along for some time. Nobody seemed inclined to 'open.' The
old aunty sat bolt upright, looking crab-apples and persimmons at the
hoosier and the preacher; the young lady dropped the green curtain of
her bonnet over her pretty face, and leaned back in her seat to nod and
dream over japonicas and jumbles, pantalets and poetry; the old
gentleman, proprietor of the Bardolph nose, looked out at the corduroy
and swashes; the gambler fell off into a doze, and the circus convoy
followed suit, leaving the preacher and me _vis-a-vis_ and saying
nothing to nobody. 'Indiany,' he stuck his mug out of the window and
criticized the cattle we now and then passed. I was wishing somebody
would give the conversation a start, when 'Indiany' made a break.

"'This ain't no great stock country,' says he to the old gentleman with
the cane.

"'No, sir,' says the old gentleman. 'There's very little grazing here,
and the range is pretty much wore out.'

"Then there was nothing said again for some time. Bimeby the hoosier
opened ag'in:

"'It's the d----dest place for 'simmon-trees and turkey-buzzards I ever
did see!'

"The old gentleman with the cane didn't say nothing, and the preacher
gave a long groan. The young lady smiled through her veil, and the old
lady snapped her eyes and looked sideways at the speaker.

"'Don't make much beef here, I reckon,' says the hoosier.