you. Judge
Bee, the fust business befo' yo' committee this mornin' is a assessment
for old Beau, who's 'way down! Rheu-matiz, bettin' on the black,
failure of remittances from Fauqueeah, and other casualties by wind an'
flood, have put ole Beau away down. He's a institution of his country
and must be sustained!"

The laughter was general and cordial among the Southerners, while the
intruder pressed hard upon Mr. Reybold. He was a singular object; tall,
grim, half-comical, with a leer of low familiarity in his eyes, but his
waxed mustache of military proportions, his patch of goatee just above
the chin, his elaborately oiled hair and flaming necktie, set off his
faded face with an odd gear of finery and impressiveness. His skin was
that of an old _roue's,_ patched up and chalked, but the features were
those of a once handsome man of style and carriage.

He wore what appeared to be a cast-off spring overcoat, out of season
and color on this blustering winter day, a rich buff waistcoat of an
embossed pattern, such as few persons would care to assume, save,
perhaps, a gambler, negro buyer, or fine "buck" barber. The assumption
of a large and flashy pin stood in his frilled shirt-bosom. He wore
watch-seals without the accompanying watch, and his pantaloons, though
faded and threadbare, were once of fine material and cut in a style of
extravagant elegance, and they covered his long, shrunken, but
aristocratic limbs, and were strapped beneath his boots to keep them
shapely. The boots themselves had been once of varnished kid or fine
calf, but they were cracked and cut, partly by use, partly for comfort;
for it was plain that their wearer had the gout, by his aristocratic
hobble upon a gold-mounted cane, which was not the least inconsistent
garniture of mendicancy.

"Boys," said Fitzchew Smy, "I s'pose we better come down early. There's
a shillin', Beau. If I had one more such constituent as you, I should
resign or die premachorely!"

"There's a piece o' tobacker," said Jeems Bee languidly, "all I can
afford, Beau, this mornin'. I went to a chicken-fight yesterday and
lost all my change."

"Mine," said Box Izard, "is a regulation pen-knife, contributed by the
United States, with the regret, Beau, that I can't 'commodate you with
a pine coffin for you to git into and git away down lower than you ever
been."

"Yaw's a dollar," said Pontotoc Bibb; "it'll do for me an' Lowndes
Cleburn, who's a poet and genius, and never has