ttended. Nor could I greatly blame
him, for you must know, my dears, that at that time London was filled
with adventurers of all types.

I felt a deal like an impostor, in truth, as I stepped into the street,
disdaining to inquire of any of the people of the Star and Garter where
an American agent might be found. The day was gray and cheerless, the
colour of my own spirits as I walked toward the east, knowing that the
city lay that way. But I soon found plenty to distract me.

To a lad such as I, bred in a quiet tho' prosperous colonial town, a walk
through London was a revelation. Here in the Pall Mall the day was not
yet begun, tho' for some scarce ended. I had not gone fifty paces from
the hotel before I came upon a stout gentleman with twelve hours of
claret inside him, brought out of a coffee-house and put with vast
difficulty into his chair; and I stopped to watch the men stagger off
with their load to St. James's Street. Next I met a squad of redcoated
guards going to the palace, and after them a grand coach and six rattled
over the Scotch granite, swaying to a degree that threatened to shake off
the footmen clinging behind. Within, a man with an eagle nose sat
impassive, and I set him down for one of the king's ministers.

Presently I came out into a wide space, which I knew to be Charing Cross
by the statue of Charles the First which stood in the centre of it, and
the throat of a street which was just in front of me must be the Strand.
Here all was life and bustle. On one hand was Golden's Hotel, and a
crowded mail-coach was dashing out from the arch beneath it, the horn
blowing merrily; on the other hand, so I was told by a friendly man in
brown, was Northumberland House, the gloomy grandeur whereof held my eyes
for a time. And I made bold to ask in what district were those who had
dealings with the colonies. He scanned me with a puzzling look of
commiseration.

"Ye're not a-going to sell yereself for seven year, my lad?" said he.
"I was near that myself when I was young, and I thank God' to this day
that I talked first to an honest man, even as you are doing. They'll
give ye a pretty tale,--the factors,--of a land of milk and honey, when
it's naught but stripes and curses yell get."

And he was about to rebuke me hotly, when I told him I had come from
Maryland, where I was born.

"Why, ye speak like a gentleman!" he exclaimed. "I was informed that
all talk like naygurs over there. And is it not so of yo