ademy held meetings
for some time after this failure, but soon disappeared from view,
and was never again heard of.

In the year 1862, a fine-looking young general from the West became
a boarder in the house where I lived, and sat opposite me at table.
His name was James A. Garfield. I believe he had come to Washington
as a member of the court in the case of General Fitz John Porter.
He left after a short time and had, I supposed, quite forgotten
me. But, after his election to Congress, he one evening visited
the observatory, stepped into my room, and recalled our former
acquaintance.

I soon found him to be a man of classical culture, refined tastes,
and unsurpassed eloquence,--altogether, one of the most attractive of
men. On one occasion he told me one of his experiences in the State
legislature of Ohio, of which he was a member before the civil war.
A bill was before the House enacting certain provisions respecting
a depository. He moved, as an amendment, to strike out the word
"depository" and insert "depositary." Supposing the amendment to
be merely one of spelling, there was a general laugh over the house,
with a cry of "Here comes the schoolmaster!" But he insisted on his
point, and sent for a copy of Webster's Dictionary in order that the
two words might be compared. When the definitions were read, the
importance of right spelling became evident, and the laughing stopped.

It has always seemed to me that a rank injustice was done to Garfield
on the occasion of the Credit Mobilier scandal of 1873, which came
near costing him his position in public life. The evidence was of
so indefinite and flimsy a nature that the credence given to the
conclusion from it can only illustrate how little a subject or a
document is exposed to searching analysis outside the precincts of a
law court. When he was nominated for the presidency this scandal was
naturally raked up and much made of it. I was so strongly impressed
with the injustice as to write for a New York newspaper, anonymously
of course, a careful analysis of the evidence, with a demonstration
of its total weakness. Whether the article was widely circulated,
or whether Garfield ever heard of it, I do not know; but it was
amusing, a few days after it appeared, to see a paragraph in an
opposition paper claiming that its contemporary had gone to the
trouble of hiring a lawyer to defend Garfield.

No man better qualified as a legislator ever occupied a se