Alexander Leacraft was regarding with as much interest as his constitutional lassitude permitted, the progress of a distinctly audible altercation on Pennsylvania avenue, Washington, D. C. The disputants had not felt it necessary, under the relaxing influences of a premature spring, to interpose any screen of secrecy, such as a less exposed position, or subdued voices, between themselves and the news-mongering (and hungering, let it be added) proletariat of our nation's capital.
A small crowd, composed of the singular human compound always pervasive and never to be avoided in Washington, which, in that centre of political sensations, is made up of street loafers, accidental tourists, perambulating babies, "niggers," and presumptive statesmen, enclosed this "argument"; and from his elevated station, within the front parlor of the McKinley, Mr. Leacraft was afforded a very excellent view of and an equally distinct hearing of the disagreement and its principals.
The two disputants were themselves sufficiently contrasted in appearance to have allured the casual passer-by to observe their contrasted methods in debate. One—the taller—was a thin, angular man with unnaturally long arms, a peculiar swaying habit of body, an elongated visage, terminating in a short, stubby growth of whiskers, and a sharp, crackling kind of voice, with unmistakable nasal faults. He seemed to be a southern man modified by a few imitations of the northern type.