“My companion said he would (and he did) introduce me to several of these daughters of rich bankers, which was very kind of him.  The unrestrained quality of their speech at first struck me as being a little curious, such indeed as I was not accustomed to; but I found them extremely easy to become acquainted with, and in nowise prudish.  They did, however, keep up a suspicious intimacy with a brilliantly lighted, though not very fragrantly scented, saloon on the left.  In this I was assured there was nothing improper, inasmuch as it was sanctioned by the customs of the best society in New York, and much frequented by the Mayor and Aldermen.

“One of the damsels, whose winning smiles excited the filaments of my heart with joy, condescended to express an enthusiastic admiration for my watch-chain, while another very modestly said she would owe me a lasting obligation if I would lend her my watch, that she might wear it at the Tammany Hall ball, to which she was invited by one of the managers.  She pledged her honor, of which she seemed to have a large stock, to return it safe.  As it was the first favor she had ever condescended to ask of a gentleman, she felt sure I could not deny a lady.  Notwithstanding my respect for rich bankers and their daughters, I begged that she would excuse me in this instance, and charge to my poverty what might otherwise seem a want of generosity.  She said she would sing to me, and be the light of my dreams; but even this failed to impress me with a due respect for her desires.  With that penuriousness characteristic of bankers, their papas, it was clear, had not stocked their purses with change enough to cover their wants, which habitually ran to ice-water and something in it.

“It was clear they took me for a country bumpkin instead of a great politician, and were inclined to make much of my excess of simplicity.  Motioning my companion that it was time to be going, I expressed the great delight their company had afforded me, and took my leave, promising to pay them another visit at no very distant day.  I now began to mistrust my companion, whose deportment did not seem to square with that which I had been accustomed to associate with great generals.  But he was tailored and barbared after the manner of gentlemen, and was likewise excessively smooth of tongue.

“On turning to depart, my companion reminded me that it was customary on such occasions for all distinguished persons to present each of the artless young ladies with a golden dollar, which they preserved as a fund, intending, when it became sufficiently large, to start a ‘Journal of Civilization,’ in which the literature of other lands was to be much improved for the benefit of this.  The ‘Journal of Civilization’ was not to be considered a reflex of free brains, but rather as a reflex of free stealing, which was to be advocated at great length in its columns.  Its general department would, my companion told me, be devoted to the histories of great historians, commencing