call.  Arriving at the office, he found the consul had left for his hotel, and would not return until four o’clock.  As he passed the post-office, a knot of men stood in front of it, apparantly in anxious discussion.  Feeling that their conversation might be interesting to him, or have some connection with his case, he walked slowly back, and as he approached them, observed that the conversation had become more excited.  The principals were Mr. Grimshaw, and a factor on the bay, deeply interested in shipping.

“A man acting in your capacity,” said the factor, “should never make use of such expressions-never give encouragement to mob law.  It’s not only disgraceful to any city, but ruinous to its interests.  Officials never should set or encourage the example.  Want of order is already in the ascendant, and if the populace is to be led on to riot by the officials, what check have we?  God save us from the direful effects!”

“Well, perhaps I went too far,” said Mr. Grimshaw, “for I think as much of the name of our fair city as you do.  But we ought to teach him that he can’t pursue this open, bold, and daring course, endangering our institutions, because he’s consul for Great Britain.  I would, at all events, treat him as we did the Yankee Hoar from Massachusetts, and let the invitation be given outside of official character, to save the name; then, if he did not move off, I’d go for serving him as they did the Spanish consul, in New Orleans.  These English niggers and Yankee niggers are fast destroying the peace of Charleston.”

“You would, would you?” said another.  “Then you would incite the fury of an ungovernable mob to endanger the man’s life for carrying out the instructions of his government.”

“That don’t begin to be all that he does, for he’s meddling with every thing, and continually making remarks about our society,” said Grimshaw, evidently intending to create ill feeling against the consul, and to make the matter as bad as possible.

“Now, Mr. Grimshaw,” said the factor, “you know your jail is not fit to put any kind of human beings into, much less respectable men.  It’s an old Revolutionary concern, tumbling down with decay, swarming with insects and vermin; the rooms are damp and unhealthy, and without means to ventilate them; the mildew and horrible stench is enough to strike disease into the strongest constitution; and you aggravate men’s appetites with food that’s both insufficient and unwholesome, I know, because I visited a friend who was put in there on ‘mesne process.’”

“There is little confidence to be placed in the stories of prisoners; they all think they must be treated like princes, instead of considering that they are put there for cause, and that a jail was intended for punishment,” interrupted Grimshaw, anxious to change the subject of conversation, and displaying an habitual coldness to misfortune which never can see the gentleman in a prisoner.