ses and crowds of comfortable burghers, I thought it would
be a graceful act for the corporation to refund that sixpence, or, at
the least, to entertain me to a cheerful dinner. But there was no word
of restitution. I was that city's benefactor, yet I was received in a
third-class waiting-room, and the best dinner I could get was a dish of
ham and eggs at my own expense.

I can safely say, I have never been so dog-tired as that night in
Chicago. When it was time to start, I descended the platform like a man
in a dream. It was a long train, lighted from end to end; and car after
car, as I came up with it, was not only filled, but overflowing. My
valise, my knapsack, my rug, with those six ponderous tomes of Bancroft,
weighed me double; I was hot, feverish, painfully athirst; and there was
a great darkness over me, an internal darkness, not to be dispelled by
gas. When at last I found an empty bench, I sank into it like a bundle
of rags, the world seemed to swim away into the distance, and my
consciousness dwindled within me to a mere pin's head, like a taper on a
foggy night.

When I came a little more to myself, I found that there had sat down
before me a very cheerful, rosy little German gentleman, somewhat gone
in drink, who was talking away to me, nineteen to the dozen, as they
say. I did my best to keep up the conversation; for it seemed to me
dimly as if something depended upon that. I heard him relate, among many
other things, that there were pickpockets on the train, who had already
robbed a man of forty dollars and a return ticket; but though I caught
the words, I do not think I properly understood the sense until next
morning; and I believe I replied at the time that I was very glad to
hear it. What else he talked about I have no guess; I remember a
gabbling sound of words, his profuse gesticulation, and his smile, which
was highly explanatory; but no more. And I suppose I must have shown my
confusion very plainly; for, first, I saw him knit his brows at me like
one who has conceived a doubt; next, he tried me in German, supposing
perhaps that I was unfamiliar with the English tongue; and finally, in
despair, he rose and left me. I felt chagrined; but my fatigue was too
crushing for delay, and, stretching myself as far as that was possible
upon the bench, I was received at once into a dreamless stupor.

The little German gentleman was only going a little way into the suburbs
after a _diner fin_, and was bent