They dropped into seats by the rear door.  He motioned them to the front corner.  “Sit down there,” he said, “right there.”  They obeyed, and as he turned away he added, what I found more and more to be true, as I saw more of him, “I ain’t de boss, but I’s got right smart to say.”

Then, he whistled to the mules, flourished his whip, and to a persistent accompaniment of whacks and whistles we went crawling up the hill.

WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE.

I arrived at Tallahassee, from Jacksonville, late in the afternoon, after a hot and dusty ride of more than eight hours.  The distance is only a hundred and sixty odd miles, I believe; but with some bright exceptions, Southern railroads, like Southern men, seem to be under the climate, and schedule time is more or less a formality.

For the first two thirds of the way the country is flat and barren.  Happily, I sat within earshot of an amateur political economist, who, like myself, was journeying to the State capital.  By birth and education he was a New York State man, I heard him say; an old abolitionist, who had voted for Birney, Fremont, and all their successors down to Hayes—­the only vote he was ever ashamed of.  Now he was a “greenbacker.”  The country was going to the dogs, and all because the government did not furnish money enough.  The people would find it out some time, he guessed.  He talked as a bird sings—­for his own pleasure.  But I was pleased, too.  His was an amiable enthusiasm, quite exempt, as it seemed, from all that bitterness, which an exclusive possession of the truth so commonly engenders.  He was greatly in earnest; he knew he was right; but he could still see the comical side of things; he still had a sense of the ludicrous; and in that lay his salvation.  For a sense of the ludicrous is the best of mental antiseptics; it, if anything, will keep our perishable human nature sweet, and save it from the madhouse.  His discourse was punctuated throughout with quiet laughter.  Thus, when he said, “I call it the late Republican party,” it was with a chuckle so good-natured, so free from acidity and self-conceit, that only a pretty stiff partisan could have taken offense.  Even his predictions of impending national ruin were delivered with numberless merry quips and twinkles.  Many good Republicans and good Democrats (the adjective is used in its political sense) might have envied him his sunny temper, joined, as it was, to a good stock of native shrewdness.  For something in his eye made it plain that, with all his other qualities, our merry greenbacker was a reasonably competent hand at a bargain; so that I was not in the least surprised when his seat-mate told me afterward, in a tone of much respect, that the “Colonel” owned a very comfortable property at St. Augustine.  But his best possession, I still thought, was his humor and his own generous appreciation of it.  To enjoy one’s own jokes is to have a pretty safe insurance against inward adversity.