There was so much to see and do that the place was
delightful to him, and he certainly made himself vastly
agreeable in return to such of its inhabitants as came
in his way.
" I have added to my circle some very valuable ac-
quaintances, whom I shall hope to retain as friends," he
wrote back to England, " notably a medical man who
confirms my germ-propagation theory of the * vomito,'
which is now raging in the Southern part of the States



ON THIS SIDE, 417

(I had it, you remember, on the west coast of Africa,
and studied it in the Barbadoes), — an exceptionally
clever man, and, like all such men, inclined to be eccen-
tric. I think I was never more surprised than to come
upon him the other day in a side-street, where he was
positively having his boots polished in public by a
ragged gamin who offered to * shine* me for a * dime.'
He behaved sensibly about it, — ^betrayed no embarrass-
ment, though he must have felt excessively annoyed,
made no apologies, and only remarked that he had been
out in the country, and did not wish to be taken for a
miller in the town.
" I was led to believe before coming here that I should
not be able to tell that Boston was not an English town.
