44
     More of Rawlings.   Back to New York.
irritable and exhaustive; his father polite
gravely saponaceous and respectable; Mrs R.
senior nothing particular; Mrs R. junior
half the day busy about her household labors,
the rest of it pretty and goodnatured, but more
or less swallowed up by her overpowering hus-
band, against whom it was necessary to keep
up a passive laisser allez resistance.    The
man had the atrocious taste to talk dissection
and dead bodies over the dinner table.    As to
the politico-moral atmosphere here�s a sample.
The boy Fred once piped out, �Father why should
there be any niggers?   Why don�t they kill �em all?�
which went with no rebuke.       We had more
talk of the war to-day than yesterday diversi-
fied by my reading �Orpheus C. Kerr� and �Les
Miserables.�   If Rawlings had been less ram-
pant, less jerky-minded, less demonstrative
altogether, I might have tried to enjoy myself.
But he wouldn�t let one alone; he even accom-
panied one to the water-closet!
  28.  Tuesday.   To New York by 3 1/2 P.M.
Met Bellew.  Up in the Tribune Office.  Saw Gay,
House, England and Wilkeson, the latter edito-
realizing.   Up town.  Scribbling.
  29.  Wednesday.   Scoring up the last twelve
pages.      By the semi-obscene jokes and cackle
at the boarding-house table I learn that Miss