t in the mode most agreeable to myself."

"Very well, General," said the carter. "I differ with you in politics,
but I'll stick by you as long as there is a drop of blood in my body."

Hamilton turned to him with that illumination of feature which was not
the least of his gifts, then to the mob with the same smile, and lifted
his hat above a profound bow. "I never turned my back upon my enemy," he
said, "I certainly shall not flee from those who have always been my
friends."

The crowd burst into an electrified roar. "Three cheers for General
Hamilton!" cried the carter, promptly, and they responded as one man.
Then they lifted him from his horse and bore him on their shoulders to
the poll. He deposited his ballot, and after addressing them to the
sound of incessant cheering, was permitted to ride away. The incident
both amused and disgusted him, but he needed no further illustrations of
the instability of the common mind.

The Republicans won. On the night of the 2d it was known that the
Federalists had lost the city by a Republican majority of four hundred
and ninety votes.

A few weeks before, when uncertainties were thickest, Hamilton had
written to William Smith, who was departing for Constantinople: "... You
see I am in a humour to laugh. What can we do better in _this best of
all possible worlds?_ Should you ever be shut up in the seven towers, or
get the plague, if you are a true philosopher you will consider this
only as a laughing matter."

He laughed--though not with the gaiety of his youth--as he walked home
to-night through the drunken yelling crowds of William Street, more than
one fist thrust in his face. His son Philip was with him, and his
cousin, Robert Hamilton of Grange, who had come over two years before to
enlist under the command of the American relative of whom his family
were vastly proud. A berth had been found for him in the navy, as better
suited to his talents, and he spent his leisure at 26 Broadway. Both the
younger men looked crestfallen and anxious. Philip, who resembled his
father so closely that Morris called him "his heir indubitate," looked,
at the moment, the older of the two. Ill health had routed the robust
appearance of Hamilton's early maturity, and his slender form, which had
lost none of its activity or command, his thin face, mobile, piercing,
fiery, as ever, made him appear many years younger than his age.

"Why do you laugh, sir?" asked Philip, as they turned into Wa