“Guess you’d better shut up,” said, or rather snuffled, Dr Titus A. C. Bett. “I have documents in my pocket to substantiate the number of miles metalled, and the bridges, and the viaducts, and general plant. A mere flea-bite of outlay, sir, would suffice to establish another of those mighty arteries of communication in respect to which America, it’s pretty much admitted, whips the world; and none but a soft-horn, sir, would have the least dubiosity about it.” The Doctor and the Colonel were compatriots, one being a Boston man and the other a New-Yorker, but they were very unlike each other in aspect and manner. For whereas the Colonel was six feet two inches high, at the very least computation, and had an eagle beak, keen dark eyes, and a forest of lank black hair streaming around his sallow face; the Doctor was a little man of five feet three, or thereabouts, with weak eyes, spectacles, a head almost bald, and a little wizened countenance. Furthermore, the Colonel was a soft-spoken man, with conciliatory manners and a peculiarly honeyed tone; and though he smoked prodigiously, he consumed tobacco in no other way. The Doctor, on the other hand, was quarrelsome and warlike to a degree, capped every anecdote, contradicted everybody, hummed and buzzed in society like an angry wasp, and kept a silver box full of quids in his coat-pocket. These two were partners. Ill-natured people were malicious enough to say that the Colonel’s department was cajolery, and the Doctor’s bullying, in the joint interest of the firm. I gave no ear to these unkind rumours, and indeed I justly considered the Colonel to be a man of superior abilities and remarkable eloquence. He did not omit, on this occasion, to spread a little soothing salve on the wounds which his countryman’s rudeness had inflicted. “Excuse the worthy Doctor,” he murmured, in bland accents, to Tom Harris, whose face was very red with awkward indignation, “he is accustomed to the free discussions of our colossal country, where the restrictive etiquette of older and more despotic lands is spurned beneath the boot-heels of enlightenment. Do not be riled, I beseech you, at the freedom of his remarks; truth inspires them. You do not know, gentlemen” (here the orator’s voice swelled into a sonorous fulness)—“you cannot know—the resources of our glorious country: none but American citizens can fully appreciate the mines of profitable pro-duce always awaiting the civilising pick-axe of the hardy western pioneer. But never, never since first our Pilgrim Fathers began to improve the Indians off the face of nature—never since Manhattan changed its name to New Amsterdam, afterwards to be New York—has such a speculation as this, of which I am the felicitous herald, been going a-begging. Hail, Columbia, happy land! as our inspired bard, who whips your Swan of—ahem!” And here the Colonel ended in some confusion, and hid his fluent lips for a moment in his wine-glass.