veneration. He had heard of the balls, assemblies and levees of the Federal City;-its theatres and shows; its gamblers and pickpockets; its loafers and hack-drivers; its pimps, pads and pensioners:and "now, now," he exclaimed, as he stepped upon the floor of Gadsby's Hotel, "we are here!"

"Yes," replied Burton, "we are here, and first, a good supper, and then a frolic."

"A bath and a barber, before supper," said Sterling, "are indispensables."

The two friends separated for awhile, - Burton standing in the bar-room, surrounded by dozens of his acquaintance who were greeting him upon his return; and Sterling, in a bath room,-where we will leave him, for the present, wallowing in a long tin tub; the fatigues of travel forgetting themselves in the sparkling embraces of a soothing element; while the sweet langour of repose steals over his relaxing body - O how gently!

Burton was an old senator. Having been many years in Washington, he knew everybody and everybody knew him. Gifted above most men with the graces of elocution, he had long been distinguished as a statesman; social and convivial amongst the people, he was an universal favorite; wherever he went applause followed, in all imaginable shapes:-courtesies from the exalted; homage from the dependent, spontaneous adulation from the masses. He had a word for the poorest, a smile for the proudest, and a nod of recognition for the humblest. Timidity grew bold under his amiable

cordiality, and nobody was afraid to jest with him. But this lack of austerity, in Burton, had been fatal to him in many respects. Adulation had allied him to dissolute companions; conviviality had thrown him into the arms of temptation, and pleasures had usurped in his mind the throne of ambition.

He was the great king-key-keeper of all the secret luxuries of the city. And in his indulgences he was as elegant as a Persian and as voluptuous as a Turk.

Such is the man under whose protection the young congressman had placed himself! What a guide! yet he would discourse like an angel upon the beauty of morals, the necessity of temperance, the danger of indulgences, and the folly of excesses. The triumphs of Labor, Patience and Toil for the honors of ambition, formed the staple of his eloquent conversation. To hear him, was to be convinced, that nothing was so sweet as glory, so desirable as renown.

He was familiar with all literature. In his youth he had been a student; and in his busy manhood, while he had found it necessary to toil for preëminence and position, he had so vigorously applied his learning, as occasions of display offered, that the restamping of it on his memory had given a deep tinge of philosophy to his thoughts; and all his conclusions appeared as the bright results of intuitive sagacity.. He was only not a pedant because he was a genius: for the apt quotation so harmonized in his sentences. and illustrated his meaning, that his reflections:

seemed to be original, and his mosaic phrases deserved for their elegance to be considered his own.

Sterling believed that the world was not mistaken in its opinion, that Burton was the master spirit of the age; and hence the gratification he felt in the interest which the illustrious senator seemed to take. in his political advent.

The libation over, the linen changed, the hair perfumed, and the appetite sated; our hero was ready for an adventure; and walking up to the senator, he remarked, in a low tone, as he familiarly plucked a cigar from his friend's side pocket. "Now, sir Mentor, I am at your service."

CHAPTER II.

- the famous

They sauntered into the street, Pennsylvania avenue - whose uncounted acres were paved with brick-bats heterogeneously mingled with various shaped pebbles-many of them sharp pointed with now and then a slab path crossing from north to south-and from corner to corner. Gas-lights, just then introduced, hung out their white and luminous torches on the north side of the avenue, while the south side seemed to be left in total darkness, save here and there, at some favored corner, a lamp gleamed over the imposing word "REStauRANT."

Burton called a carriage, and the friends were

wheeled off several squares, to a large building, brilliantly lighted, through the windows of which you could see the swift mingling of men and women in the whirling dance. Music broke upon the ear, as the friends approached, and the frequent bursts of loud and long laughter, with an occasional shout and a half uttered scream, plainly indicated that the company within was not of the most refined or polished sort.

"You are getting me into a scrape, senator."

"Well," replied Burton, "you have a very good way of getting out of scrapes"—and he flung open the door without ceremony.

There was an old mulatto hag standing in the little drawing room. She was alone, with her eyes fixed upon the wall, as if watching the imaginary movements of the Ellslers and Celestes, which, in plaster statuary, adorned the corners of this chaste apartment. As she turned suddenly from her contemplations, she lifted up her arms and almost shouted —“oh! moss Judge!" then suppressing her ejaculation into a mechanical whisper, she said "Miss Maggy go crazy to see you:-" and she darted out of the room to convey to her mistress the intelligence that Judge Burton had arrived.

In a few minutes could be heard, descending the stair, footsteps alternately light and heavy,— a sort of cat and dog tramp, as if one was running after the other, while something scraped against the banisters like laths rattling in a cart. This rustling jingle was caused by the thick skirt of a

fashionable dress, made of a heavy material called clap-board silk, and which usually heralded the wearer some minutes in advance. Then something in the shape of an old fashioned Georgia round cotton bale, with all the ropes bursted except at one end, entered the room, and reeled joyfully towards the senator, who rose to meet it. Sterling saw that this was a woman, for it had arms, a very glib tongue, and a tolerably graceful locomotion considering that one of its legs was several inches shorter than the other, and that the left hand had to be pressed upon the left knee in order to force the foot to the floor. This female Leviathan, as she opened her ponderous jaws, seemed threatening to swallow the senator - who by the way was not a large man. She had not observed Sterling as she entered the room, and putting her arms around Burton, she fondled over him with intense delight. A sort of exuberant foam escaped from the coral cavern which yawned about him, that would have suffocated any other man, but he bore it like a soldier, and dissembled his disgust with a skill that no art can teach, a skill which attends the man of the world only, as a sort of good angel, concealing all his schemes with inexplicable disguises; making the heart invisible, the face inscrutable, the pulse inaudible.

Burton soon contrived to let the lady know that Sterling was present, and this brought the caressing to a close. Unrestrained delight gave way to