There was no talk of politics, negroes, force bills.
They did not seem to know or to care about these things.

It was a wild assemblage, but without meanness or malice.

They were occupied solely with a spirit of carnival, of dancing, drinking, of talk about the arrival of the _Illinois_; about the price of land and the great future of Chicago.

"It's as plain as day," said a man at the bar.

"Here we are at the foot of the lake.