76
A. C. Hills.
supplied editorials to the Post. He had read
more than the average of newspaper men and
loved Tennyson; he could repeat passages
from his poetry of some length. He was a
lewd person, a frequenter of New York brothels
and a great friend of Stedman�s, though
he could not approach that individual in un-
utterable baseness. Both of them had a story
about their taking poor little Boweryem to a
brothel and leaving him there, having pur-
loined his clothes, so that he was obliged to
return to the Unitary Home very early one
Sunday morning in a dressing-gown, without
trousers. What I heard from the little man
rather confirmed it. Hills delighted in
talking of himself, like most Americans, had
indeed a hard, material selfishness at the root
of his nature very unloveable. Yet he was
appreciative of excellence in others and not
illiberal. A man more constantly on the
look-out as regarded his own profit and
advancement I have never known.
In popular phrase he was always �on the
make.� I had met A. G. Hills, al-
most his namesake, at the Astor House, in
attendance on Gen. Banks, and was rather
prepossessed in his favor. A good looking, fair-
haired, fair bearded Bostonian, got up in