“Nonsense!” exclaimed the Doctor, “one can see you have hardly looked at them, the species is the same, I allow, but in that species what a variety there is! Just notice that group of men down there, with their easy-going air, their legs stretched on the sofas, and hats screwed down on their heads. They are Yankees, pure Yankees, from the small states of Maine, Vermont, and Connecticut, the produce of New England. Energetic and intelligent men, rather too much influenced by ‘the Reverends,’ and who have the disagreeable fault of never putting their hands before their mouths when they sneeze. Ah! my dear sir, they are true Saxons, always keenly alive to a bargain; put two Yankees in a room together, and in an hour they will each have gained ten dollars from the other.” “I will not ask how,” replied I, smiling at the Doctor, “but among them I see a little man with a consequential air, looking like a weather-cock, and dressed in a long overcoat, with rather short black trousers,—who is that gentleman?” “He is a Protestant minister, a man of ‘importance’ in Massachusetts, where he is going to join his wife, an ex-governess advantageously implicated in a celebrated lawsuit.” “And that tall, gloomy-looking fellow, who seems to be absorbed in calculation?” “That man calculates: in fact,” said the Doctor, “he is for ever calculating.” “Problems?” “No, his fortune, he is a man of ‘importance,’ at any moment he knows almost to a farthing what he is worth; he is rich, a fourth part of New York is built on his land; a quarter of an hour ago he possessed 1,625,367 dollars and a half, but now he has only 1,625,367 dollars and a quarter.” “How came this difference in his fortune?” “Well! he has just smoked a quarter-dollar cigar.” Doctor Dean Pitferge amused me with his clever repartees, so I pointed out to him another group stowed away in a corner of the saloon. [Illustration: “THEY,” SAID HE, “ARE PEOPLE FROM THE FAR WEST.”] “They,” said he, “are people from the Far West, the tallest, who looks like a head clerk, is a man of ‘importance,’ the head of a Chicago bank, he always carries an album under his arm, with the principal views of his beloved city. He is, and has reason to be, proud of a city founded in a desert in 1836, which at the present day has a population of more than 400,000 souls. Near him you see a Californian couple, the young wife is delicate and charming, her well-polished husband was once a plough-boy, who one fine day turned up some nuggets. That gentleman—” “Is a man of ‘importance,’” said I. “Undoubtedly,” replied the Doctor, “for his assets count by the million.” “And pray who may this tall individual be, who moves his head backwards and forwards like the pendulum of a clock?”