referred to as their "premises" and sometimes as their "apartments"--more

particularly when conversing with persons outside. A canvas-covered

modern trunk, marked "G. W. H." stood on end by the door, strapped and

ready for a journey; on it lay a small morocco satchel, also marked "G.

W. H." There was another trunk close by--a worn, and scarred, and

ancient hair relic, with "B. S." wrought in brass nails on its top;

on it lay a pair of saddle-bags that probably knew more about the last

century than they could tell. Washington got up and walked the floor a

while in a restless sort of way, and finally was about to sit down on the

hair trunk.

Stop, don't sit down on that!" exclaimed the Colonel: "There, now that's

all right--the chair's better. I couldn't get another trunk like that

-not another like it in America, I reckon."

"I am afraid not," said Washington, with a faint attempt at a smile.

No indeed; the man is dead that made that trunk and that saddle-bags."

"Are his great-grand-children still living?" said Washington, with levity

only in the words, not in the tone.

Well, I don't know--I hadn't thought of that--but anyway they can't make

trunks and saddle-bags like that, if they are--no man can," said the

Colonel with honest simplicity. "Wife didn't like to see me going off

655

The Gilded Age