th their suspenders much in evidence, and
Eliphalet paused once or twice to listen to their talk. It was tinged
with that dialect he had heard, since leaving Cincinnati.

Turning a corner, Eliphalet came abruptly upon a prophecy. A great drove
of mules was charging down the gorge of the street, and straight at him.
He dived into an entrance, and stood looking at the animals in startled
wonder as they thundered by, flinging the mud over the pavements.
A cursing lot of drovers on ragged horses made the rear guard.

Eliphalet mopped his brow. The mules seemed to have aroused in him some
sense of his atomity, where the sight of the pillar of smoke and of the
black cattle had failed. The feeling of a stranger in a strange land was
upon him at last. A strange land, indeed! Could it be one with his native
New England? Did Congress assemble from the Antipodes? Wasn't the great,
ugly river and dirty city at the end of the earth, to be written about in
Boston journals?

Turning in the doorway, he saw to his astonishment a great store, with
high ceilings supported by columns. The door was stacked high with bales
of dry goods. Beside him was a sign in gold lettering, "Carvel and
Company, Wholesale Dry Goods." And lastly, looking down upon him with a
quizzical expression, was a gentleman. There was no mistaking the
gentleman. He was cool, which Eliphalet was not. And the fact is the more
remarkable because the gentleman was attired according to the fashion of
the day for men of his age, in a black coat with a teal of ruffled shirt
showing, and a heavy black stock around his collar. He had a white
mustache, and a goatee, and white hair under his black felt hat. His face
was long, his nose straight, and the sweetness of its smile had a strange
effect upon Eliphalet, who stood on one foot.

"Well, sonny, scared of mules, are you?" The speech is a stately drawl
very different from the nasal twang of Eliphalet's bringing up. "Reckon
you don't come from anywhere round here?"

"No, sir," said Eliphalet. "From Willesden, Massachusetts."

"Come in on the 'Louisiana'?"

"Yes, sir." But why this politeness?

The elderly gentleman lighted a cigar. The noise of the rushing mules had
now become a distant roar, like a whirlwind which has swept by. But
Eliphalet did not stir.

"Friends in town?" inquired the gentleman at length.

"No, sir," sighed Mr. Hopper.

At this point of the conversation a crisp step sounded from behind and
wonde