CHAPTER X.
MIXED DUTIES Most women will forgive a liberty, rather than a slight.
-- _Colton_.
When I crossed the White House grounds and found my way to the spot where I had left my horse, I discovered my darky boy lying on his back, fast asleep under a tree, the bridle reins hooked over his upturned foot.

I wakened him, took the reins and was about to mount, when at the moment I heard my name called.
Turning, I saw emerge from the door of Gautier's little cafe, across the street, the tall figure of an erstwhile friend of mine, Jack Dandridge, of Tennessee, credited with being the youngest member in the House of Representatives at Washington--and credited with little else.
Dandridge had been taken up by friends of Jackson and Polk and carried into Congress without much plan or objection on either side.

Since his arrival at the capital he had been present at few roll-calls, and had voted on fewer measures.

His life was given up in the main to one specialty, to-wit: the compounding of a certain beverage, invented by himself, the constituent parts of which were Bourbon whiskey, absinthe, square faced gin and a dash of _eau de vie_.

This concoction, over which few shared his own personal enthusiasm, he had christened the Barn-Burner's Dream; although Mr.Dandridge himself was opposed to the tenets of the political party thus entitled--which, by the way, was to get its whimsical name, possibly from Dandridge himself, at the forthcoming Democratic convention of that year.
Jack Dandridge, it may be said, was originally possessed of a splendid constitution.