The editor of our daily paper--The appearance and personal characteristics of Colonel Bangs--The affair with the tombstone--Art news--Colonel Bangs in the heat of a political campaign--Peculiar troubles of public singers--The phenomena of menageries--Extraordinary sagacity of the animals--The Wild Man of Afghanistan 84 CHAPTER VII. The Battery and its peculiarities--A lovely scene--Swede and Dutchman two hundred years ago--Old names of the river--Indian names generally--Cooley's boy--His adventure in church--The long and the short of it--Mr. Cooley's dog and our troubles with it 99 CHAPTER VIII. The _Morning Argus_ creates a sensation--A new editor--Mr. Slimmer the poet--An obituary department--Mr. Slimmer on death--Extraordinary scene in the sanctum of Colonel Bangs--Indignant advertisers--The colonel violently assaulted--Observations of the poet--The final catastrophe--Mysterious conduct of Bob Parker--The accident on Magruder's porch--Mrs. Adeler on the subject of obituary poetry in general 113 CHAPTER IX. The reason why I purchased a horse--A peculiar characteristic--Driving by the river--Our horse as a persecutor--He becomes a genuine nightmare--Experimenting with his tail--How our horse died--In relation to pirates--Mrs. Jones's bold corsair--A lamentable tale 134 CHAPTER X. A picturesque church--Some reflections upon church music--Bob Parker in the choir--Our undertaker--A gloomy man--Our experience with the hot-air furnaces--A series of accidents--Mr. Collamer's vocalism--An extraordinary mistake 152 CHAPTER XI. A fishing excursion down the river--Difficulties of the voyage--A series of unfortunate incidents--Our return home, and how we were received--A letter upon the general subject of angling--The sorrows of the fishermen--Lieutenant Smiley--His recollections of Rev. Mr. Blodgett--A very remarkable missionary 164 CHAPTER XII. How the plumber fixed my boiler--A vexatious business--How he didn't come to time, and what the ultimate result was--An accident; and the pathetic story of young Chubb--Reminiscences of General Chubb--The eccentricities of an absent-minded man--The rivals--Parker versus Smiley 183 CHAPTER XIII. An evil day--Flogging-time in New Castle--How the punishment is inflicted--A few remarks upon the general merits of the system--A singular judge--How George Washington Busby was sentenced--Emotions of the prisoner--A cruel infliction, and a code that ought to be reformed 200 CHAPTER XIV.