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1Author:  Ingraham J. H. (Joseph Holt) 1809-1860Requires cookie*
 Title:  Herman de Ruyter  
 Published:  1997 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: It was a few minutes past nine o'clock three evenings previous to the sudden disappearance of the beautiful `Cigar-Vender,' whose adventurous life, up to that time, has afforded us the subject of a former Tale, when the keeper of a miserable book-stall situated in a narrow thoroughfare leading from Pearl into Chatham street, prepared to close his stall for the night. His stall consisted of some rude shelfs placed against the wall of a low and wretched habitation, with a sunken door on one side of the shelves by which he had ingress from the side-walk into a dark narrow apartment that served him as a dwelling-place. There were shelves against the street wall on both sides of his door, a board placed in front of which, encroaching about two feet upon the pavement formed a sort of counter. It was supported at each end by rough empty boxes, in the cavity of one of which, upon a bundle of straw as it stood on end, facing inward, lay a small, ugly shock-dog with a black turn-up nose, and most fiery little gray eyes. In the opposite box, vis-a-vis to the little spiteful dog crouched a monstrous white Tom cat, with great green eyes, and a visage quite as savage as that of a panther. Thus with the counter and the boxes supporting it, the keeper was enclosed in a sort of ingeniously constructed shop, which he had contrived to cover by a strip of canvass, which served as a shade from the sun as well as a shelter from the storms. The contents of his shelves presented to the passer-by a singular assemblage of old books, pamphlets, songs, pictures of pirates and buccaneers hung in yellow-painted frames; two-penny portraits of murderers and other distinguished characters in this line, with ferocious full lengths of General Jackson, and Col. Johnson killing Tecumseh! Rolls of ballads, piles of sailor's songs of the last war, last dying speeches and lives of celebrated criminals, were strewn upon the counter, to which was added a goodly assortment of children's picture books and toys. Cigars and even candy were displayed to tempt the various tastes of the passers-by, and even gay ribbons, something faded, exposed in a pasteboard box were offered as a net to catch the fancy of the females who might glance that way.
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