a lot of
worn-out dancing slippers, and a quantity of second-hand nightgowns
and side-saddles. What use diplomacy had for these abused relics we
leave the reader to conjecture. Opening a door on the left, my guide
with a bow accompanying a graceful bend of the body, ushered me into a
spacious room, with the announcement:--'A gemman fum de States,
Mr. Prompt!' No Mr. Prompt could I see, such was the state of the
atmosphere. In fact, I was set upon by a perfect fog of tobacco smoke.

"'Well, stranger--glad to see ye this side the big pond!' croaked out
a little sharp voice, peculiarly nasal. I replied I thought it was
rather foggy about these diggins. 'No matter about that,' he rejoined,
'we do clean business in this establishment, notwithstanding the
puffing, we deem it necessary to keep up in diplomatic matters.' The
atmosphere clearing a little, and objects becoming bolder outlined, I
discovered a figure so singularly lean and sharp of visage that you
would have sworn him peculiarly adapted by Providence for cutting his
way into a better world. Upon the walls of the rooms, which were very
dingy, hung suspended, tomahawks, bowie-knives, scalping-knives, bows
and steel-pointed arrows, an innumerable variety of dressed scalps,
much worn Indian uniforms, and various other things--all adapted to
Western warfare. Here and there stood sundry reed chairs and cronic
tables, of Florida pine, while the floor was very liberally set off
with what are vulgarly called spit-boxes, which, unlike the pages of
an antiquated Bible that lay neglected in one corner, had been very
generally used. Smooth would here say that such adjuncts as the
latter, seemed to be, judging from their presence in all our Legations
on the Continent, inseparable from Pierce diplomacy. In the present
case there were, in addition to the above-named fixtures, seventeen
patent rat-traps, with which members of the Legation amused themselves
when not invited to dancing parties. Smooth could not help thinking
there was no need of the latter pieces of furniture, while Mr. Prompt,
the sharp gentleman, was in the establishment. Indeed, Mrs. Grundy
would have said he was sharp enough to be used as an instrument for
splitting the nicest diplomatic points; while the promiscuous relics
of antiquity arranged along the passage she would have sworn
illustrated nothing so nicely as Pierce's confused policy, the saddles
being indicative of how easily he rode over the credulity of