I wandered out into the town, somewhat puzzled how to dispose of myself for the evening. Had I been performing the part of a "walking gentleman," I fancied I could have easily hit upon some appropriate and becoming pastime. A theatre,--there was one in the "Lower Town,"--and a tavern afterwards, would have filled the interval before it was time to go to bed. "Time to go to bed! "--strange phrase, born of a thousand and one conventionalities. For some, that time comes when the sun has set, and with its last beams of rosy light reminds labor of the coming morrow. To some, it is the hour when wearied faculties can do no more, when tired intellect falters "by the way," and cannot keep the "line of march." To others, it comes with dawning light, and when roses and rouge look ghastly; and to others, again, whose "deeds are evil," it is the glare of noonday. Now, as for me, I was neither wearied by toil nor pleasure; no sense of past fatigue, no anticipation of coming exertion, invited slumber,--nay, I was actually more wakeful than I had been during the entire evening, and I felt a most impulsive desire for a little social enjoyment,--that kind of intercourse with strangers which I always remarked had the effect of eliciting my own conversational qualities to a degree that astonished even myself. In search of some house of entertainment, some public resort, I paced all the streets of the Upper Town, but to no purpose. Occasionally, lights in a drawing-room, and the sound of a piano, would tell where some small evening party was assembled; or now and then, from a lower story, a joyous roar of laughter, or the merry chorus of a drinking-song, would bespeak some after-dinner convivialities; but to mingle in scenes like these, I felt that I had yet a long road to travel,--ay, to pass muster in the very humblest of those circles, what a deal had I to learn! How much humility, how much confidence; what deference, and what self-reliance; what mingled gravity and levity; what shades and gradations of color, so nicely balanced and proportioned, too, that, unresolved by the prism, they show no preponderating tint,--make up that pellucid property men call "tact!" Ay, Con, that is your rarest gift of all,--only acquire that, and you may dispense with ancestry, and kindred, and even wealth itself; since he who has "tact" participates in all these advantages, "_among his friends_." As I mused thus, I had reached the "Lower Town," and found myself opposite the door of a tavern, over which a brilliant lamp illuminated the sign of "The British Grenadier,"--a species of canteen in high favor with sergeants and quartermasters of the garrison. I entered boldly, and with the intention of behaving generously to myself; but scarcely had I passed the threshold than I heard a sharp voice utter in a half-whisper, "Dang me if he an't in livery!"