“His opinion is that of an expert. He’s himself a Yankee!” cried Robson. “I see Mr. Sanderson soars far above the spirit of the old proverb touching the bird that fouls its nest,” said Kenrick. “Order!” cried Robson. “Mr. Sanderson is a philosopher. He disdains vulgar prejudices. To him the old nest is straw and mud, and the old flag is a bit of bunting. Isn’t it so, Sanderson?” “Exactly so,” said Sanderson, a little puzzled by Robson’s persiflage, and seeking relief from it in another glass of wine. But, finding the Moselle bottle empty, he applied himself to a decanter labelled Old Monongahela. A sudden snore from Wigman, who had fallen asleep in his chair, startled the party once more into laughter. “Happy Wigman!” said Robson. “He smiles. He is dreaming of slavery extension into benighted, slaveless Mexico,—of Cuba annexed, and her stupidly mild slave-code reformed,—of tawny-hued houries, metifs, and quarteroons fanning him while he reposes,—of unnumbered Yankees howling over their lost trade, and kneeling vainly for help to him,—to Wigman! Profound Wigman! Behold the great man asleep! Happy Texas in having such a representative! Happy Jeff Davis in having such a counsellor! Gentlemen, my feelings grow too effusive. I must leave you. The dinner has been good. The wine has been good. I must make one criticism, however. The young gentlemen are degenerate. They do not drink. Look at them. They are perfectly sober. What is the world coming to? At our hotels, where twenty years ago we used to see fifty—yes, a hundred—champagne bottles on the dinner-table, we now don’t see ten. And yet men talk of the progress of the age! ’T is all a delusion. The day of juleps has gone by. We are receding in civilization. Wigman is a type of the good old times,—a landmark, a pattern for the rising generation. To his immortal honor be it recorded, that after that most heroic achievement of this or any other age, the subjugation of Anderson’s little starving garrison in Sumter by Beauregard, Wigman started in a small boat for the fort. Wigman landed. Wigman was the first to land. He entered one of the bomb-proofs. The first thought of a vulgar mind would have been to fly the victorious flag. Not so Wigman. On a shelf he saw a bottle. With a sublime self-abandonment he saw nothing else. He seized it; he uncorked it; he drank from it. And it was not till he had exhausted the last drop, that he learnt from the surgeon it was poison. O posterity! don’t be ungrateful and forget this picture when you think of Sumter. Our Wigman was saved to us by an emetic. Hand him down, ye future Hildreths and Motleys of America. Unconscious Wigman! He responds with another rhoncus. Mr. Sanderson, I leave him to your generous care. Gentlemen, good by!” And without waiting for a reply, Robson received his hat from the attentive waiter, waved a bow to the party, and waddled out of the hall.