deed after his Dugald Dalgetty heart, and we carried it off and
seated the ladies.

In the autumn there was a vast Sanitary Fair for the benefit of the army
hospitals held in Philadelphia. I edited for it a daily newspaper called
_Our Daily Fare_, which often kept me at work for eighteen hours per
diem, and in doing which I was subjected to much needless annoyance and
mortification. At this Fair I saw Abraham Lincoln.

It was about this time that the remarkable oil fever, or mania for
speculating in oil-lands, broke out in the United States. Many persons
had grown rich during the war, and were ready to speculate. Its extent
among all classes was incredible. Perhaps the only parallel to it in
history was the Mississippi Bubble or the South Sea speculations, and
these did not collectively employ so much capital or call out so much
money as this petroleum mania. It had many strange social developments,
which I was destined to see in minute detail.

My first experience was not very pleasant. A publisher in New York asked
me to write him a humorous poem on the oil mania. It was to be large
enough to make a small volume. I did so, and in my opinion wrote a good
one. It cost me much time and trouble. When it was done, the publisher
_refused to take it_, saying that it was not what he wanted. So I lost
my labour or _oleum perdidi_.

I had two young friends named Colton, who had been in the war from the
beginning to the end, and experienced its changes to the utmost. Neither
was over twenty-one. William Colton, the elder, was a captain in the
regular cavalry, and the younger, Baldwin, was his orderly. It was a man
in the Captain's company, named Yost, who furnished the type of Hans
Breitmann as a soldier. The brothers told me that one day in a march in
Tennessee, not far from Murfreesboro', they had found petroleum in the
road, and thought it indicated the presence of oil-springs. I mentioned
this to Mr. Joseph Lea, a merchant of Philadelphia. He was the father of
Mrs. Anna Lea Merritt, who has since become a very distinguished artist,
well known in England, being the first lady painter from whom the British
Government ever bought a picture. Mr. Lea thought it might be worth some
expense to investigate this Tennessee oil. I volunteered to go, if my
expenses were paid, and it was agreed to. It is difficult at the present
day to give any reader a clear idea of the dangers and trouble which this
undertaking