“To cut the matter short, I pass over my trip to New Orleans and Galveston.  Suffice it to say, that I was a gentleman preacher, with plenty of money, and that the Texans, president, generals, and all, condescended to eat my dinners, though they would not hear my sermons; even the women looked softly upon me, for I had two trunks, linen in plenty, and I had taken the precaution in Louisiana of getting rid of my shin-plasters for hard specie.  I could have married anybody, if I had wished, from the president’s old mother to the barmaid at the tavern.  I had money, and to me all was smiles and sunshine.  One day I met General Meyer; the impudent fellow came immediately to me, shook my hand in quite a cordial manner, and inquired how my health had been since he had seen me last.  That was more than my professional meekness could endure, so I reproached him with his rascality and abuse of hospitality towards me, adding that I expected he would now repay me what he had so unceremoniously taken from me while I was asleep.  General Meyer looked perfectly aghast, and calling me a liar, a scoundrel, and a villain, he rushed upon me with his drawn bowie-knife, and would have indubitably murdered me, had he not been prevented by a tall powerful chap, to whom, but an hour before, I had lent, or given, five dollars, partly from fear of him and partly from compassion for his destitution.

“The next day I started for Houston, where I settled, and preached to old women, children, and negroes, while the white male population were getting drunk, swearing, and fighting, just before the door of the church.  I had scarcely been there a month when a constable arrested me on the power of a warrant obtained against me by that rascally Meyer.  Brought up before the magistrate, I was confronted with the blackguard and five other rascals of his stamp, who positively took their oaths that they had seen me taking the pocket-book of the general, which he had left accidentally upon the table in the bar of Tremont’s.  The magistrate said, that out of respect for the character of my profession he would not push the affair to extremities, but that I must immediately give back the two hundred dollars Meyer said I had stolen from him, and pay fifty dollars besides for the expenses.  In vain I remonstrated my innocence; no choice was left to me but to pay or go to gaol.

“By that time I knew pretty well the character of the people among whom I was living; I knew there was no justice to whom I could apply; I reckoned also that, if once put in gaol, they would not only take the two hundred and fifty dollars, but also the whole I possessed.  So I submitted, as it was the best I could do; I removed immediately to another part of Texas, but it would not do.  Faith, the Texans are a very ugly set of gents.”

“And Meyer,” I interrupted, “what of him?”

“Oh!” replied the parson, “that is another story.  Why, he returned to New Orleans, where, with his three sons, he committed an awful murder upon the cashier of the legislature; he was getting away with twenty thousand dollars, but being caught in the act, he was tried, sentenced, and hanged, with all his hopeful progeny, and the old negro hangman of New Orleans had the honour of making, in one day, a close acquaintance with a general, a colonel, a major, and a judge.”