and free-acting southern people, who, having elevated him to the office of alderman, declare him exactly the man to develope its functions.  A few of the old school aristocracy, who still retain the bad left them by their English ancestry, having long since forgotten the good, do sneer now and then at Mr. Brodereque’s pretensions.  But, like all great men who have a great object to carry out, he affects to frown such things down,—­to remind the perpetrators of such aristocratic sneers what a spare few they are.  He asserts, and with more truth than poetry, that any gentleman having the capacity to deluge the old aristocracy with doubtful wine, line his pockets while draining theirs-all the time making them feel satisfied he imports the choicest-and who can keep on a cheerful face the while, can fill an alderman’s chair to a nicety.

In addition to the above, Mr. O’Brodereque is one of those very accommodating individuals who never fail to please their customers, while inciting their vanity; and, at the same time, always secure a good opinion for themselves.  And, too, he was liberally inclined, never refused tick, but always made it tell; by which well-devised process, his patrons were continually becoming his humble servants, ready to serve him at call.

Always civil, and even obsequious at first, ready to condescend and accommodate, he is equally prompt when matters require that peculiar turn which southerners frequently find themselves turned into,—­no more tick and a turn out of doors.  At times, Mr. O’Brodereque’s customers have the very unenviable consolation of knowing that a small document called a mortgage of their real and personal property remains in his hands, which he will very soon find it necessary to foreclose.

It is dark,—­night has stolen upon us again,—­the hour for the raffle is at hand.  The saloon, about a hundred and forty feet long by forty wide, is brilliantly lighted for the occasion.  The gas-lights throw strange shadows upon the distemper painting with which the walls are decorated.  Hanging carelessly here and there are badly-daubed paintings of battle scenes and heroic devices, alternated with lithographic and badly-executed engravings of lustfully-exposed females.  Soon the saloon fills with a throng of variously-mixed gentlemen.  The gay, the grave, the old, and the young men of the fashionable world, are present.  Some affect the fast young man; others seem mere speculators, attracted to the place for the purpose of enjoying an hour, seeing the sight, and, it may be, taking a throw for the “gal.”  The crowd presents a singular contrast of beings.  Some are dressed to the very extreme of fantastic fashion, and would seem to have wasted their brains in devising colours for their backs; others, aspiring to the seriously genteel, are fashioned in very extravagant broadcloth; while a third group is dressed in most niggardly attire, which sets very loosely.  In addition to this they wear very large black, white, and grey-coloured felt hats, slouched over their heads; while their nether garments, of red and brown linsey-woolsey, fit like Falstaff’s doublet on a whip stock.  They seem proud of the grim tufts of hair that, like the moss-grown clumps upon an old oak, spread over their faces; and they move about in the grotesque crowd, making their physiognomies increase its piquancy.