; "perhaps it wasn't a servant."

"Well," I said, having looked at it in that light silently for half an
hour, and coming to the surface in another place, "if I could dress and
carry myself like that, I would not keep tavern."

"Oh! eh?" yawning; "who does?"

"Mrs. Astor. Of course nobody less rich than Mrs. Astor could go
up-stairs and down-stairs and in my lady's chamber in Shiraz silk and
gold of Ophir. Why, Cleopatra was nothing to her. I make no doubt she
uses gold-dust for sugar in her coffee every morning; and as for the
three miserable little wherries that Isabella furnished Columbus, and
historians have towed through their tomes ever since, if you know of
anybody that has a continent he wishes to discover, send him to this
housekeeper, and she can fit out a fleet of transports and Monitors for
convoy with one of her bracelets."

"I don't," said Halicarnassus, rubbing his eyes.

"I only wish," I added, "that she would turn Rebel so that government
might confiscate her. Paper currency would go up at once from the
sudden influx of gold, and the credit of the country receive a new
lease of life. She must be a lineal descendant of Sir Roger de
Coverley, for sure her finger sparkles with a hundred of his richest
acres."

Before bidding a final farewell to New York, I venture to make a single
remark. I regret to be forced to confess that I greatly fear even this
virtuous little city has not escaped quite free, the general
deterioration of morals and manners. The New York hackmen, for
instance, are very obliging and attentive; but if it would not seem
ungrateful, I would hazard the statement that their attentions are
unremitting to the degree being almost embarrassing, and proffered to
the verge of obtrusiveness. I think, in short, that they are hardly
quite delicate in their politeness. They press their hospitality on
you till you sigh for a little marked neglect. They are not content
with simple statement. They offer you their hack, for instance. You
decline with thanks. They say that they will carry you to any part of
the city. Where is the pertinence of that, if you do not wish to go?
But they not only say it, they repeat it, they dwell upon it as if it
were a cardinal virtue. Now you have never expressed or entertained
the remotest suspicion that they would not carry you to any part of the
city. You have not the slightest intention or desire to discredit
their assertion. The only trouble is, a