He could be trusted to go and say, 'My lord, the carriage waits,' but if they ventured to add a sentence or two to this, his memory felt the strain and he was likely to miss fire.

Yet, poor devil, he had been patiently studying the part of Hamlet for more than thirty years, and he lived and died in the belief that some day he would be invited to play it! And this is what came of that fleeting visit of those young Englishmen to our village such ages and ages ago! What noble horseshoes this man might have made, but for those Englishmen; and what an inadequate Roman soldier he DID make! A day or two after we reached St.Louis, I was walking along Fourth Street when a grizzly-headed man gave a sort of start as he passed me, then stopped, came back, inspected me narrowly, with a clouding brow, and finally said with deep asperity-- 'Look here, HAVE YOU GOT THAT DRINK YET ?' A maniac, I judged, at first.

But all in a flash I recognized him.

I made an effort to blush that strained every muscle in me, and answered as sweetly and winningly as ever I knew how-- 'Been a little slow, but am just this minute closing in on the place where they keep it.

Come in and help.' He softened, and said make it a bottle of champagne and he was agreeable.