There was, indeed, but one small cloud on this red-letter day.

I had laid in a large supply of the national beverage, in the shape of The "Rob Roy MacGregor O" Blend, Warranted Old and Vatted; and this must certainly have been a generous spirit, for I had some anxious work between four and half-past, conveying on board the inanimate forms of chieftains.
To one of our ordinary festivities, where he was the life and soul of his own mess, Pinkerton himself came incognito, bringing the algebraist on his arm.

Miss Mamie proved to be a well-enough-looking mouse, with a large, limpid eye, very good manners, and a flow of the most correct expressions I have ever heard upon the human lip.

As Pinkerton's incognito was strict, I had little opportunity to cultivate the lady's acquaintance; but I was informed afterwards that she considered me "the wittiest gentleman she had ever met." "The Lord mend your taste in wit!" thought I; but I cannot conceal that such was the general impression.
One of my pleasantries even went the round of San Francisco, and I have heard it (myself all unknown) bandied in saloons.

To be unknown began at last to be a rare experience; a bustle woke upon my passage; above all, in humble neighbourhoods.