He had heard it called by shallow-brained and short-sighted people a sublime failure!  It was a sublime idea, indeed, he thought, but no failure!  Failure?  Why, what did those who called it so expect?  Did they expect that the great capital of the great Republic should spring into full-grown existence as quickly as a hamlet around a railway station, or village at a steamboat landing?  Great ideas require a long time for their complete embodiment.  And those who sneered at Washington were as little capable of foreseeing its future as the idlers about the steamboat wharf were of foretelling the fortunes of the modest-looking youth, in country clothes, who stood there gazing thoughtfully upon the city.

“Can you tell me the nearest way to Pennsylvania Avenue?” at length he asked of a bystander.

“Just set your face to the north and follow your nose for about a mile, and you’ll fetch up to the broadest street as ever you see; and that will be it,” was the answer.

With this simple direction Ishmael went on until he came to the avenue, which he recognized at once from the description.

The Capitol, throned in majestic grandeur upon the top of its wooded hill at the eastern extremity of the Avenue, and gleaming white in the rays of the morning sun, seeming to preside over the whole scene, next attracted Ishmael’s admiration.  As his way lay towards it, he had ample time to contemplate its imposing magnificence and beauty.

As he drew near it, however, he began to throw his eyes around the surrounding country in search of Judge Merlin’s house.  He soon identified it—­a large old family mansion, standing in a thick grove of trees on a hill just north of the Capitol grounds.  He turned to the left, ascended the hill, and soon found himself at the iron gate leading to the grounds.

Here his old acquaintance, Sam, being on duty as porter, admitted him, and, taking him by a winding gravel walk that turned and twisted among groves and parterres, led him up to the house and delivered him into the charge of a black footman, who was at that early hour engaged in opening the doors and windows.

He was the same Jim who used to wait on the table at Tanglewood.

“Good-morning, Mr. Ishmael, sir,” he said, advancing in a friendly and respectful manner, to receive the new arrival.

“The judge expected me this morning, Jim?” inquired Ishmael, when he had returned the greeting of the man.

“Oh, yes, sir; and ordered your room got ready for you.  The family aint down yet, sir; but I can show you your room,” said Jim, taking Ishmael’s carpetbag from him, and leading the way upstairs.

They went up three flights of stairs, to a small front room in the third story, with one window, looking west.

Here Jim sat down the carpetbag, saying: 

“It’s rather high up, sir; but you see we are expecting Mrs. Middleton and all her family, and of course the best spare rooms has to be given up to the ladies.  I think you will find everything you could wish for at hand, sir; but if there should be anything else wanted, you can ring, and one of the men servants will come up.”  And with this, Jim bowed and left the room.