We drove to the new residence districts, like La Fayette Place, Waverly Place, Washington Square, and lower Fifth Avenue.  We went down to the Battery from which I had looked with lonely eyes on the ships and the bay fifteen years before.  The sailing vessels were giving way to the steamship.  The Cunarder Canada was in port, 250 feet long, of 2000 horsepower, and with a speed of eleven knots an hour.  Everywhere we encountered the New York policemen who had taken the place of the night-watch of 1833.  They were all in uniform too.  They had made a fight against the uniforms, upon the principle that all men are free and equal, and that they would not be liveried lackeys.  But they had come to it.  We also attended the theater frequently, like the Chatham and the Olympic.  But most wonderful of all was Barnum’s Museum, in which that great showman had collected dwarfs and giants, fat women and human skeletons.

I felt impelled to hurry to Chicago, but Dorothy wanted to shop and so we stayed on.  One day I had an agreeable surprise in meeting with Yarnell as we were entering the Astor House.  I had not seen him since I parted with him in 1833, on my way west.  He was now about forty-five years of age, but looked as youthful as when I first saw him, and was more of a dandy.  He touched my arm as I passed him.  I recognized him at once and presented him to Dorothy.  As Dorothy was anxious to return to our son, she left me with Yarnell who wished to join me at luncheon.

He took me to the Hone Club, which was the resort of good livers and men about town.  After ordering the meal we set to the comparison of notes.  He was eager to hear about the West and of Chicago.  He could scarcely believe that Detroit and Milwaukee had a population of about 20,000 each, and that Chicago had distanced them with 30,000.  I told him of our canal, which was done, and of our great shipping.  Illinois had more than 300 miles of railroad, and we were building more at a rapid rate.  This led, of course, to Douglas.  Yarnell wanted to hear more of him.  I told Yarnell of the beginning of my friendship with Douglas; how he had helped me from the stage to Mrs. Spurgeon’s house in Jacksonville; of our friendship since that time, and of our winter in Washington.  Then we fell to talking of Webster and Seward.  Seward was a power in New York, now about forty-seven years of age; but Yarnell did not like him.  Webster had wavered, particularly before the logic of Calhoun.  But, after all, was not Webster cribbed by his New England environment?  Seward had since been an anti-Masonic, had attended its national convention in 1830.  Then he had joined the Whigs, in order to oppose Jackson.  Nearly all lunacies had gone into the composition of the Whigs.  What about this observance of the law, the higher law included?  Why did not Seward honor the requisition of the Governor of Virginia for the return of a fugitive slave?  Then we took up Greeley.  His daily Tribune was now