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The American colony at St. Petersburg was very small. Interesting compatriots came from time to time on various errands, and I was glad to see them; but one whose visits were most heartily welcomed was a former consul, Mr. Prince, an original, shrewd "down-easter," and his reminiscences of some of my predecessors were full of interest to me. One especially dwells in my mind.
We here changed cars for those of the Indianapolis line, and, nearly at the same time with three other trains, plunged into the depths of the forest. "You're from down east, I guess?" said a sharp nasal voice behind me. This was a supposition first made in the Portland cars, when I was at a loss to know what distinguishing and palpable peculiarity marked me as a "down-easter."
The American captain was a rude, uncouth Down-Easter, about thirty years old, and sat on a bench, doubled and bent into an indescribable attitude, out of which he occasionally straightened himself, all the time toying with a ruler, or some such article.
The old man, a dry, drawling, cool, down-easter, laughed in my face for my pains, telling me I had seen one of the sheeting-boards, with which he had had the bottom of the schooner covered, to protect it from the worms, at Campeachy, and that I need be under no concern about the schooner's bottom.
At the entrance to the shop he found a glass case containing samples of the man's art, and was singularly attracted to the photograph of a spruce little old gentleman in a Henry Clay collar, long mutton-chop whiskers, and spectacles. Moreover, to Matt's practiced eye, this individual seemed to savor of a Down-Easter.
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