DOBEEN AND GRIPE. 51 



therefore, why the professor for short should call him, 

 as he nearly always did, " Semi." 



Shamus Dobeen, our cook and body-servant, accord- 

 ing to his own account, was the child of an impov- 

 erished but noble Irish family. Indeed, we doubt if 

 any Irishman was ever promoted from shovel laborer 

 to body-servant without suddenly remembering that 

 he was "descinded" from a line of kings. At the 

 time Shamus was added to the population of Ireland, 

 the patrimonial estate had dwindled down to a peat 

 bog. As this soon "petered out," Shamus went 

 from the exhausted moor into the cold world. He 

 had been by turns expelled patriot, dirt disturber on 

 new railroads, gunner on a Confederate cruiser, and 

 high private in a Union regiment. The position of 

 gunner he lost by touching off a piece before the 

 muzzle had been run out, in consequence of which 

 part of the vessel's side went off suddenly with the 

 gun. Captured, he readily became a Union soldier, 

 and could, without doubt, have transformed himself 

 into a Cheyenne, or a Patagonian, had occasion for 

 either ever required. 



While in Topeka, our party made the acquaintance 

 of Tenacious Gripe, a well-known Kansas politician, 

 and who attached himself to us for the trip. Every 

 person in the State knew him, had known him in 

 territorial times, and would know him until either 

 the State or he ceased to be. 



Flung headlong from somewhere into Kansas dur- 

 ing the "border ruffian" period, he would probably 

 have passed as rapidly out of it had he been allowed 

 to do so peaceably. But as the slavery party en- 



