Among these was a young fellow of the name of Halstead, who, I was told, was the coming man on the Commercial.
Round to the Commercial office I sped, and being conducted to this person, who received me very blandly, I said: "Mr.Halstead, I am a journeyman day laborer in your city--the merest bird of passage, with my watch at the pawnbroker's.

As soon as I am able to get out of town I mean to go--and I came to ask if you can think the personal allusions to me in to-day's paper, which may lose me my job but can nowise hurt the Times, are quite fair--even--since I am without defense--quite manly." He looked at me with that quizzical, serio-comic stare which so became him, and with great heartiness replied: "No--they were damned mean--though I did not realize how mean.

The mark was so obvious and tempting I could not resist, but--there shall be no more of them.

Come, let us go and have a drink." That was the beginning of a friendship which brought happiness to both of us and lasted nearly half a century, to the hour of his death, when, going from Louisville to Cincinnati, I helped to lay him away in Spring Grove Cemetery.
I had no thought of remaining in Cincinnati.

My objective was Nashville, where the young woman who was to become my wife, and whom I had not seen for nearly two years, was living with her family.