uch like
John Forney, the audacious, reckless politician, but he still respected
his power and success, and it astonished him a little, and many others
quite as much, to find that I was in many respects Forney's right-hand
man, and manager of a bold political paper which had a great influence. A
day or two before he died my father expressed himself kindly to the
effect that I had at last done well, and that he was satisfied with me.
At last, after so many years, he felt that I had _etat_--a calling, a
definite position. In fact, in those days it was often said that Forney
could make himself President, as he indeed might have done but for
certain errors, no greater than have been committed by more successful
men, and a stroke of ill-luck such as few can resist.

The winter passed quietly. I was extremely fond of my life and work.
Summer came, and with it a great desire for a change and wild life and
the West, for I had worked very hard. A very great railway excursion,
which was destined to have a great effect, was being organised, and both
my wife and I were invited to join it. Mr. John Edgar Thompson, the
president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Mr. Hinckley, of the Baltimore
road, President Felton, Professor Leidy, Robert Lamborn, and a number of
other notables, were to go to Duluth, on Lake Superior, and decide on the
terminus of the railroad as a site for a city. Mrs. John E. Thompson had
her own private car, which was seventy feet in length, and fitted up with
every convenience and luxury. To this was added the same directors' car
in which I had travelled to Minnesota. There were to be in all ten or
twelve gentlemen and ten ladies. There was such efficient service that
one young man, a clerk, was detailed especially to look after our
luggage. As we stopped every night at some hotel, he would inquire what
we required to be taken to our rooms, and saw that it was brought back in
the morning. I went off in such a hurry that I forgot my Indian blanket,
nor had I any revolver or gun, all of which, especially the blanket, I
sadly missed ere I returned. I got, before I left, a full white flannel
or fine white cloth suit, which was then a startling novelty, and wore it
to the Falls of the Mississippi. Little did I foresee that ere it gave
out I should also have it on at the Cataracts of the Nile!

So we started and after a few hours' travel, stopped at Altona. There I
was very much amused by an old darkey at th