In Paris he had purchased a bag of hominy at an establishment which called itself an American Agency, and at which the New York illustrated papers were also to be procured, and he had carried it about with him, and shown extreme serenity and fortitude in the somewhat delicate position of having his hominy prepared for him and served at anomalous hours, at the hotels he successively visited.

Newman had once spent a morning, in the course of business, at Mr.Babcock's birthplace, and, for reasons too recondite to unfold, his visit there always assumed in his mind a jocular cast.
To carry out his joke, which certainly seems poor so long as it is not explained, he used often to address his companion as "Dorchester." Fellow-travelers very soon grow intimate but it is highly improbable that at home these extremely dissimilar characters would have found any very convenient points of contact.

They were, indeed, as different as possible.

Newman, who never reflected on such matters, accepted the situation with great equanimity, but Babcock used to meditate over it privately; used often, indeed, to retire to his room early in the evening for the express purpose of considering it conscientiously and impartially.

He was not sure that it was a good thing for him to associate with our hero, whose way of taking life was so little his own.
Newman was an excellent, generous fellow; Mr.Babcock sometimes said to himself that he was a NOBLE fellow, and, certainly, it was impossible not to like him.