From Louisville to Cave City, $4.00 Supper at Cave City, 1.00 Night’s repose at Cave City, 1.00 Breakfast at Cave City, 1.00 Coach from Cave City to Mammoth Cave, 2.00 For guide, (paid to proprietor,) 2.00 Trifle presented to guide as mark of esteem, 1.00 Dinner at Mammoth Cave Hotel, 1.00 Coach back to Cave City, 2.00 Supper at Cave City, 1.00 Playing “All-fours” with ugly gent. for lemonade, 1.00 Train back to Louisville, 4.00 Incidentals, 5.00 Other incidentals, 2.00 _____ $28.00 That was what it cost me, and I’ll venture to say that anyone, by being economical, can visit the Mammoth Cave from Louisville for the same amount. CHAPTER XXXI. THE NIGHTINGALE. IN the course of my stay in Louisville, I had the pleasure of an introduction to George D. Prentice, Esquire, the well-known editor of the Louisville Journal; and I found him as agreeable and good-natured as he is witty. He was engaged in writing a scathing article denunciatory of Parson Brownlow, at the time my friend and I entered his sanctum, and was in excellent spirits. Perhaps no one of the many who have heard of the witty journalist, and read his writings, but have never seen him, has ever formed any correct impression of his personal appearance. He is quite homely, does not look half as bright as he really is, is noble-hearted, kind, affable, polite, and exhibits a partiality for grain products in a liquid form, at all seasons of the year. But this is nobody’s business but his own. About the middle of May, or a little later, perhaps, I took passage on the steamer Nightingale, for Saint Louis. The steamer was a stern-wheel one, pretty well loaded, and did not make very fast time; but the weather was delightful, every thing on board was comfortable and pleasant, and, as I was in no hurry, I could not have complained if the journey had occupied a week. Fellow passengers on board a steamer soon make themselves acquainted with each other, and I had not been aboard twenty-four hours before the faces of all were as familiar to me as though I had known them for years. With but few exceptions they were agreeable persons. The captain was a handsome man of twenty-eight or thirty, and one glance at him was enough to convince any one that he was a true gentleman. All the _attaches_ of the boat, including the bartender and porter, were just what they should be.