tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">CHAPTER XXVI.
Containing the metaphysics of Indian-hating, according to the views of one
evidently not so prepossessed as Rousseau in favor of savages.

CHAPTER XXVII.
Some account of a man of questionable morality, but who, nevertheless, would
seem entitled to the esteem of that eminent English moralist who said he
liked a good hater.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
Moot points touching the late Colonel John Moredock.

CHAPTER XXIX.
The boon companions.

CHAPTER XXX.
Opening with a poetical eulogy of the Press, and continuing with talk inspired
by the same.

CHAPTER XXXI.
A metamorphosis more surprising than any in Ovid.

CHAPTER XXXII.
Showing that the age of music and magicians is not yet over.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
Which may pass for whatever it may prove to be worth.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
In which the Cosmopolitan tells the story of the gentleman-madman.

CHAPTER XXXV.
In which the Cosmopolitan strikingly evinces the artlessness of his nature.

CHAPTER XXXVI.
In which the Cosmopolitan is accosted by a mystic, whereupon ensues pretty much such talk as might be expected.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
The mystical master introduces the practical disciple.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The disciple unbends, and consents to act a social part.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
The hypothetical friends.

CHAPTER XL.
In which the story of China Aster is, at second-hand, told by one who, while not
disapproving the moral, disclaims the spirit of the style.

CHAPTER XLI.
Ending with a rupture of the hypothesis.

CHAPTER XLII.
Upon the heel of the last scene, the Cosmopolitan enters the barber's shop, a
benediction on his lips.

CHAPTER XLIII.
Very charming.

CHAPTER XLIV.
In which the last three words of the last chapter are made the text of the discourse,
which will be sure of receiving more or less attention from those
readers who do not skip it.

CHAPTER XLV.
The Cosmopolitan increases in seriousness.

THE CONFIDENCE-MAN:
HIS MASQUERADE.

^ >

CHAPTER I.
A MUTE GOES ABOARD A BOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

At sunrise on a first of April, there appeared, suddenly as Manco Capac at the lake Titicaca, a man in cream-colors, at the water-side in the city of St. Louis.

His cheek was fair, his chin downy, his hair flaxen, his hat a white fur one, with a long fleecy nap. He had neither trunk, valise, carpet-bag, nor parcel. No porter followed him. He was unaccompanied by friends. From the shrugged shoulders, titters, whispers, wonderings of the crowd, it was plain that he was, in the extremest sense of the word, a stranger.

In the same moment with his advent, he stepped aboard the favorite steamer Fidèle, on the point of starting for New Orleans. Stared at, but unsaluted, with the air of one neither courting nor shunning regard, but evenly pursuing the path of duty, lead it through solitudes or cities, he held on his way along the lower deck until he chanced to come to a placard nigh the captain's office, offering a reward for the capture of a mysterious impostor, supposed to have recently arrived from the East; quite an original genius in his vocation, as would appear, though wherein his originality consisted was not clearly given; but what purported to be a careful description of his person followed.

As if it had been a theatre-bill, crowds were gathered about the announcement, and among them certain chevaliers, whose eyes, it was plain, were on the capitals, or, at least, earnestly seeking sight of them from behind intervening coats; but as for their fingers,