_Aug. 16._--"Chalk a big mark for today," was one of the sayings of an
old sportsman-friend of mine, when he had had unusually good luck--come
home thoroughly tired, but with satisfactory results of fish or birds.
Well, to-day might warrant such a mark for me. Everything propitious
from the start. An hour's fresh stimulation, coming down ten miles of
Manhattan island by railroad and 8 o'clock stage. Then an excellent
breakfast at Pfaff's restaurant, 24th street. Our host himself, an old
friend of mine, quickly appear'd on the scene to welcome me and bring
up the news, and, first opening a big fat bottle of the best wine in
the cellar, talk about ante-bellum times, '59 and '60, and the jovial
suppers at his then Broadway place, near Bleecker street. Ah, the
friends and names and frequenters, those times, that place. Most are
dead--Ada Clare, Wilkins, Daisy Sheppard, O'Brien, Henry Clapp, Stanley,
Mullin, Wood, Brougham, Arnold--all gone. And there Pfaff and I, sitting
opposite each other at the little table, gave a remembrance to them in a
style they would have themselves fully confirm'd, namely, big, brimming,
fill'd-up champagne-glasses, drain'd in abstracted silence, very
leisurely, to the last drop. (Pfaff is a generous German _restaurateur_,
silent, stout, jolly, and I should say the best selecter of champagne in
America.)