The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1871-04-13
" ME AND MY PAL"

My associates through life have been
many and various. l have hobnobbed
with "noblemen, gentlemen of property.
heirs to entailed estates officers on full
pap, and other responsible parties :" and
! have fraternized with grooms. game
Keepers, jockeys, trainers, and touts.
Nay, on one occasion, being belated in
heavy snow-storm at the Bald-faced
Stag at Finchley, so won the heart of
an inebriated hearse-driver returning
from Finchley Cemetery, that with a
blind confidence, born of our hosts good
rum, he thrust whip and reins into my
astonished hands, and climbing into the
receptacle but recently vacated by his
fare" prayed me to pilot his sombre
chariot home. Which, first stipulating
for temporary exchange of hats and
cloaks, 1 did, to the admiration of all
Camden Town-the mutes attendant on
the sad cortege following, appropriately
speechlessly drunk, in a tour-wheeler.
But of all the strange companions into
whose society have ever been thrown
by perverse fate, or whose companion
ship have sought from what my friends
are pleased to denominate ga taste for
low life " (no idea could be more errone-
GUS; only thirst for knowledge), the
person whom 1 am going to tell you
about was, par excellence, the strangest
and the most inscrutable. 1 am going
to tell you a tale without hero. Its
"leading gentleman" Cif such term be
applicable) is alluded to in my title un-
der " the first person singular, nomina-
tive case-me" Mr.. Squeers is my au-
thority for this grammar) and the iden-
tity OF myseLt-mOi qui UouS pdrle-is
merged in the endearlng epithet of my
pal" This is rather perplexing; but as
the whole title forms an expression which
constantly fell from the revered lips of
"ms' when, in the intervals of profess
sional discipline, he had occasion to al
lude to the unworthy narrator, have |
chosen to preserve it in its entirety, III |
memory of the most extraordinary man |
l ever met.
His name was Jonas Baxter, and he
was the most intrepid, desperate, and
skillful burglar that ever laughed at
Scotland Yard, or goaded the New York
police to anger by his sublime indiffer-
ence to the terrors of the Tombs.
At the time of which write (very
recently, he had long been an absentee
AVN having 4uiJblCu LIS |
country for his country's good, and ar
holding a temporary position under Her
Majesty's government in that colony.
When my story opens, Mr.. Baxter ap-
pears before the public as illibuster,
having with view to insular depreda-
tions) volunteered to aid the oppressed
III redeeming the "ever- faithful isle
from the stigma of slavery and the
writer, tired of doing nothing, had also
taken service under the Lone Star +
nag, and was appointed second in COM :
mand of the expedition which had the II,
R9nor of numbering that true patriot,
Mr. Baxter, in its ranks.
was ignorant, however, of the great
ness thrust upon me by his enrolment
IN my command until the day after we
mad lett New York, when l had reason
very heartily to be thankful for his en- f
liStment. q
The rank and file of the expedition D
were, as may be supposed, a q hioblv n
lot-Cubans. Swedes Ger, .
mans, Irish, Danes, Irish-Americsns o
Yankees, pery few English, and no I,
Scotch. tI
OF these the most unruly and thor
oughly brutal Were the sh-Americans. Il
The sweepings of New York, the very ii
scum of the Bowery. One of these fei, q
lows was standing, half-drunk, under o
The break of the poop, indulging in a Z
string of such meaningless and awfully e.
oaths as can only be heard o
n the downtown" spirit stores of New Y
York or Chicago. l could notice the
intense annoyance, almost terror, of the O.
wife "a Cuban LADY,, who il
vas on the poop, unable to escape be- b