Horace Greeley occupied one side
of the platform on which the musicians were exalted, and Peter Cooper the
other. There were other Tone-imparters attendant upon the two chiefs,
but I have forgotten their names now. Horace Greeley, gray-haired and
beaming, was in sailor costume--white duck pants, blue shirt, open at the
breast, large neckerchief, loose as an ox-bow, and tied with a jaunty
sailor knot, broad turnover collar with star in the corner, shiny black
little tarpaulin hat roosting daintily far back on head, and flying two
gallant long ribbons. Slippers on ample feet, round spectacles on
benignant nose, and pitchfork in hand, completed Mr. Greeley, and made
him, in my boyish admiration, every inch a sailor, and worthy to be the
honored great-grandfather of the Neptune he was so ingeniously
representing. I shall never forget him. Mr. Cooper was dressed as a
general of militia, and was dismally and oppressively warlike. I
neglected to remark, in the proper place, that the soldiers and sailors
in whose aid the ball was given had just been sent in from Boston--this
was during the war of 1812. At the grand national reception of
Lafayette, in 1824, Horace Greeley sat on the right and Peter Cooper to
the left. The other Tone-imparters of the day are sleeping the sleep of
the just now.
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