CHAPTER XIII.
What ever to say he toke in his entente,
his langage was so fayer & pertynante,
yt semeth vnto manys herying
not only the worde, but veryly the thyng.
Caxton's Book of Curtesye.
IN the party of which our travelers found themselves members, was Duff Brown, the great railroad contractor, and subsequently a well-known member of congress; a bluff, jovial Bost'n man, thick-set, close shaven, with a heavy jaw and a low forehead—a very pleasant man if you were not in his way. He had government contracts also, custom houses and dry docks, from Portland to New Orleans, and managed to get out of congress, in appropriations, about weight for weight of gold for the stone furnished.
Associated with him, and also of this party, was Rodney Schaick, a sleek New York broker, a man as prominent in the church as in the stock exchange, dainty in his dress, smooth of speech, the necessary complement of Duff Brown in any enterprise that needed assurance and adroitness.
It would be difficult to find a pleasanter traveling party, one that shook off more readily the artificial restraints of Puritanic strictness, and took the world with good-natured allowance. Money was plenty for every attainable luxury, and there seemed to be no doubt that its supply would continue, and that fortunes were about to be made without a great deal of toil. Even Philip soon caught the prevailing
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