Always civil, and even obsequious at first, ready to condescend and accommodate, he is equally prompt when matters require that peculiar turn which southerners frequently find themselves turned into,--no more tick and a turn out of doors. At times, Mr. O'Brodereque's customers have the very unenviable consolation of knowing that a small document called a mortgage of their real and personal property remains in his hands, which he will very soon find it necessary to foreclose. It is dark,--night has stolen upon us again,--the hour for the raffle is at hand. The saloon, about a hundred and forty feet long by forty wide, is brilliantly lighted for the occasion. The gas-lights throw strange shadows upon the distemper painting with which the walls are decorated. Hanging carelessly here and there are badly-daubed paintings of battle scenes and heroic devices, alternated with lithographic and badly-executed engravings of lustfully-exposed females. Soon the saloon fills with a throng of variously-mixed gentlemen. The gay, the grave, the old, and the young men of the fashionable world, are present. Some affect the fast young man; others seem mere speculators, attracted to the place for the purpose of enjoying an hour, seeing the sight, and, it may be, taking a throw for the "gal." The crowd presents a singular contrast of beings. Some are dressed to the very extreme of fantastic fashion, and would seem to have wasted their brains in devising colours for their backs; others, aspiring to the seriously genteel, are fashioned in very extravagant broadcloth; while a third group is dressed in most niggardly attire, which sets very loosely. In addition to this they wear very large black, white, and grey-coloured felt hats, slouched over their heads; while their nether garments, of red and brown linsey-woolsey, fit like Falstaff's doublet on a whip stock. They seem proud of the grim tufts of hair that, like the moss-grown clumps upon an old oak, spread over their faces; and they move about in the grotesque crowd, making their physiognomies increase its piquancy.