General Taylor, a modest young man of sixty-one, was directed by the managers to make an advance, with a party clothed in the United States military dress, to a place on the large floor, chalked out between the Neuces and Rio Grande, with a hint not to be offensive in his attitudes, but to look as disagreeable as he chose; and that if anybody, especially the blanketed Mexicans, who insisted on having that part of the large ball-room exclusively to themselves, should give him any chance, however small, to fall foul of them, ball or no ball. When one is desirous of a quarrel he is not usually, especially at the Southwest, long kept out of the enjoyment. In April, 1846, General Ampudia and General Taylor chanced to touch each other, and off went the chip from the American shoulder. Of course everybody who at the North sold goods to the South, and every one at the South who possessed a colored brother in fee-simple, was indignant about the chip, which for the time conveniently represented American honor. The national gorge and the price of negroes rose simultaneously. Fifty thousand men and $10,000,000 were voted by Congress to iron out the creases made in our flag. Of course the young man of sixty-one soon got into the adobe-colored tumble which was impatiently expected. May 8, 1846, with the aid of 2,300 men, he tripped up General Arista with 6,000 men, at Palo Alto, and the next day fell violently against him at Resaca de la Palma. The chopfallen Mustangs, picking up themselves and their dirtier blankets, made all haste to get out of reach of the rough-and-ready treatment, and sped across the Rio Grande to Monterey. But the young man, excited by the jerking mazourka step into which the dance now broke, grasped his partner, the army, around the waist, and flung across the opening spaces against the frightened Mustangs at Monterey. It was a hard shock, and, of course, the sorry-visaged Mexicans were hurled against the wall. The floor managers for some reason—some uncharitably thought from envy at seeing the modest young man attracting so much admiration—took away his partner, and sent it off with a younger man, General Scott, then only sixty, to another part of the room. The figures which he cut with his set of twenty thousand at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, National Bridge, Churubusco, Contreras, Chapultepec, and city of Mexico, were waltzed with unflagging energy.