The last New Year's day previous to the one herein spoken of, was passed by the subscriber on board a Mississippi steamboat—said boat being fast aground on a sand-bar—provisions all gone—the captain, steward, and one of the bar-keepers being occupied playing "poker" with the passengers at one end of the boat, while the more piously disposed were listening to the drawling tones of a nautical preacher, who was discoursing second-hand sanctimony at the other—crew all on a "bender" in the engine room, firemen all drunk on the boiler deck, and every body generally enjoying themselves.
Made no calls, myself, except at the bar, where I wished myself so many happy New Years, and so many compliments of the season, that I slept that night on a pile of cotton-wood, and when I attained my state-room, next day, I found each berth occupied by a colored fireman, both with their boots on; one with my Sunday coat under his head for a pillow, his hair decorated with sundry lumps of stone-coal, and his red flannel shirt ornamented with the contents of a tar-bucket, and the carpenter's glue-pot.
Since that eventful time, I have become a sojourner in town, and on the approach of New Year's, had felicitated myself on the prospect of seeing how New Yorkers celebrate this universal holiday.
Intended to call on my friends, and hoped, as the number of my feminine acquaintances in this immediate vicinity is small, to get through in time to spend the afternoon at my new boarding-house, where Mrs. Griggs, my landlady, and her two daughters were to receive calls, and who had invited me to be present and see "the elephant" as far as the proceedings of the day should disclose to an unsophisticated eye, his mighty and magnificent proportions.
Early in the morning, dyed my incipient but dilatory moustache into visibility, dressed myself as fashionably as the resources of my limited wardrobe would permit, and, attended by my fast friend Sandie, started on my journey, intending to "fetch up" eventually at my boarding-house, "stopping at all the intermediate posts by the way."
A word about my friend Sandie. I have become much attached to him, from his strong resemblance in habits to the "fat boy" of the Pickwick papers.
He sleeps every where.
In the omnibus, on the ferry-boat, in the store, at the Post-Office, in church, at the theatre, and even while walking along Broadway.
I have known him stop twenty-one stages in the course of an afternoon's walk by nodding at the drivers while he was enjoying a peripatetic nap. The first time I saw him I was the humble instrument of preserving his valuable existence. He had started to go to the Post-Office to mail an important letter, but had fallen asleep in Nassau street, and the bill-stickers had nearly overlaid him with show-bills, announcing that at the Bowery Theatre would be played the drama of the "Seven Sleepers," to be followed by the song "We're all a Nodding," the whole to conclude with the farce "Rip Van Winkle."
In fact, he sleeps every where, except at table.