Litchfield enquirer., 1871-02-02
From the Atlantic Monthly. THE FRIEND OF MY YOUTH.

Adventures, " takes the reader with him OF "a professional togr in Dr. Spaulding's Floating palace. This Floating Palace, g
 sort of Barnum's Museum with keel
 was designed for navigation in Southern and Western rivers, and carried cargo o complex delights that must have mncf amazed the simple dwellers on the banks of tho Ohio and Mississippi. Here. or
 board of this dramatical Noah's ark, th, reader finds himself on the pleasantes terms possible with negro minstrels, dan seuses. apostolic wax-works, moral aero
 bats, stuffed animals, vocalists and a cer
 tain Gov. Dorr. as tas.s
 It was with thrill. of honest pleasure
 that I came upon this picturesque outcas
 unexpectedly embalmed in the clear prose
 of my friend. There was time when
 was proud to know this Governor Dorr
 when hung upon the round music of hi lips. listened to his marvellous stories oi
 moving accidents by flood and field,. and
 was melted to the very heart at those rare
 moments when. in a three-cornered room in the rear of Walls Drug Store, he would favor me with some of the most larcrymose and sentimental poems that ever came of { Respondent poet. At this epoch of my existence. Governor Dorr, with his sar- castle winks, his comic melancholy, hii quotations from Shakespeare, and his fear
 full knowledge of the outside world, was ir my eyes the personifcation of all that was learned, graceful. romantic, and daring A little later my boyish admiration wal somewhat shattered by the discovery that my admirable Cricbton was - well, 1t is o1 no use now to mince words - an adven. turer and gambler. With kind of sigh that is at present lost art to me, I put him aside with those dethroned idols and collapsed dreams which accumulate on oneis hands as one advances in life, and oi which already had promising collection when I was about twenty. cast off Gov. Dorr, I repeat; but, oddly enough, Gov. Dorr never cast me of, but presisted in turning up at intervals of four or five years in the tender and pathetic character oi "The friend of my youth.
 As Gov. Dorr is the only gentleman in his line of business who ever evinced any interest in me, I intend to make the most of him; and. indeed, among my re. putibls acquaintances there is none who deserves to fare better at my hands. My reputable acquaintences have sometimes bored me, and taught me nothing Now Gov. Dorr, in the etherial shape of rem eniscence, has not only been source of great entertainment to me at various times, but has taught me by his own atrocious ex- ample that whatever gifts man may pos sess, if he have no moral principle he is a failure. Wanting the gift of honesty. Gov. Dorr was gambler and 6 sharper, and is dead. ..... ....4''... a'
 was scheol-boy at Rivermouth when Gov. Dorr swept kke . hrisliasb eo.ast i->.~ hn mo af day in the summer of 18- was going home from school when saw standing in front of Walls Drug Store showily dress ed persen, who seemed to me we'll advanced in years, that is to say, twenty-five or thir- ty; he was the center of 8 little circle of idle fellows about town, who were drink ing in with obvious relish one of those pre- Raphaelite narratives which was after wards destined to swallow with open mouthed wouder. The genial twinkle of the mans blue eyes, the glow of his half smoked cigar, and the blaze of the dia- mond on his little finger, all seemed the members of one radiant family. To this day cannot disassociate sort of glitter with the memory of my first glimpse of Gov. Dorr. He had finished speaking as I join ed the group. and I caught only the words, ''and that was the last of the gallant Jack Martinway," delivered in particularly mel low barytone voice, when he turned abrupt ly and disappeared behind the orange and scarlet jars in Dr. Walls shop-window.
 Who is gallant Jack Martinway I won- dered, and who is this dazzling person that wears his best clothes on weekday took him for some distinguished militia ry hero, and with fine feeling for anach- ronism immediately connected him with the portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh in Mitchelrs Geography work was at that time neglecting with considerable per severance. sI .s.t s- a ---ttH a The apparition of so bewildering figure in our staid, slow going little town was likely to cause sensation. The next day in school I learned ell about him. He was Gov. Dorr; he had once been a boy in Rivermouth, like us, but had gone off years ago to seek his fortune, and now he had come back immensly wealthy from some where. - South America or the Chincha Islands, where he was governor,-and was going to settle down in his native town and buy the "Bilkins Mansion, ,"-an es- tate which the heirs were too poor to keep and nobody else rich enough to purchase.
 This was appetizing, and after school I wandered down to Walls Drug Store to take look at my gilded townsman, of whom I was not little proud.
 was so dazed at the time, that do not reccollect how it all came about; but Gov. Dorr was in the shop holding 8 glass of soda-water in one hand and leaning ele. Egantly on the Gothic fountain; entered with the weak pretense of buying a slate pencil; the Governor spoke to me, and then-I can recall nothing except that, when recovered from my embarrassment and confusion, I was drinking soda.water with the Great Mougal, strangling my self with the beverage, and eliciting from him the laughing advice that 1 should n't drink it while it was boiling.
 think it was an aggravated case of friendship at first sight. In less than a week my admiration for Gov. Dorr was so pure, unselish, and unquestioning. that it saddens me to remember it, knowing that the stock is exhausted. Every Wednes. day and Saturday afternoon-our half-hol. idays-I hurried to Walls Drug Store to meet my friend. Here were his headquar. ters. and most profitable customer he must have been, for when he was not drink. ing soda-water he was smoking the Doctors Icigars. a sa >- -- ~ @ In the rear of the shop was small tri. angular room where Dr. Wall manufactur. | cd patent electric cough sirpp, and where
 he allowed us to sit rainy afternoons.
 Nothing about me as I write is SO real as 6