Breakfast being over, my foot was once more in the stirrup. The old man accompanied me to the gateway, and shaking my hand in a boisterous agony of good-nature, pressed me to visit him again when he was _not drunk_. I had proceeded but a few steps on my way when I heard his voice calling after me, and turned my head: "Stran-ger! I say, stran-ger! what do you reckon of sending this young Jack Stewart to Congress?" "Oh, he'll answer." "Well, and that's what I'm a going to vote; and there's a heap o' people always thinks like old Jim does; and that's what made 'em get me groggy last night." I could not but commiserate this old man as I pursued my journey, reflecting on what had passed. He was evidently no common toper; for some of his remarks evinced a keenness of observation, and a depth and shrewdness of thought, which even the withering blight of drunkenness had not completely deadened; and which, with other habits and other circumstances, might have placed him far above the beck and nod of every demagogue. _Decatur, Ill._ XXIX "Ay, but to die, and go we know not where!" _Measure for Measure._ "Plains immense, interminable meads, And vast savannas, where the wand'ring eye, Unfix'd, is in a verdant ocean lost." THOMSON. "Ye shall have miracles; ay, sound ones too, Seen, heard, attested, everything but true." MOORE. "Call in the barber! If the tale be long, He'll cut it short, I trust." MIDDLETON.