t walk again?" and, so surely as the shadeless hour of
noon arrived, did my Dutch fire-king arrive with it, steering his waggon
through the sweltering mass with a composure--coolness I could not call
it--most enviable.

I would have given anything to have known him and his history; but
though I had opportunities of pointing him out to my friends
occasionally, no one knew him. Son of a thousand burgomasters, may your
shadow never grow less! for I owe to you the beguilement of many a hot
hour: but I fear me my friend must be "larding six feet of lean earth,"
somewhere in the vicinity of Manhattan, since for the last year I have,
on every day that the sun shone intensely with the glass over 90 deg.,
watched in vain for his coming.

In the cool of the afternoon, if there chance to be any cool, it is a
common custom for the young men of all classes to drive or ride some
five or six miles along the north avenue,--an excellent road leading to
the pretty village of Harlaem; and on this line, about sunset, the
amateur of horse-flesh may see done, the fastest pace in the trotting
world; double-horse waggons of the neatest and lightest construction,
gig, sulky, and saddle, all are alike borne along by trotters or pacers
at a speed varying from the pair that are doing their mile in three
minutes, to the sulky or saddle nag flying at the rate of a mile in two
minutes, thirty seconds.

The first time I was whirled along this road at the heels of one of the
crack goers of the city, amidst clouds of dust through which the rushing
of other vehicles might be dimly made out, and startled by the wild
cries used by the rival drivers, at once to encourage their horses and
prove the impossibility of scaring them into breaking up, I thought it
one of the most exciting things I had ever met; and on getting down at
Cato's, involuntarily found myself drawing a long breath.

CATO'S!

And what is Cato's? and who is Cato? Shade of Rome's patriot and sage,
anger not! for Cato is a great man, foremost amongst cullers of mint,
whether for _julep_ or _hail-storm_; second to no man as a compounder of
_cock-tail_, and such a hand at a _gin-sling_!

Cato is a gentleman of colour who presides at a little tavern, named
after its proprietor, lying just off the dust of the road between two
sharp hills, and situated some four miles from New York--a good
breathing distance for a fast burst--and here consequently most men halt
to give their horses