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, she was base, she had had flirtations of an intimate character with scores; but she was rich, and I made great allowances.
At last we arrived at Bayou La Farouche.
I cannot state that the locality is an attractive one. Its land scenery is composed of alligators and mud in nearly equal proportions.
I never beheld there my fancy realized of a band of gleeful negroes hoeing cane to the music of the banjo. There are no wild bandanna-trees, and no tame ones, either. The slaves of Mr. Mellasys never danced, except under the whip of a very noisome person who acted as overseer. There were no sleek and sprightly negresses in gay turbans, and no iced _eau sucré_. Canaan was cursed with religious rigor on the Mellasys plantation at Bayou La Farouche.
All this time Mellasys Plickaman had been my _bête noir_.
I know nothing of politics. Were our country properly constituted, I should be in the House of Peers. The Chylde family is of sublime antiquity, and I am its head in America. But, alas! we have no hereditary legislators; and though I feel myself competent to wear the strawberry-leaves, or even to sit upon a throne, I have not been willing to submit to the unsavory contacts of American political life. Mr. Mellasys Plickaman took advantage of my ignorance.
When several gentlemen of the neighborhood were calling upon me in the absence of Mr. Mellasys, my defeated rival introduced the subject of politics.
"I suppose you are a good Democrat, Mr. Chylde?" said one of the strangers.
"No, I thank you," replied I, sportively,--meaning, of course, that they should understand I was a good Aristocrat.
"Who's your man for President?" my interlocutor continued, rather roughly.
I had heard in conversation, without giving the fact much attention, that an election for President was to take place in a few days. These struggles of commonplace individuals for the privilege of residing in a vulgar town like Washington were without interest to me. So I answer