to know of some good fortune that came to me and to feel my gratitude to
him, as dear old John Mahoney did. When I was next in London he was gone.

It was not, however, the actor, Newton, whom I had in mind in offering a
bread-upon-the-water moral, but a certain John Hatcher, the memory of whom
in my case illustrates it much better. He was a wit and a poet. He had been
State Librarian of Tennessee. Nothing could keep him out of the service,
though he was a sad cripple and wholly unequal to its requirements. He fell
ill. I had the opportunity to care for him. When the war was over his old
friend, George D. Prentice, called him to Louisville to take an editorial
place on the Journal.

About the same time Mr. Walter Haldeman returned from the South and resumed
the suspended publication of the Louisville Courier. He was in the prime of
life, a man of surpassing energy, enterprise and industry, and had with
him the popular sympathy. Mr. Prentice was nearly three score and ten. The
stream had passed him by. The Journal was not only beginning to feel the
strain but was losing ground. In this emergency Hatcher came to the rescue.
I was just back from London and was doing noticeable work on the Nashville
Banner.

"Here is your man," said Hatcher to Mr. Prentice and Mr. Henderson, the
owners of the Journal; and I was invited to come to Louisville.

After I had looked over the field and inspected the Journal's books I was
satisfied that a union with the Courier was the wisest solution of the
newspaper situation, and told them so. Meanwhile Mr. Haldeman, whom I had
known in the Confederacy, sent for me. He offered me the same terms for
part ownership and sole editorship of the Courier, which the Journal people
had offered me. This I could not accept, but proposed as an alternative the