poor, and Doctor Castleton had simply been drawing for him a picture of delights--at least, so I conjectured. This propensity of the doctor sometimes led to startling surprises and results, and, once at least, to a discovery of weighty consequence--as we shall soon perceive. It was novelty for me, and under the circumstances often quite refreshing, to witness the manner in which Americans treated the mighty subjects of life, and spoke of the great and powerful persons of the earth. It was an abundant source of entertainment for me to ask almost anybody with whom I happened to be conversing, for his opinion on some great subject or of some noted personage; for the reply was always to me unique, sometimes very amusing, and not infrequently instructive. On the way for the second time from our evening meal to my room, I stopped for a moment in the "Gentlemen's sitting-room," where I in part overheard a conversation between an elderly and a middle-aged man. I afterward learned that the younger man was a lawyer, by name Lill; that he was well known throughout the State, a man of cultivation, very conventional in his private life, but an unequivocal dissenter on almost every great social question; a man of high honor, and unquestionable personal habits, for whom exalted public office had often waited if only he could have modified his expressed opinions to less inharmony with those of men who held the reins of power. It seemed that these two men had not met for a year or more; and as I entered the room they were comparing experiences, in a leisurely, confidential, sympathetic way. As I came within hearing, the lawyer had just started in afresh, after a laugh and a pause. Settling-down his features, and assuming a more-news-to- be-told manner, with a pinch of fine-cut tobacco between finger and thumb ready to go into his mouth, and leaning slightly forward to keep the tobacco-dust from his shirt-front, he said, "Well, David, I read the Bible through again last winter, and I must continue to think it a very immoral book. Its teaching is really bad. Why, sir, what would you think of such d---d outrageous teaching if anybody were at this time to promulgate it with an implication of any practical relation to present events?" And so he continued, somewhat, though not greatly, to the horror of his companion, who seemed to be a Christian--at least by descent. On another day, after the mid-day meal, as I again entered this room, I observed a new-comer in conversation with what I took to be a small delegation of Bellevue business men. I was afterward presented to this new arrival, when I learned that his name was Rowell--General Rowell; a name which I thought I had seen in the newspapers at home. He was a large man of prepossessing appearance, and gave me the impression of considerable mental force and activity. I heard him say to his visitors--the words apparently closing a conference: "Yes, gentlemen, if