At this period the war had focussed a sort of superficial prosperity here. The counters were covered with Northern goods to supply the needs and excite the extravagance of this medley of congregated humanity. Street venders howled their wares in raucous voices that added to the unintelligible clamors of the old highways that were wont to be so dull and quiet and decorous. The paving stones roared with the reverberation of wheels. Sometimes endless trains of white-hooded army wagons defiled by; again heavy open transfers; sometimes an ambulance anguish-laden passed slowly, taking the crown of the causeway. Occasionally a light-wheeled buggy whisked about with the unmistakable effect of display and with a military charioteer handling the ribbons, who found the Tennessee blooded roadsters much to his mind. And forever the dray, laden with cotton bales sometimes, and sometimes with boxes, or barrels, or hogsheads, took its drag-tailed way to the depots or to the wharf. All was dominated by the presence of the mule--in force, driven loose in hundreds through the town to some remote scene of usefulness, now drawing the great transfers and drays, now giving an exhibition of the peculiar pertinacity of mule nature by planted hoofs and ears laid back and a resolution of immovableness, bringing the whole tumultuous noisy rout to a blockade of such intricacy and cumbrous obstructiveness that one might wonder by what magic the interlocked wheels, the twisted harness, the crowded beasts, the whistling, long-thonged whips and shouting, swearing men were ever disentangled. These incidents impeded progress, and the passengers from the noon railroad train were disposed to complain and comment, and seemed fit subjects for sympathy, as they interchanged petulant accounts of experiences at the hotel desk, waiting to register. One was apparently not unknown to the clerk now in charge, an affable functionary to the deserving few, altogether stiff and unapproachable to the general public. He was the day clerk, and a far more magnificent individual than the forlorn night bird that languished behind the desk with no company but the wee sma' hours of the clock, and the somnolent bell-boys on their bench, and the watchman, walking hither and thither like a ghost as if his only mission were to be about, and the incoming traveller. The day clerk's courtesy had the grace of a personal compliment as he hurried the book away from the last signer and passed it on to another in the line,--a somewhat portly, red-faced, middle-aged gentleman, with short side-whiskers, of the hairbrush effect and a pale hue, not definitely gray, for he seemed hardly old enough for such tokens of years, and yet the flaxen tint had lost its earlier lustre. His hair was of the same shade, and he wore a stiff hat, a suit of "pepper-and-salt," and a dark overcoat of light weight.