University of Virginia Library

4. BOOK IV.

1. CHAPTER I.

ALTHOUGH John hastened with all possible speed to
New York, anxious as he was to meet the friends that
were still dear to him, and to re-visit the places that had been
sanctified by the presence of his earliest, his first and almost
his only friend;—his more than father; he looked forward
with dread to a meeting with Mrs. Tuck, for he had no consolation
to offer to the proud and bereaved mother; and
though he longed once more to see Fidelia, he hardly dared
to think of her, for what could he say to her, when he had
offered her a free undivided heart but a few weeks before, and
now must come to her in the character of a widower. But
these thoughts gradually gave away to grief for his father as
he approached nearer and nearer to his now sad and desolate
house. It was late in the evening when he reached the hall
door, and as he pulled the bell, he was obliged to lean against
the pillars for support. He found Mrs. Swazey and Jeremiah
sitting in the back parlor, and they both caught hold of his

hands together, but neither could speak a word. All three
sat down and wept in silence. They knew each other's
thoughts well, and there was no need of words to communicate
them. The servants stood looking in at the door anxious
to speak to young Tremlett, and to tell him how rejoiced they
were to see him again and to condole with him in his affliction,
but not knowing how to begin they soon withdrew to
greet Patrick, who now came in with the baggage, and to
learn from him the particulars of his adventures.

Mrs. Swazey was the first to break silence, for having
given the freest vent to her grief it was soonest exhausted.

“That dear good soul is gone,” said the old lady, “precious
heart, if the dear Lord had only spared him to see you
again, he would have gone as happy as a little child. But
he went off as quiet as a lamb, and talked beautifully. Didn't
he, Jeremiah? O, if he isn't happy I don't know who is. It
will be hard for us if he isn't. And such a funeral, it would
have done your heart good. They say it was the longest
procession ever known, and when they got to the comentary
the minister made as beautiful a prayer as ever was heard.
They say it was lovely. Everybody was there, and there
was a long piece in the papers about it. I've got it cut out to
show you. Dear Lord! And there you was almost dying in
that dreadful place all the time, O, it was too much.” Here
the old lady indulged in a fresh flood of tears, when Jeremiah
to save his young friend from a fresh infliction of her
eloquent grief, took a candle and motioned to him to follow
him. They went up stairs into the old gentleman's room
which had not been disturbed since his death, and Jeremiah
proposed that they should strive for consolation and support
in prayer, and he then knelt down and prayed in a low
solemn voice; and his words calmed their feelings, so that
at the end they were enabled to speak together placidly and
without tears. John requested Jeremiah to remain in the
house that night, but begged to be left alone in his father's

chamber, that he might indulge, undisturbed, in the feelings
which a sight of his apparel and the furniture of his room
awakened. They embraced each other, and Jeremiah withdrew.

John looked around the room, but he could see nothing
distinctly; his eyes were blinded with tears and he threw
himself upon the bed where he lay a long while, until he
was disturbed by a gentle tap at the door. It was Mrs.
Swazey. “Thank my dear God, for this,” said the old lady,
as she sat down her chamber lamp, and threw her arms
around him and kissed him, “precious heart, I dream't every
night I seen you as plain as I do now; but don't stay in this
room, my child; there is your own chamber prepared for
you. I have had the new chintz curtains put up, and you
will be more comfortable than you can be here.”

“I must sleep here to night, mother; to-morrow I will
go into the other room, but to night I must remain here.”

“Well, well; you shall do as you wish; Thank my dear
God! I shall sleep happy this night,” and then the old lady
kissed him once more, and bade him good night.

He threw himself upon the bed again where he lay until
past midnight, his mind dwelling upon the past scenes of his
life, and sometimes conjuring up scenes of the future; the
house was still as a tomb, the candle burned low in its socket
and after flickering awhile, seemingly struggling to retain its
hold upon the exhausted wick, at last went out and left him
in complete darkness. Thus he thought his good old father
had died. The thought rather tranquilized than disturbed
his mind, for it suggested no image of pain or violence, and
he might have fallen asleep, had not this quiet thought called
up in his recollection the peaceful happy look of his father's
face as he had dreamed of seeing it while he lay sick in
Charleston. But, was it a dream? No. He now remembered
how distinct the appearance had been; the impression it
had made upon his mind; and the certainty of its being a

real apparition and not a fantasy of the brain, for the event
which he felt it foretold, had happened exactly at the time
when the shade of his father first appeared to him. He had
forgotten these things until this moment; why, he could
not conceive; for they had made a deep impression upon his
mind, and his blood chilled as he thought of them. He wished,
and yet he dreaded to see his father again. He was not
superstitious; he had never been troubled by idle fears; but
the thought of being visited by a disembodied spirit, even
though it was the spirit of one whom he had loved, and who
could only come to him from motives of peace and good will,
terrified him, and his heart beat quick, and the sweat started
upon his forehead, as the probability of the same apparition
again presenting itself occurred to him. All the stories that
he had ever read or heard of spirits, rushed through his mind,
and all the arguments that he had ever heard made use of in
favor of spectral appearances came up fresh in his memory.
And, notwithstanding that he had never been at a loss for a
refutation, he could think of nothing now to urge against their
speciousness. He would have called to Jeremiah who slept
in the next room, but a strange feeling of awe had taken possession
of him, the very darkness seemed like palpable fetters
upon him, he could neither move nor speak; or he felt that
he could not, at least; and yet he knew of no reason why he
should not. Of one thing he was certain. He was wide
awake, in the full possession of his faculties, and entirely free
from fever. Yes, it might have been a hallucination before,
but now, come what might, he could not be deceived. Hardly
had this thought filled his mind, when his father again stood
by his side. He saw him as plainly as he had ever seen him
when alive; there was no glare of light, nothing strange, nothing
to affright him; there he stood and gazed upon him
with a fixed, calm, and happy look. Although the apprehension
of seeing the venerable shade again had filled him with
terror, now that he beheld it, he experienced no fear, but rather
a holy, calm delight. He knew it was love, that called
him there, love that survives death. He did not speak aloud,
but he seemed to commune with the spirit, and he knew that
his own thoughts were understood. A strange feeling of
numbness suddenly came over him, he lost all consciousness
of thought or feeling; the apparition was gone; he opened
his eyes and it was light. The sun was streaming into his
window, the tread of feet was heard on the pavement, and the
distant rumble of carriage wheels mingled with the shrill
voices of perambulating merchandizers crying their wares,
filled his ears. The old familiar sights and sounds around
him, assured him that he still belonged to the eating, bargaining
and working world. Presently Jeremiah opened his
door.

“What, are you already dressed?” said Jeremiah.

“I am already dressed, because I have not been undressed,”
replied he, “O, Jeremiah, I have seen—” He checked
himself suddenly, and changed his subject. He was afraid
to say what he had seen. And it was a strange thing, but
he thought after all that he might have been in a dream.

The news of John's arrival was soon noised about, not
only among his own immediate acquaintances, but among
the public at large, for his great wealth, and the respectability
of his father, made him a personage of sufficient consequence
to have his arrival chronicled in the public prints; and the
small papers contained the most wonderful particulars of his
history, wonderful from their utter dissimilarity to the truth,
for which they were reproved by the larger papers which corrected
the errors of their tiny contemporaries by counter statements
still more wonderfully incorrect. However, these
things all tended to bring him into notice, and he found himself
beset by a host of particular friends whose existence he
had been living in most unfortunate ignorance of until that
time. Before he left the house Tom Tuck made his appearance.
Their meeting was respectful, but solemn. No allusion

was made to Julia, and after a few common-place observations,
they parted, promising to see each other in the evening.
Jeremiah now informed John that the business of the
house had been entirely suspended, waiting for his return,
and that it was necessary to take immediate steps for the settlement
of the estate, as many of the holders of the obligations
of the house were impatient for their money. As John was
ignorant of the proper steps to be taken, he called upon his
father's lawyer, Mr. Polesworthy, for advice. And this gentleman
told him that the estate must be settled by the executors
named in the will, and asked their names. “The will,”
said John, “where is the will, Jeremiah?” But Jeremiah
had not seen it. So they returned together, to the house, and
searched in the desk and private drawers of the old gentleman
but no will was there. They rummaged his apartment
through and through; they examined the pockets of all his
clothes; they broke open chests; they tore open bundles of
papers; they ransacked in the cellar; they searched in the
garret; they left no hole or corner unexamined, but they
found no will. Then they went down to the counting room
and searched all the pigeon-holes of his desk; they untied
all the bundles of old letters and invoices that had been lying
on top shelves and in dark corners collecting dust for years;
but no will was found. Mr. Polesworthy had assisted in
drawing up a will five years before, and two of the students
in his office, one of whom had removed to Illinois and the
other to Arkansas had witnessed it; the other witness was
the Junior partner, Mr. Tuck. Perhaps it had been deposited
in the Bank, of which the old gentleman had been a director,
for safe keeping. But, upon enquiry they found that it
had not been. Then they re-examined all the places that
they had searched before but still without success. The
will could not be found. The whole day was consumed in
this wearying business, and at night John sank down exhausted
with the fatigue he had undergone, and bewildered at the
strange event. Mr. Polesworthy had cautioned him not to
mention the circumstance of the missing will, but when Tom
Tuck called upon him at night, he told him of it in confidence.
Tom was amazed to hear it. And knowing the prudent,
methodical habits of Mr. Tremlett, he feared that it must
have been destroyed by accident.

“It will be a horrible, wretched, dismal business, if no will
can be found” said Tom Tuck, “all that money may go to
the people, confound them, and you will be left without a
copper. Something must be done to prevent it.”

“I do not see what can be done. I will submit without a
murmur if I cannot get possession, in an honest manner, of the
property which I know my father intended for me.”

“Well, I am no philosopher myself,” said Mr. Tuck, “and
if I were in your place, I would curse like a pirate about it, if
I did nothing else. But I would be even with the Law, you
know; and when the Law, which is always a villain, and
takes the part of villains, because if there were no villainy
there would be no Law, attempts to cheat me out of my
rights, I am an ass if I don't do my best to cheat the Law.”

“But the Law is framed on general principles, and is no
doubt correct; if I have to suffer from its operation it is my
misfortune, and not the fault of the Law.”

“Ha, ha, ha! Excuse me for laughing,” said Tom, “ha,
ha, ha,” but his laughter needed no excuse; there was not a
bit of merriment in it. “Your apology for the Law is its
severest condemnation. The devil himself could not quote
his own damnation out of scripture, more adroitly. It
is the curse of the Law that it is framed on general principles,
but must have an individual application; and the chances
are, that nine times out of ten it will not meet the merits of the
case where it is applied. So that you see in a government of
laws there will generally be more injustice perpetrated than
in a pure despotism. With us the people are the Despot;
but instead of giving audience to his subjects and awarding

justice according to their varying claims, like other despots,
out of pure indolence, or want of knowing better, he frames
a set of rules, which he calls laws, and compels all his
subjects to be measured by them without any reference to
their peculiar wants. But this is not the worst of it. The
law-makers are not the administrators of the law. One body
makes the laws and another construes them, and as there is
no positive meaning to words, it frequently happens, and indeed
it almost always happens, that the man who construes
the law, finds in it a meaning very different from what the
maker of it intended. Then look again at the absurd want of
checks and counterbalances in such a system of villany and
fraud; here are about a dozen courts for the commission of
errors and only one for the correction of them. This all appears
absurd enough, I dare say, even to you who would
apologise for it, but there is something still more absurd, still
more wicked, still more deeply, damnably mulish than all
this. The law-makers themselves know nothing about law
as a study, but those who apply the law must study seven
years before they can be licensed to do so; and what do you
suppose their studies must be? Don't laugh, or rather don't
weep, for only the Devil himself could have the heart to
laugh at such an instance of human folly,—why, Greek and
Latin poets; and then after a case has been submitted to all
these hard students in the law, and been adjudged and sat
upon by one Judge after another, going up by regular steps
out of one court into another above, the last place of appeal
is to a set of Judges again who are required to know nothing,
not even their alphabet, much less Greek and Latin, and they
have the power to reverse all the decisions made by their
betters, and from their decision there is no appeal.”

“But surely you are in error as to the qualifications of a
lawyer,” said John, who had listened to this wrathful tirade
with a very serious countenance.

“Not a bit of it. I know a gentleman who was what they

call a self-taught man. He began life by teaching a school;
he afterwards became famous as an orator; he was then two
years clerk of one of the higher courts; after this he had a
seat on the bench, where he served four years in the capacity
of a Judge. Afterwards, he became ambitious of legal honors,
and he applied for admission to the bar; the judges of the
Supreme Court, in consideration of the stations he had occupied,
decided that he might be admitted to practice as an attorney
in the lowest courts after four years of probationary
study in a lawyer's office; and at the same time they awarded
three years study to his own son, a boy of eighteen, because
he procured a certificate from his father of having pursued
classical studies under his tuition for four years. The father,
poor man, was doomed to one year more, because he could
produce no certificate, he having been his own instructor.”

“But, you would not abolish all law?” said John.

“Yes I would,” replied Tom, “my friend the great Jupiter
Grizzle, has been doing a prosperous business for more than
forty years, and he tells me that he has never once resorted
to law during the whole time.”

“But what would the unprosperous do? How could they
get redress when they had been injured?”

“Precisely as they try to get it now, but always fail. As
the People are the Despot, as I before stated, they should always
sit, that is, agents appointed by them, to hear the complaints
of their subjects and award justice according to the
circumstances of the parties and not in conformity to the practice
of their ancestors, or of England or Rome, a thousand
years before. Here's a case exactly in point. The brothers
Tuck are indebted to Morphine & Nephews a thousand dollars,
for a balance due them on an exchange operation; now,
the money is due, and any two or three intelligent men who
should hear the case from the parties would decide without
hesitation that the money must be paid; but it is not convenient
for the Brothers Tuck to pay it, so they allow themselves

to be sued, and the law allows them to file objection after
objection, all based upon some allowable legal lie, by which
means judgement is delayed some two or three years, and
when at last the plaintiffs get their suit, the defendants are
bankrupts, and in addition to the original debt, the Messrs.
Morphine lose a large bill of costs.”

“Even though we should not succeed in finding my father's
will,” said John, who did not appear to have been listening
to this last ingenious illustration, “I can appeal to the legislature
and they can pass a special law giving me possession
of what I should but for an accident have been legally entitled
to.”

Tom shook his head and smiled in his peculiar manner.
“No, no, our legislators always look at the wrong side of a
question first. How much will it cost? is the first consideration;
is it right and proper? comes afterwards. I am not
much of a politician, and know but little about public affairs;
but this I do know; I have never in any one instance seen
a report of any debate upon any great subject in either the
state or national assemblies, wherein it was discussed upon
any higher principle than as a mere matter of dollars and
cents. You could have no hope from the legislature. They
would not give up their claim upon half a million of dollars
to render an act of justice to an individual.”

“Perhaps you are right. I will not allow myself to be disheartened
even though I do not recover a shilling. My
father commenced life as poor as I can be now; and with his
example before me I have no fears of success.”

“You can afford to take matters coolly, with my sister's
share of my uncle's property at your command. I should
have no fears of success myself, with such a foundation as
that to build upon.”

“I had not calculated on that,” said John, with a hesitation
in his manner,” I did not mean to claim your sister's
fortune.”

Tom looked at him a moment as though he doubted his
seriousness, but showed no surprise himself, although he
could scarce refrain from jumping out of the window, so excited
did this short speech render him, but said deliberately,
“I knew that you would not, and so I assured my mother,
who, it is true, cares nothing for the money, so overcome has
she been since the death of my poor sister.” Here he pulled
out his pocket handkerchief and held it to his eyes nearly
five minutes, during which John thought to himself it would
be as well to consult Mr. Polesworthy before he made any
positive declaration of his intentions. So he made no farther
remarks about Julia's fortune.

“Poor Julia!” said Tom, “you must excuse this weakness
but you cannot understand my feelings; you have never
lost a sister. I will try to forget her now. I have a proposition
to make to you. If no will can be found, it is clear
enough that you will not be able to recover a dollar of your
father's property, and it would be hard to take from you the
property to which you are entitled by your marriage with my
sister, and yet it is hard that I and my mother and brother
should be deprived of it since it, belongs to us by right. Now
if you are willing, we will continue the business of Tremlett
& Tuck, on the capital of my uncle, giving you full claim to
the capital, and dividing the profits, one half to myself and
the other half equally between my mother and brother and
yourself. The house is well known, has an established
credit, good correspondents, and being continued in the same
name, one half the world will not know that there has been
any change; in a few years we shall all be able to retire with
handsome fortunes.”

“I like your proposition well,” said John, “but it strikes
me that you make too unequal a division of the profits.”

“Ah, but consider my experience, and that I shall have
half the business to do myself, if not the whole of it,” replied
this singularly modest merchant, “and then remember that I
relinquish to you the whole of my sister's fortune.”

“There is something in that” thought John, so he acquiesed
in the division of the profits, “but,” he said, “I should be
glad to include Jeremiah in the partnership, even though I
had to allow him a portion of my own profits.”

“No, that I won't consent to. Jernegan is a good clerk
enough, but, I wouldn't have such a fellow for a partner.”

“Well, I will not insist upon it,” said John, “but it would
gratify me, and I doubt not prove of advantage in the end;
but one thing I must stipulate for, and that is that he be allowed
to retain the situation which he has held in the old firm, and
at the same salary. And I should be glad for all the old
clerks to be retained, who may wish to remain.”

“We will not quarrel about them,” replied Tom, “and now
I am so well satisfied with this arrangement, you must go with
me and see my mother; it will be a painful meeting, I know,
but it has got to take place, and the sooner it's over the better
for all of us.”

John would have been glad to put off the meeting with Mrs.
Tuck, but it was his duty to go and he could not refuse. So
he accompanied his new partner to his mother's house.

Perhaps our readers will think that the senior Tuck evinced
a degree of generosity in proposing this arrangement at
variance with his former actions. But no man can act contrary
to his nature. Tom Tuck knew what he was about,
and his motives will divulge themselves in good time.

They found Mrs. Tuck alone in her parlor, but when she
perceived that John had entered the room, she began a
piteous moaning, crying out, “O, my daughter, my daughter,”
nor would she lift her eyes or speak a word to him. Tom endeavoured
to quiet her, but she refused to be comforted, and
continued to exclaim “O! my daughter, my daughter! Give
me back my daughter!”

This was so distressing to John that he could not remain,
he was touched by her grief, and was forced to withdraw
without speaking to her, so keenly did he feel for her. But

he had no sooner closed the door, than she took her pocket
handkerchief from her eyes, and said,

“My son, how could you bring that fellow to me? If you
have any love for your heart-broken mother, never again let
him darken my doors. The sight of him is harrowing to my
feelings. He has deprived me of my daughter, and made us
beggars.”

“But my dear mother, we must remember that he was
Julia's husband; he is one of our family, and if we would
have him love us we must show some love for him.”

“Never, never,” replied the afflicted mother, “he has been
a source of mortification and misfortune to us since the day
when that misguided old man took him into his house. But
the worst has been done, he can injure us no more. He has
deprived us of Julia, and of the fortune which was ours by
right. Love him, my son, never! never! He will know,
before he dies, what it is to rob a mother of her child. O, Julia!
Julia!”

“You must exercise some reason, even in your grief,”
replied her son, “Julia is gone, rash girl that she was, and,
to be just, we cannot blame young Tremlett, for I know that
he had no agency in her leaving us. As for the marriage,
you know that nobody was to blame for that but Fred, and,
for the property, he has offered to relinquish his claim in our
favor.”

“But has he done it?” said his mother.

“He has not, and I will not allow him to do so. I will
make a better arrangement. I have proposed to enter into
partnership with him and use it as a capital, retaining only a
moity of the profits. But we shall get it all in the end.”

“But, does he know that his father left no will?”

“Does he know it?” said Tom looking at her with astonisement
in his face. “He does, but how did you know it?”

“I was told of it in confidence,” she replied.

“It's a strange business,” said Tom, “and it has puzzled

me confoundedly. And now that you know the facts, you
must treat Tremlett with respect, let your feelings be what
they may, I will have it so.”

“O, my son, you know that I live only for the sake of
you and Fred, and if you wish it, it is enough; but my heart
will always rebel against him.”

Mrs. Tuck was as good as her word. The next Sunday
herself and her two sons returned thanks publicly in church
through the Rev. Doctor Misty, for the safe return from
abroad after a dangerous illness of their near relation and
friend.

2. CHAPTER II.

JOHN consulted with his lawyer, Mr. Polesworthy, in regard
to his proposed business arrangement, and that gentleman
recommended him very strongly to accept of the proposition
of Tom Tuck, for he had formed a high opinion of
his business talents, and knew that he enjoyed a reputation
for financial skill, in Wall Street, superior to that of any
young man of his age. Mr. Polesworthy, though a regular
bred lawyer, one of those who pursue classical studies four
years, but never afterwards take a classic in their hands, was
exceedingly fond of business, and did not dream that half a
million of dollars was of any other use to a young man than
as a capital for carrying on a splendid trade. Therefore, he
was quite sincere in recommending John to embark his fortune
and employ his precious time in the glorious pursuit of
wealth, by buying at a small price, and selling at high ones,
any thing that could be bought and sold whether rum and
molasses, or cambric needles and chain cables; although an ill-natured
historian, such as we are not, might insinuate that he
was influenced by a desire to bring corn to his own hopper,
as he had reasonable expectations that all the law business of
any house that his new client might belong to, would fall into
his hands. But this we should be unwilling to believe of Mr.
Polesworthy. A man of his position in society, his great

wealth and standing in the church, could hardly be suspected
of such low motives. His very appearance would forbid
such a thought. He could have no motives for aspiring to
worldly possessions; for he was dispeptic in his habits, and
with the means of living like a prince he was compelled to
eat corn bread like a slave; his drink was water; and his
amusements consisted solely of such pleasure as might be extracted
from the occupation of overhauling bundles of old
musty papers and inspecting yellow covered volumes of law
reports; his house was furnished in the plainest manner and
its bare white walls were decorated with no flaunting works
of art; children he had none, and his wife's tastes were as
sober as his own; her sole happiness consisted in “cleaning
up,” and such littering things as flowers she would not allow
to grow near her; what could such people want of money?
It cost them nothing to live; and any one who could look
upon Mr. Polesworthy's spare form, his wrinkled face, greenish
eyes, and thread-bare clothes, and suspect him of avarice
or worldly ambition, must have a very low and strange
opinion of human nature; furthermore, he entertained no
company, and gave no gifts; his relations were all able to
take care of themselves, except a brother who was fit for nothing,
and providentially was provided for by government
with the rank and emoluments of post captain in the Navy,
which he was allowed to enjoy although he had not wet the
sole of his shoe with salt water for almost half a century. It
is true, however, that Mr. Polesworthy got all the money he
could, and kept all he got, but his motives for so doing were
quite inscruptable. He was a good lawyer, that is, a safe one,
and he had no lack of clients. John told him that it had
been his intention to relinquish to the Tucks their sister's property,
and that he would have done so had not Tom made
the proposal for joining him in business, upon which he turned
very pale and told his client that if he ever heard him intimate
such a thing again he would immediately have him
sent to the insane asylum, until he recovered his senses. Relinquish
half a million of dollars! Twas a burlesque on insanity.
The maddest of all maniacs would sneer at such a
want of sense. It was a proceeding without a parallel. He
did indeed remember something about an Emperor who once
relinquished a crown to his son, or something of that sort, and
of a king who gave up his sceptre to his daughters, but he
had never put much faith in such stories, and even though
they had been true, what was power to money?

John quailed under the vehement reproof of his lawyer,
and began to think that he had been entertaining a very
wicked and ridiculous purpose, and he promised his legal
friend that he would consult him before he made any important
move in regard to his pecuniary affairs.

The search for the will was resumed, but without effect,
not a scrap of writing could be found among the papers of the
deceased merchant giving the faintest light upon the subject.
It was a strange, distressing matter, and as the chances grew
stronger and stronger that the property would slip through
John's hands, from some cause wholly unaccountable upon any
principle recognised by Christian philosophers; his friends diminished
exactly in proportion to the need he stood in of them,
instead of increasing as they should have done, in conformity
with the religious philosophy they professed to have faith in.
As for John himself, the one most concerned, he expressed and
really felt very little grief on the occasion. It was a disappointment
to him, for had been taught to look upon his father's
property as his own, and many generous dreams that he had
indulged in would never be realized, but his personal friends,
and even several editors of newspapers whom he had never
known, expressed a world of pity for him, and some even
went so far as to censure his father for his carelessness in not
executing a will when he must have known that a man of
his age was liable to be taken off at a moment's notice. But
such reflections gave great offence to the one whom they

were intended to gratify. He knew what his father's intentions
had been, and he had no doubt that some accident had
hindered their execution, but even though his father had intentionally
left him without a dollar he could not complain;
he was already indebted to him for the recollection of a happy
youth, for a good education, and for many lessons of charity
and meekness. Let what might happen to him, the memory
of happy days in his youth was a stream of sun-shine that no
shadows could ever darken; it was beyond the reach of
chance; sickness, poverty and disgrace could not affect it;
it was a well of living waters, with an unfading margin of
verdant turf; it was a sky without a cloud; a sea without a
storm; it was a sun so bright that it cast no shadow before
him even though it shone upon his back.

In due process of time the public administrator took charge
of Mr. Tremlett's property, but John continued through the
aid of Mr. Polesworthy to retain possession of the house and
furniture, where he continued to live with Mrs. Swazey for
his house-keeper, and slept constantly in the little room next
to his father's that he had occupied during the old gentleman's
life time. He also administered upon his wife's estate, and
the balance sheet of the firm having been made out but a week
previous to Mr. Tremlett's death, and the amount due to her
uncle, carried to her credit, it was immediately paid over to
him by the public Administrator, upon his producing the
marriage certificate, which Mr. London had put into his
hands as he was leaving Charleston. So that he was in
reality precisely as wealthy as he would have been had his
father left a will and he had not been married to Julia Tuck.
Indeed, he was richer, for Mr. Tuck was worth more money
than his partner, their interest in the concern being equal, and
Mr. Tuck's personal expenses much less than Mr. Tremlett's.
Their investments had always been on joint account, and the
only difference in their interests was caused by the difference
in their manner of living. Furthermore, had Mr. Tremlett

left a will, it is beyond a doubt that he would have left a considerable
amount to his house-keeper, and servants and
clerks; and it would have been contrary to his uniform habit
had he not bequeathed something handsome to several benevolent
institutions, among the rest the Orphan Asylum from
whence he had taken his son, to which he had given a thousand
dollars annually for a good many years; these would
have diminished the sum total that the young man would
have to receive, largely, and it would have been still farther
diminished in converting the merchandise of the firm into
cash, and collecting many large debts of foreign houses, all
of which had been taken at their full value by Mr. Tremlett
in making a division of the estate.

It is neither becoming nor necessary in a history like this
to descend to tabular statements; but on so interesting a subject
as the settlement of a large estate, a portion of our readers
may reasonably expect some definite and positive information
for we are well aware that in a community like ours, and
among a great variety of students of history such terms as
“large amounts” and “considerable sums” have no very
significant meaning, since a very large sum to a clerk in
Grand street, would be a very small amount to a broker in
Wall street; and a large fortune in Chatham Square is a
very different thing from a large fortune in Washington
Square. For the sake of precision then, and to obviate all
misunderstandings we submit to the reader the following account
of the property paid over to John Tremlett on the—
but we musn't name dates.

                       

Check on the Treasurer of the “Real Estate and State Stock Association,”	$396.840.00
140 Shares of the Stock of the Crescent Fire Insurance Co. par value $50.00	7.000 00
100 Shares of the capital stock of the “Peoples Bank” at 100 dollars	10.000.00
50 Shares of the capital stock of the “Grocers' Bank” at 400 dollars	20.000.00
100 Shares of the “North American Life, Fire, Annuities and Inland Navigation Insurance and Trust Company,” at $50.00 dollars	6.000.00
75 Shares of the “Hamilton Marine Insurance Company” at 125 dollars	9.375.00
6 per cent Stock of the City of New York, redeemable 1920	35.000.00
5 per cent do 1890	40.000.00
5 per cent do of the State of New York, Canal Loan,	50.000.00
120 Shares of the “Cranberry Meadow Rail Road” at 100 dollars	12.000.00
20 Shares of the “Fever Swamp Canal” at 40 dollars	800.00
	$586.015.60

But as these stocks would average something above ten per
cent premium in the market it will readily be perceived that
the sum total received was equal to six hundred thousand
dollars. The “Fever Swamp Canal,” and the “Cranberry
Meadow Rail Road” were at a considerable discount it is
true; but they did not reduce the average below ten per cent.
It is proper to inform the reader, lest he should doubt the
sagacity of Tremlett and Tuck, that these stocks were not
purchased by those prudent merchants, but were received by
them from a Jobber to whom they lent money the day before
he failed, and as he wanted to do the “clean thing” by his
confidential creditors, so that he might keep his head up
among fair-and-square men, he purchased these stock sat a
very great discount and paid them away at par.

The tranfers of the stocks and cash were completed; the
partnership papers were all drawn up, and the advertisements
announcing the new firm under the old name, were just going
to be sent off, when a very trifling rupture occurred which
threatened for a while to derange the entire plan. Fred Tuck
insisted that the last name of the firm should be changed into
a noun of multitude, Tucks; his brother swore it should
not. Fred swore in his turn that it should. John had no
choice in the matter. The brothers became excited, from
words they threatened blows; neither would give up, and it
being a point of not the smallest importance, it was for that

very reason a point of honor;—for all the world knows that
debts of honor, are contracted without any consideration being
given, and that affairs of honor spring out of the very slightest
circumstances, as we have seen one gentleman challenge
another for an insinuation, who received torrents of abuse
from others without winking; the difficulty was at last happily
settled by John proposing that it should be determined
by tossing up a penny. “Heads,” cried Fred and heads it
was; so the firm was announced as Tremlett and Tucks,
very much to the chagrin of Tom who could not endure that
any body's name should stand before his own, but he knew
it was for his interest, and he kept his dissatisfaction to himself.

We have made an important omission in the above schedule,
as regards the property of Mr. Tuck; one half of the
store in South Street, the one occupied by the firm, and the
only real estate that they held, was also assigned to Julia, but
it being real-estate it could not of course be claimed by her
husband, and it fell to her two brothers as her heirs, with the
life use of it to their mother. But this was a matter of but
little consequence to the new firm, since they could still
keep possession of it. The Brothers immediately vanished
from Wall Street and tore down their little tin sign. Tom
took possession of his uncle's old desk and arm chair, and
John, with a sad reluctant feeling took the vacant seat of his
father. The first day he sat in it he burst into tears, and
could do nothing for the remainder of the day. When he retired
at night, he spent a long time in his father's room, and
wept bitterly when he remembered that he was now without
a friend in the world, at least he felt so, and for the first time
in his life he thought seriously of his own father and mother
whom he had never known. His mother he had been told
was dead, but who she was or whence she had come he had
never known. His father, perhaps he might still be alive,
and he might yet discover him. Wearied at last, and overcome

by his sad reflections, he retired to his own room and
went to bed. But he could not sleep; he extinguished his
candle but his brain was too busy to slumber; all the incidents
of his life were crowding themselves unbidden before
him, a long, long, distance back farther than he had ever been
able to see before, they seemed like regular links in a chain,
one dragging the other; the most minute events of his childhood
appeared as distinct as though they had been occurrences
of the day before; his buffetings at the Asylum, his escape,
his detection by Mr. Tremlett, his drowning sensations
when he was upset in the river; they all appeared as real
as though he were at the moment experiencing them; back,
back he went in his career until nothing could be seen beyond;
a dismal, vapory barrier closed up the prospect. “O, Heavenly
Father,” he sighed, “that I could but have caught a
glimpse of my mother's face!” As he said this he turned upon
his side, and saw again his good old father gazing upon
him with the same happy, calm, contented look. But he was
not alone. A female figure accompanied him; she was robed
in white, and her long hair fell in bright luxuriance over her
shoulders; her eyes were blue, and they gazed earnestly upon
him, but her face was not like his father's, serene and happy;
it looked unquiet and it distressed him. No word was spoken,
but he knew that it was his mother. But was she not happy?
No, he knew that she was not. As they gazed upon him, his
blood grew chill and yet his heart beat with violence; his
eye balls ached as though they would burst, he grew numb,
his senses reeled, he forgot himself, he seemed to struggle to
free himself from a strange influence, at last the spell was
broken; he opened his eyes; it was broad day and his celestial
visitors had disappeared.

This last appearance troubled him sorely. He now knew
that it was no hallucination, and he grew very serious. To
turn from an interview with the spirits of departed friends
and mingle in the helter-skelter pursuits of a commercial life

was a violent change. He longed for solitude and a friend,
one near and dear, to whose ear and heart he could entrust
the secrets that oppressed him. He knew not what these
visitations might mean; but he hesitated to take counsel of
the world, for he knew that he would meet with derision and
contempt, if he should reveal the secret of his visitants. His
spirits were sad, and he felt but little inclination to bear his
share in the business he had undertaken. But when he walked
out in the bright sun, and felt the fresh air, and saw
around him so much of life, of activity and apparent enjoyment,
and above him the pure blue sky and the glorious
white clouds sailing in their majesty and vapory beauty, he
forgot his melancholy feelings, and long before he had reached
his counting room, the hearty and cheerful salutations of
the multitude of acquaintances that he met, the hurried gait
of all whom he encountered, and the fresh external aspect of
every thing he saw, completely chased from his thoughts
every vestige of the unsubstantial, yet real forms that had
stood by his bed-side the night before.

3. CHAPTER III.

IT must not be thought that John had forgotten Fidelia, or
that his admiration of her had in the smallest degree diminished,
because we have made no allusion to her since his
return to New York; he had in reality a greater regard for
her than ever, and he only waited for a decent time to pass by
that he might call upon her, and if it should be necessary, explain
to her the circumstances under which he was married.
He had heard nothing from her, save only that Jeremiah had
passed her in the street but a few days after his arrival, since
he had written to her; and it was with an unquiet and doubtful
feeling that he rapped one evening, just after dusk, at the
door of the yellow cottage in the Bowery. Her grandmother
met him at the door, and she and the old sailor gave him a
most hearty and cordial greeting, while they expressed their
sympathy for the loss of his father in sincere and unaffected
terms. He found the old couple exactly as he had last seen
them, quiet, neat and cheerful; but Fidelia! she was not there.
A chair stood by her work-stand as though it had just been
vacated, but it was occupied by a monstrously overgrown
white tom-cat that had lost its eyes in an encounter with rats
some years before, and now in his old age shared jointly
with the drab parrot the affectionate attentions of Fidelia and

her grand parents. These worthy people could not have
lived happily without some such objects to bestow the over-flowings
of their love upon. They were not contented with
simply making themselves comfortable, and their little income
did not allow them to entertain more expensive pensioners;
although they had besides these two animal pets, sundry vegetable
favorites such as a bunch of sweet-william, an old
twisted and deformed althea, and a gorgeous sun-flower, that
they regarded with almost as great affection; while a shepherdess,
with a striped blue petticoat, a fancy boddice and a
crook in her hand, that stood upon the little black mantel-piece
received a greater number of benevolent and genuine kind
glances from the old sailor as he sat before the fire with his
pipe in his mouth, than any pastoral lady who has been piped
to since the days of Theocritus.

John sat a long while hoping that Fidelia would make her
appearance, but she came not. He made no allusions to her,
although he spoke of her father whose arrival was daily expected,
and the old people seemed purposely to avoid speaking
of her. He felt embarrassed, for he had no doubt that
they knew the nature of the letter he had sent to her, and at
last he enquired if she was well? Thereupon the old sailor
smoked his pipe very earnestly and looked at the china shepherdess,
but the old lady replied that “she was not very well,
neither was she sick,” and suddenly became intensely interested
in her knitting needles.

John was not slow to perceive these demonstrations, and
they annoyed him more than he cared to show, and after a
moment's pause he enquired if she would be at home the next
evening, and having been informed that it was uncertain, he
bade them good night, and begged to be remembered to Miss
Clearman, and left the quiet little house in a most unquiet
frame of mind. Scarcely had he closed the door, when Fidelia
made her appearance from up stairs, and throwing her
arms around her grand-mother's neck, burst into tears and sobbed
like a child.

“Never mind my little darter,” said her grandfather, “your
father will be at home in a few days and he will see that
every thing is fixed in ship-shape fashion. Don't cry about
any man my darter, there's as good fish in the sea as ever was
caught.”

“My poor child,” said her grandmother, as she wiped the
tears from her cheeks, “my poor dear child, Mr. Tremlett
spoke as kindly about you as ever. It was no fault of his, I
know. Wait until you hear what he has to say. Don't cry
so, you will break my heart. Your poor old grandmother
cannot live to see you unhappy.”

“O, let me cry, let me cry while I can,” said Fidelia, “but
don't name his name to me again. I cannot bear his name.
He cares nothing for me, neither do I for him, and he only
came here to-night to insult us because we are poor”

“Well, my darter, I am an old man, and an honest man, if
I am a poor one,” said her grandfather, “but if he or any other
man, I don't care how rich he may be, insults you he had better
not sail in the same latitude with this here old hulk, I can
promise you, so don't cry for that. Recollect that your old
grandfather won't see his darter imposed upon if he is poor.
No, no.”

Here the conversation was interrupted by the ejaculation of
the old bird “let us pray,” and Fidelia wiped her eyes, but
she could not read, and the Bible being opened upon the little
table, her grandmother read the chapter appointed for the day,
and afterwards they all knelt reverently in prayer, and in asking
forgiveness for their own transgressions forgot all the real
or fancied wrongs that others had done to them. As for John,
he had only to retire to his lone room, and brood over his
griefs. There were enough who would have been happy to
console him with their condolences, for the rich are never in
want of sympathizers, but he had no heart for their attentions,
and he avoided them all that he could. But it is no use for a

rich man to try to avoid his friends; there is but one way to
be rid of them, which was well and successfnlly tried by
a certain Timon, as our readers remember, and, therefore,
we need not allude to it more particularly.—It is a fortunate
thing for an author to have intelligent readers, it saves such
a vast amount of trouble in the way of notes and pieces justificatives;
and that ours are intelligent we have good reason
to infer from their being so select.—The next day, however,
he wrote to Fidelia a detailed account of the nature of his intimacy
with Julia, the reasons of his journey to Charleston
and the particulars of his illness and marriage, and sent it to
her by the hands of Jeremiah, and we shall learn in good time
what effect it had upon that delicately minded and beautiful
young lady.

Hitherto Jeremiah had only guessed at the nature of John's
feelings towards Fidelia, but now the young man made a confidant
of his old friend, and told him how ardently he loved
her, and of the fears he entertained that his suit would not
be acceptable to her on account of his marriage with Julia
Tuck; and Jeremiah being extremely simple minded and affectionate,
and forming all his ideas of a woman's temper from
what he had seen of it in Huldah Hogshart, conceiving in
consequence that the supremest happiness of all young and
beautiful ladies consisted in making their admirers as unhappy
as they possibly could render them, was forced to confess that
he feared John's apprehensions were not without good and
substantial foundations. But he encouraged him with such
philosophical reflections as suggested themselves to his mind;
and ventured to make a confession of his own experience in
verification of Shakespeare's immortal line. It appeared that
Jeremiah's love had been stretched to its utmost tension, and
that it had once or twice been very near snapping asunder,
and if it had done so, it could not, of course, ever have been
fastened together again in this world; for Love is no sooner

broken than the fragments immediately turn to hate; and
therefore, lovers should guard with great care, and not practice
upon the strength of the cord that binds them together,
lest its tenacity should be overtaxed, and they sundered forever.
Jeremiah's chief trouble arose from the excessive fondness of
Miss Hogshart for worldly things, and the very slight regard
that she entertained for some of his old-fashioned and ridiculous
notions. However he flattered himself, that for his sake
she would alter when they got married, and she had not the
slightest doubt that she could cure him of all his inconvenient
whims when she once got him entirely under her control.
Therefore they could each of them afford to make small concessions,
during their probationary state of courtship, and as
yet they had not indulged in any downright quarrel. But
as the reader will perceive this is not the way in which
the band that is to bind for time and eternity two human
beings, should be formed; their foibles and virtues should
be so mixed together during this period that when the
rivets are finally fastened by the agent of the Law, whether
magistrate or parson, they shall have formed a kind of
concrete which neither years, nor disgrace, nor sickness,
nor wealth, nor poverty, nor separation, nor scandal, nor
friends, nor foes, nor even death itself can ever dissolve or
rend asunder. This is sometimes, but rarely, done after
marriage, but the safest way is to do it before hand; but, unfortunately,
marriages take place at that season of life when
advice, though most needed, is least heeded, and we fear that
our good intentions in making these observations, will avail
but little with the students of this history.

As the term of Miss Hogshart's apprenticeship was nearly
at an end, and she would be compelled to return to her
father's house when it arrived, there to practice the sublime
art that she had been acquiring a knowledge of, Jeremiah's

thoughts begun to dwell upon marriage. It is true he had
saved nothing from his yearly salary, and that he could expect
nothing in the shape of property with his wife, friend
Hogshart having intimated to him that he considered the personal
charms with which she was abundantly endowed, were
an ample dower, forgetting possibly that personal charms were
as transient and fleeting as even personal property, and that
they should always accompany each other in a bride, so that
when one should chance to spread its wings the other might
be left to atone for its loss; but then he was in a good situation,
with a liberal salary and a probability of his retaining it
as long as he might wish to do so. There could be nothing
imprudent in taking upon himself the responsibility of so prudent
and industrious a wife as he doubted not Huldah Hogshart
would prove. John agreed with him, and advised him
to get married immediately, and told him to dismiss all
thoughts about the future, so far as mere pecuniary matters
were concerned. Jeremiah felt very happy to hear his own
wishes so kindly responded to by his friend and employer,
and resolved that they should be fulfilled with no more delay
than what delicacy and prudence might require. He was
obliged to acknowledge to himself that he did not experience
that strange, wild, delicious tumult of pleasureable feelings
now when the consummation of his courtship seemed so near at
hand, that he did when he first thought of such a thing in the
earlier days of his acquaintance with Miss Hogshart. But he
looked upon this as a thing of course, remembering the old
saying, that familiarity breeds contempt, and that the fiercest
fires soonest burn out. But he wished, notwithstanding, that
he could know how others had felt in his situation; whether
they had, like him, experienced any diminution of desire, as the
period of gratification drew near. He had no friend, however,
whom he dared to consult on so delicate an occasion, unless it
were Mr. Bates, and he did not consider that gentleman's opinions
as entitled to serious consideration upon such a subject.

4. CHAPTER IV.

THE new firm commenced business under as favorable
prospects, perhaps, as any firm that ever has been established
in the commercial emporium. With a large capital,
an established correspondence, a good name and multitudes
of friends, success could hardly be considered within the possibility
of doubt. But it is not every ship that sails on a fair
day that arrives safely in port; and we have known more
than one to set sail in a storm and arrive at her haven in sun-shiney
weather. We shall know all before long. Let us
hope for the best.

We have already seen taht Tom and John were provided
with desks, but no mention was made of Fred who, although
older than Tremlett, had to take rank as the junior partner,
a position which caused his proud and chivalrous heart to
swell in his bosom, and determined him to make up in externals
for his lack of consequence in position. He therefore
had a costly and magnificent desk made for his own accommodation,
with a great number of drawers, for novels, segars, perfumery
and brushes, visiting cards, a small mirror, and a great
variety of other articles equally necessary in a merchant's
counting room; it was manufactured of rose-wood and inlaid
with box and ivory in a very ingenious manner, and the
whole was enclosed by a curtain of violet colored silk, so that

he could pursue his important and abstruse calculations without
being annoyed by his partners or casual visitors. His
chair was a face simile of the senatorial chairs at Washington,
excepting only that the seat was covered with scarlet morocco,
that had been imported from Paris for a Wall Street Broker,
who had the misfortune to run away before it arrived. When
his brother saw this elegant adornment of the counting room
brought in, he ripped out an oath in his coarse manner, but
John barely smiled, and continued writing his letter. The truth
is they were neither much versed in æsthetics as Fred told
them, and for which reason he held them both in very hearty
contempt. Most of the clerks of the old firm were retained
by the new one, although, for reasons well known to himself,
Tom had contrived that no one should retain his original
position except the book-keeper, Mr. Bates, and the foreign
corresponding clerk Mr. Keckschnipen, who was quite a
miracle of a linguist, being able to write French like a German,
and English like a Frenchman, and Spanish like a
Swede, and Swedish like a Spaniard, and as they had correspondents
in all those languages, his services were indispensable,
and he received a round salary for them. Tom assumed
the financial department, his fitness for which no body ventured
to question; John was to superintend the purchases and
sales and go on `change' Fred had the agreeable duty,
generally assigned to junior partners in large houses, of entertaining
the foreign correspondents who might visit the city,
and doing the agreeable to bearers of letters of introduction;
generally gentlemen of a distingué air with moustachios
and dirty linen, and a great profusion of diamond bosom studs
and prodigious finger rings. Jeremiah at first held on to the
cash-book, but a circumstance, which our candor as an impartial
historian will not allow us to keep from the reader,
caused him to be removed from that important station, and the
domestic correspondence was placed in his charge. The
very morning after the partnership was formed, the porter
brought in a large number of letters from the post office, mostly
addressed to the old firm, and among them was one for
John, with the Charleston post mark, directed in a strange
unmercantile hand, and sealed with a very broad seal, bearing
a great profusion of heraldic scrolls and figures, and a latin
motto. Jeremiah's curiosity was so strongly excited by this
strange looking missive, that he was tempted to take it up, and
endeavor, by holding it up to the light and peeping in between
the folds, to discover who it was from, and while he was
engaged in this very wicked and disreputable act, Mr. T. Jefferson
Tuck came in. Jeremiah blushed at being caught in
such an act, and hastily threw the letter on John's desk and
was about to withdraw to hide his confusion, when Mr. Tuck
called him back.

“So, Mr. Jernegan,” said the upright financier, with a
frown of indignant honesty, “you open other people's letters,
do you sir?”

“I never did such a thing,” said Jeremiah, while a blush
of shame suffused his pale cheek.

“You never did such a thing!” repeated the financier, with
a sneer, “how dare you say so to me, sir, when I saw you
trying to peep into that letter, sir; trying to steal a secret, sir,
which you must have known was never intended for you.”

“I did not suppose there could be anything wrong in it.”

“You did not? Well, sir, that aggravates your fault.
What security have I that my letters will not be opened, with
a man who does not think it wrong to do such things, about
me. You don't think it wrong, sir, at which of your
churches did you hear that doctrine preached, sir?”

“I frankly confess that it was wrong, and that I am very
sorry for it; it was thoughtlessly done, but it was not your
letter, and I will take the consequences from Mr. Tremlett,
who alone has any right to speak to me about it; the letter
was for him—” said Jeremiah.

“Gracious God,” exclaimed the financiering partner in

amazement, “how dare you make use of such language to
your employer; you reprobate, I will have you turned into the
street for your audacity, and I will see that you enter no counting
house in this city. You have not got energy enough to
do a bold deed of villany like a a man, but you must go prowling
about like a mousing cat prying into other people's secrets,
you feline scamp. Give me your cash-book, sir, and close
the door.”

Jeremiah did as he was ordered, and had the pleasure of
being sneered at and hissed by the other clerks in the outer
office, who were not only shocked at his want of moral rectitude
but absolutely and thoroughly disgusted at his want of courage
two qualities so peculiar to the whole human race, and particularly
to clerks in counting rooms, that they well might be
indignant; but they did, nevertheless, out of pure good nature
and kindly regard, one and all advise him to go in and give
Mr. Tuck a flogging and then resign his situation. This
they considered more incumbent upon him to do, because
the financier was tall, stout, and active, and he was himself
extremely weak and slightly built, and altogether a stranger
to the noble art of flogging. As for Mr. Bates, it made him
really sick to see such a craven spirit as Jeremiah manifested,
and he felt in a hurry to get home to tell his wife about it.
Jeremiah did not exactly enjoy the thing, although he said
nothing to the contrary, but he bit his lip until the blood
trickled down upon his shirt-bosom. He had resolved not to
open his mouth until he saw John, and it was a great effort
not to do so.

The financier felt extremely pleasant at having had so
good an opportunity to show the clerks, and Jeremiah in particular,
what kind of materials he was composed of, that they
might know what their fate would be if either of them should
ever presume to cross his inclinations. He took up the letter
that had excited Jeremiah's curiosity so strongly, and tried to
decipher the motto on the seal, but he could only make out

one word “libertas” and something like “cara” or “caria,”
or both; the crest was a bunch of feathers, and some other
device peculiarly democratic which he thought too lightly of
to inspect closely. It was evidently not a business letter and
there was something about it strangely stimulating to his
curiosity. He locked the door of the office on the inside and
very ingeniously by means of an ivory paper cutter turned
the letter inside out without breaking the wax or tearing it in
the smallest manner. It was an art that required great practice
to enable one to reach perfection, and by long practice
he had become very expert. As the letter contained no secrets,
we give it to the reader, although it will scarcely repay
a perusal, as it relates solely to private matters in no manner
essential to the advancement of our history.

It read thus:

We should be extremely sorry to encumber our page with
the coarse expletives of Tom Tuck as he refolded this pious
letter and threw it upon John's desk. What he could have
discovered in the feeling and respectful letter of the good doctor,
to cause him to apply to that excellent divine such terms
as the “old sinner,” “the beast,” and many infinitely worse
epithets is in truth a matter of mystery to us. But it appeared
to be a peculiarity of the financier's mind, to apply to all
who were elevated by virtue or piety above him, the terms
which should of right have been applied to himself. It may,
perhaps, be proper to state in this place, that, for some reason
of which we are ignorant, John never answered this letter,
and whether or no the wench were called after Julia, we
have never been able to learn. If any of the doctor's children
are living, and will inform us of the facts, we will state them
in our next edition.

Tom Tuck having satisfied his curiosity, proceeded to tear
open the business letters which lay upon his desk, and before
he had finished reading them, John came in. The financier
told him in part what had occurred between Jeremiah and
himself, and added that either he or Jeremiah must quit the
concern.

“Very well,” replied John, “if that is your will, the firm
is dissolved. I will have no part or lot in the business unless
he is employed.” And he said this in so firm and positive a
manner, that Tom was confounded, and fearing to persist lest

his partner should carry his threat into execution, he at last
compromised, after some sharp words, by agreeing that Jeremiah
should take the sole charge of the domestic correspondence
of the firm, and that he would himself, to save the expense
of another clerk, assume the duties of cash-keeper. But
this was, in fact, all he had aimed at in the first place; like
the majority of smart fellows from the days of the somewhat
noted treasurer of the twelve, down to the present time, he
aimed at the possession of the bag, and he obtained it. But
he did not, therefore, forgive Jeremiah for the offence he had
committed, because he had himself gained his point, and he
concentrated his wrath and kept it close, so that when an opportunity
should occur for pouring it out, it might descend
with greater bitterness and force. His brother was full as
hostile to Jeremiah although for different reasons; he hated
him because he never read novels, because he had no spirit,
because he never smoked, and he despised him for his ugly
face, his low connexions, his want of taste, and because he
had no appreciation of the beautiful, and knew nothing about
æsthetics, not so much as the meaning of the word. Fred
Tuck was a great patron of the arts, and a very great favorite
with artists, he had in fact been elected an honorary member
of “the Academy,” and it was one of the finest things
imaginable to hear him talk of the old masters, and the antique.
He had even written critical notices of pictures for the
papers, and had, therefore, almost as good a claim to be ranked
among the literati as among the cognoscenti. That a person
of his superior taste and critical acumen, should have a
thorough and hearty contempt for such a low-minded being
as Jeremiah was not only perfectly natural, but almost unavoidable.
The first letter that Jeremiah wrote was criticized
in a very severe manner by the Junior partner, he discovered
several t's that were not crossed and more than one i that was
destitute of its most essential feature, a dot, besides a redundant
preposition; but the greatest error of all, one that he swore
he never would forgive to his dying day was the omission of
an s in the last name of the firm, for Jeremiah signed p. p.
(per procuration) and he could not convince the offended gentleman
that he had not omitted the letter on purpose. It happened,
unfortunately, that John was not present, or the matter
would have been very soon disposed of; and the corresponding
clerk after enduring a torrent of abuse, was dismissed to
his desk with a caution to be careful in future.

Having thus seen the new firm in operation, we will leave
the partners to conduct their business while we look after
those matters which in the out-door life of a man are supposed
to be of no possible consequence, but which are, in reality, the
only things in life worth the serious notice of human beings
—we mean the issues of the affections.

5. CHAPTER V.

THE evening had arrived when John had appointed an
hour for calling again at the little yellow house in the
Bowery, and happily for him, before he left his office, the
Boadicea, the ship of which Fidelia's father was master, was
reported below the Hook. So he could be the bearer of happy
news, and be welcomed for that reason if for no other.
When he reached the quiet little dwelling, it was lighted up
with the bright rays of a full moon, and it looked to him so
lovely, so pure and holy, that he thought the passers by must
think as they caught transient glimpses of its sober gable, that
it was the dwelling place of good spirits; but this thought
might have owed its existence to his previous knowledge that
an angel had in reality made the humble dwelling her home
rather than to any supernatural appearances likely to attract
the attention of Bowery passengers. When he entered, he
found the little family in their usual state of quiet and good
humor, each employed about something, and yet seemingly
happy and composed. No fluster, hurry, weariness or yawning.
'Twas a strange family. They had the good luck always
to be engaged in what was pleasantest to them, never
to have more work than they could do, nor more time than
they could happily employ; and yet they smoked a vast deal,

they read more than most families, they eat their three meals
daily and prepared their own food; they sang even, and prayed
night and morning; yet they had always leisure to entertain
a friend, and they were never obliged to be `out' because
they were not in a condition to be seen. It was a very strange
family, and we fear there were not many such in the Bowery.
It was a blessed thing to alight on such a nestling. So John
thought as he drew his chair to the little work-table where
Fidelia sat plying her needle. He noticed her changing color,
first white, then red, and then white again, for his eyes were
fixed full upon her face; but he did not notice the glances,
full of meaning of some kind, that passed between her grandparents,
She answered his questions slightly, but there were
whole volumes of meaning in the tones of her voice, and
when she did raise her eye-lids so that he caught a glimpse
of her bright eyes, O, he read there more than we could write
in a whole year. So eloquent is the soul when it speaks without
affectation, so rapidly can she communicate her thoughts
when one is disposed to read them aright. What happened
on this particular visit, what words were said, what looks
were looked, what vows were vowed, is not absolutely essential
to be known. Love, like murder, will out, it is one of those
things that cannot be hidden, and it will be enough to relate
that John and Fidelia knew that each loved the other, and
that they each vowed in their souls to be as true as truth,
and henceforward there was to be no happiness but in each
other's society, excepting only in the society of each others
thoughts, which may not after all be an exception. But
there were no vocal promises made, no writings drawn up and
witnessed, no appointments about marrying, all these things
were to be delayed until the approval of Fidelia's father could
be asked, and they were all happy beyond expression; the old
man and his wife and the daughter to hear that their long
absent son, father, and protector had arrived within sight of
home, What a joy. After a long absence from all that is
dear upon earth, sailing over unknown seas, encountering
pamparas and whirl-winds, water spouts and lightnings, all
the dangers of the deep; the perils of pestilent atmospheres;
the spear of the savage, the stiletto of the pirate, he had arrived
at last. Do they forget God in their gratitude? No, it is his
goodness that has done it, and to him they give thanks.

John did not prolong his stay beyond the usual hour, but
he would gladly have done so; and when he left the little
quiet court, it was no longer illuminated by the moon's rays,
but it lay wrapped in darkness: scarcely could he mark the
outline of the modest gable against the dull leaden clouds
that hung above it in the sky. He had the least possible touch
of superstitious feeling, and he could scarce help thinking
that there was something ominous in the different aspect that
the house wore now to what it did when he entered it; but
this feeling did not last long, the clear, soft, sweet good night
of Fidelia still sounded in his ears and seemed to creep into
his heart and vibrate along its chords, so that he could soon
think of nothing else. But when he lay down upon his bed,
in the deep stillness and darkness of night, his father came
and gazed upon him again, and that other form, robed in
white, that he knew to be his mother's; he fancied there was
a sadness in their looks now, but how could that be? Before
they disappeared from his sight another joined them, whose
sad look made his heart almost burst, and caused the cold
sweat to start from his forehead. It was Julia Tuck, she did
not look angry, but troubled and grieved. Her sad pale face
and mournful eyes, were too much for his strength, he swooned
and lay a long, long while, sinking, as it seemed, through
deep, black and bottomless abysses until he was aroused, and
he opened his cyes, and the phantoms were gone. It was still
dark, and he lay with a beating heart a leng time before he
fell asleep.

He awoke in the morning with melancholy thoughts. The
rays of a bright summer's sun made his chamber as cheerful,

as lively and as pleasant as it could be, and a thousand familiar
substantial things surrounded him and gave him, in some
degree, an carthly and composed feeling; but one who communes
with the invisible world over night cannot in a moment
discover sufficient importance in mere earthly particles,
let them be presented in never such winning shapes, when he
awakes in the morning, as to forget that there are spirits about
us, once of us, who cannot but look upon such things with
disdain if they even look upon them at all. We all pretend
to believe in our own spirituality, and that when the essence
which keeps our bodies in motion shall be dead, we too shall
still exist somewhere and somehow, but how many, like him
have ever known this fact, and looked upon the faces of the
departed ones whom they had communed with in the flesh?
Doubtless there are many of whom the world has never
heard, to whom this privilege has been granted, for men keep
their most important secrets always to themselves. There
are few persons who would care to be distinguished as Ghost
seers. Such an unhappy notoriety would tend but little to
advance a man's interests in the world, and those who converse
much with spirits would do well to keep their own
counsel. So thought John, and therefore when he was questioned
as to the cause of his melancholy, his afflictions, of
which the world knew, were sufficient causes to assign. But
these visitants disturbed him not a little. Why should he
above all others be selected out to receive calls in this manner?
It was true they were his own friends, by whom he had
been caressed and beloved, while they were living, but there
must be a serious meaning in their visits which he had yet to
learn. Perhaps the missing Will had something to do with
them? But it could not be. He could ask advice of no one,
for who could penetrate the veil that hangs between Time
and Eternity; therefore he resolved to wait patiently and see.
And as he knew that he was watched by those whom he had
known here, and with whom he must dwell hereafter, there
was a continual feeling of restraint in all he said and did.

The open air, the blue sky and the bright sun, exerted the
most potent influences in dissipating his sad feelings and
strange forebodings, and, by the time he had reached his
counting room, he was alive to the world again, and all the
phantoms of the night were forgotten, but not the bright vision
of the Bowery cottage; and his first enquiries were about
the Boadicea and her master.

But the master of the Boadicea was dead. He had sickened
and died on the passage home, from Manilla. This news
was a terrible blow to John, for he knew how severely it
would be felt by his new friends in the Bowery, and he determined
to be the bearer of it himself, that he might, if possible,
by rendering any service in his power, mitigate its severity.
We will not accompany him upon his melancholy errand,
to witness the effect of the news that made the old couple
childless, and their grand-daughter an orphan. There is sadness
enough in the world that we cannot shun, and if happily
any of us have not yet tasted of sorrows, they will come
full soon; there is no need to partake of those we can avoid.

6. CHAPTER VI.

THE merchants of old times held their fortunes by most
ticklish tenures, and what with water rats and land rats,
water thieves, and land thieves, merchandising was an uncertain
business enough as we know; but the cords which fastened
their purses then, when every man was his own banker,
were chain-cables compared with the cob-webs to which a merchant
of our own day must trust for security. The new firm
had been in operation less than a month when they lost nearly
one half their capital by the faliure of the Real Estate and
State Stock Banking Association. Tom Tuck had selected out
this Bank for keeping their principal account, upon a secret
arrangement with the president of it that he should be chosen
a Director to fill the first vacancy that should occur in the
board, and before they had had an opportunity, or occasion, to
withdraw a quarter of their funds, the bank failed, and its affairs
were placed in the hands of receivers appointed by the
Chancellor. In addition to this very serious loss, the Financier's
Wall street speculations had turned out badly, and to
make good his deficiencies and sustain his credit in that quarter,
he was forced to draw largely from the funds of the firm,
which he had no right to do; but as he had entire control of
the finances, he kept this a secret, and that he might retrieve

his losses, entered into new speculations, buying and selling
stocks on time to a frightful extent. But still the capital of
the firm was large, even with these deductions, and amply
sufficient to meet all their engagements, and better than all,
their credit was good for a very large amount. John was
frightened at their loss by the failure of the Real Estate and
State Stock Association, and cautioned his partners to be prudent
in their private expenses, and requested the Financier to
distribute his deposites among four or five banks for fear of
accidents.

But their great loss and the caution of his partner had but
small effect upon Fred Tuck. A young gentleman of his elegant
tastes could not curtail his expenses; it was a low-lived
and vulgar thought, and he contented himself with the reflection
that when the worst did come, he would marry some rich
girl and live upon her income in a genteel quiet way in the
country. For the present he was amusing himself by building
a little box on Long Island, for a summer residence for
himself and a few of his elegant friends; he called it a box
merely because it is a grand thing to apply diminutive
epithets to such great affairs as common people would distinguish
by magnificent names, but his architect, a gentleman
of distinguished taste, who had been to Europe and was consequently
au fait at everything, called it the “beau ideal of a
gentleman's villa.” It was in the Gothic style, built of brown
free stone, and decorated with fine carvings and a great profusion
of stained glass. Very Gothic indeed. It was fit for
almost anything but the purpose for which it was intended.
The cost of this box was very great, and as Fred could not
pay for it by making direct drafts upon the firm he raised the
the money by discounting the notes of the firm, through a
broker in Wall street, and paid them when due by renewals, at
an exorbitant rate of interest. He also kept a carriage, three
horses, a groom and a tiger, besides other necessaries that we
must not name, and defrayed the cost of them in the same

manner as he paid for his box. Then he bought a pew in a
fashionable church, became a member of the jocky club, and
took an interest in several joint stock companies, of which he
was made a director. He was first on the list on all complimentary
benefit occasions, and never failed to do the genteel
thing whenever his name could be put into the papers. His
mother idolized him, and did what she could, in her womanly
way, to stimulate and emulate him, but his brother Tom had
no sympathy with them. He was devoted to business, and
the only change that he made in his manner of living was to
keep a saddle horse and a valet; but his private speculations in
Wall street continued to make losses, and all the purchases for
account of the firm had left heavy balances on the wrong side.
They had a ship bound from Malaga with an entire cargo of
fruit abandoned in mid ocean, she having sprung a leak; she
was insured at the Occidental Office, but before the insurance
fell due, the company broke, and the insurance was lost.
This was a small matter, however. They shipped a cargo of
cotton to Liverpool, upon which they received an advance
of two-thirds the amout of the invoice, and were afterwards
drawn upon for something more than eight thousand pounds
sterling to make good the deficiency in the nett proceeds
short of the advances. This was a serious loss, and what
made it worse, was the fact that it was reported on `change,'
and cast a slight shade upon their credit; and they had the
mortification to hear that their paper had been refused at
one of the banks. As soon as the financier heard of it, he
immediately offered to discount it for less than bank interest,
his offer was greedily accepted, and it being a large
note they had not sufficient money to pay it; they were
obliged therefore to submit to a shave, and it fell to John's
turn to negotiate a loan. Tom directed him to the Brothers
Mildmen, a pair of the smoothest, plumpest, and best
dressed gentlemen in Wall street, who occupied a little dark
office in the base ment of a very high brick building, and
by some unseen means, grew rich and maintained themselves
in the quietest, genteelest, and most comfortable manner conceivable.
It so happened that they were the very brokers
who had been employed by Fred to dispose of his accommodation
notes, and therefore they were well acquainted with the
paper offered, and were able to state without hesitation the
terms on which it could be done. John felt himself peculiarly
fortunate in having fallen into their hands, for it is assuredly
better to be shaved by a keen smooth razor than by a
rough and rusty one, but when “brother Peter,” the oldest
and portliest of the Messers Mildmen, named nine per cent
per month and one per cent commission, he started back with
amazement, and returned to the financier and told him that
they must not submit to such extortion. But his partner
convinced him that it would be to their advantage to do so;
for it was not to be debated that their credit was of infinitely
greater importance than the comparatively trifling loss they
would sustain by paying even so large a discount to sustain
it. So John returned to the Brothers Mildmen, and the negotiation
was completed on the terms named by brother Peter.

Resorting to bad expedients to maintain either your character
or your credit must always hasten on the catastrophe you
would avoid. This is a rule that has no exceptions. Let no
one, therefore, flatter himself that his case will prove one.
There is no man so cunning, so experienced, or so fortunate,
that he can with impunity violate a law of Nature; integrity
is the one necessary ingredient in busines without which success
is impossible; it is as essential as light and heat to vegetation.
But these common-places are already familiar to you.
We know that they are; but alas, and alas, that there should
be any necessity for repeating them.

Unfortunately for the credit of the new firm, the same
merchant who held the note which they had made so great a
sacrifice to discount, had purchased their other note through
the agency of the brothers Mildmen, and by this operation,

made for the express purpose of hiding their necessities, their
financial resources became known at the Bank of which the
accommodating merchant was a director, and from thence
was whispered around from one friend to another, in a confidential
way, until the circumstance was known to all the
monied men in Wall street. And, to their utter dismay and
disappointment, the new firm found that their stability was
suspected, in spite of their great exertions and sacrifices to
keep their credit unsullied. It chanced to be one of those
unlucky years when every body loses money, and a poverty-struck
feeling, for some unaccountable cause, pervades the
community. Prices of every thing fell; they were forced to
sell their stocks at a discount, and some of them proved nearly
worthless, such as the Cranberry Meadow Rail Road, of
which they held twelve thousand dollars, and the Fever
Swamp Canal, of which they luckily held but eight hundred.
Their shipments almost all turned out disastrously, and they
made many bad debts by failures at home. John grew
alarmed, for he saw his capital melting away at a fearful rate
but the Financier encouraged him, and proposed, by some
grand operation, to retrieve their losses. After much discussion
they at length agreed to make a speculation in coffee,
and having ascertained the precise number of bags in the
market, they determined to get the control of the whole, and
by that means raise the price; and by close figuring, Tom
demonstrated to his own satisfaction, and in a degree to the
satisfaction of John, that they could realise a profit nearly
equal to all their losses. Fred approved the scheme highly;
and he was anxious to have it carried into immediate execution,
for he began to experience some difficulty with the
Messrs. Mildmen in negotiating his accommodation notes, and
his gothic villa was not more than half completed. Money
he must have by some means or other, and his brother had
restricted him to an allowance immensely short of his wants.
He had serious thoughts of undertaking a speculation on his
own account, by giving the paper of the firm, and monopolizing
all the brandy and champagne in the country. These
were articles of which he considered himself a very competent
judge, but he found upon making an attempt through the
agency of a broker, that time purchases could not be made to
any great extent and he abandoned the idea. The brothers
Mildmen positively refused to renew any more of his notes
without an endorser, and he was in an agony of apprehension
lest a knowledge of his transactions should reach his brother.
But he continued his building and contracted new debts, and
by some means succeded in getting his notes renewed by the
brothers Mildmen, and was as gay and as elegant as ever.
The coffee speculation was entered into as deeply as their
credit and means would allow, but in order to obtain possession
of certain small lots, they were compelled to pay very
high prices, and obtain the money by more discounts through
the agency of their gentlemanly friends, the Messrs Mildmen.
Other plans were projected and partially entered into, but the
coffee speculation was the great scheme upon which their
hopes chiefly rested, and as so large an operation took a long
time to carry out and wind up, before we acquaint the reader
with the result of it, we will return to other matters that require
our attention.

7. CHAPTER VII.

THE death of Fidelia's father had changed the quiet happy
home of the old sailor into a house of mourning, but
the visits of John were not the less frequent therefor; he was
unwearied in his attention to the old couple, and strove, by
all the means in his power to make them forget their loss.
He promised to be to them a son, and doubtless Fidelia's grief
was greatly mitigated by his tender solicitude for her welfare.
At the request of the old sailor he had administered upon her
father's estate, and had taken possession of the property left
by him, some five or six thousand dollars. The sad event
that had thrown them all in mourning, had prevented any
arrangements for the marriage, and the day that he so anxiously
wished for, was deferred until time should dry up their
tears. In the mean time he was preparing a little surprise
for them, or rather for Fidelia, for she filled his mind to the
exclusion of almost every body besides. He had purchased
a few acres on the sunny side of Staten Island and had built
a cottage that he meant to present to her as a bridal gift. It
stood on a gentle eminence, overlooking the sea and the highlands
of Neversink, but was screened from the Northwest by
lofty hills, whose tops were fringed by cedars, and hardy
evergreens. It was the greenest and sunniest spot in the
world, and as you looked around, the eye could not detect an
object to cause an unpleasant sensation. A little grave yard

lying near, with its white slabs and mossy tomb-stones peering
above the rich verdure, and gleaming among the trees,
rather harmonized with the quiet and peaceful scene, and
gave to it a sentiment of repose, than awakened a sad or
gloomy thought. The blue sea, gleaming beyond rich fields
of ripening grain and luxuriant verdure, was a source of unfailing
freshness and beauty, while the white sails of innumerable
ships, gliding like spirits over the bosom of the vasty
deep, and sailing away into the blue depths of the horizon,
disappearing so gently that you scarce knew when they
were gone, imparted a strange feeling of mystery and romance.
Then at night the bright beacons on the Hook and
upon the brow of the highlands, glimmered and sparkled
cheerfully, and seemed like stars, always rising, and yet fixed
in their spheres. And yet they did not seem like stars;
there was such a look of good-natured humanity about them,
a kind of winking intelligence, which seemed to say, “here
we are, always on hand of a dark night; let the wind howl
ever so loud, or the rain and sleet drive as hard against us
as it can, we never close an eye or turn back from the
storm, but always keep a sharp look out for homeward bound
sailors. We love to wink at them as they draw towards
home and wish they may find their sweet-hearts and wives
as they left them. Never fear us.” One of them was indeed
a regular flasher, and stood higher than the others, and seemed
to lord it over them, sometimes looking dim and sulky,
like a proud beauty, or a great man in a pet, and then again
bursting out with such a rich stream of light that it dazzled
your eyes to behold it.

In addition to these pleasant sights, the landscape was dotted
all over with low-roofed stone farm-houses, that glistened
in the sun shine, they were so white and neat; but being
half hidden in the shade of lilacs and horse-chestnuts,
and old apple trees, they did not glare upon you, like the
house of a rich lawyer who showed the fruits of his four

years of classical studies by putting up a clap-board copy of
the parthenon on the tip top of a high hill close bye as
though he would challenge the admiration of mankind. He
had emerged from a narrow dirty street in the city, and perching
on the top of a high hill he called retiring from the world.
A huge unseemly thing the building was, the very embodiment
of ostentation, ill taste, and four years of classical studies.
And yet we are in candor compelled to acknowledge that it was
not so strictly classical, but that Ictinus of Athens, the architect
of the original Parthenon, might possibly have discovered
some trifling deviations from his model, if he had inspected
it with an eye to criticism. But it was not too near to be disagreeable,
and, indeed, helped at the distance of John's little
cottage, to variegate the scene, and as you looked around of a
bright day, you saw only a vast picture of green, with
patches of silver, and dusky gold, partially bound by a belt of
azure in the distance. The cottage itself was neither in the
Gothic, Greek, Italian, or Chinese style, but of the Yankesque,
as a friend of the owner's called it; it belonged to the
soil and climate, and seemed to have grown there, like the
sycamores and chestnuts, and broad spreading elms which
stood around it; it had a low sloping roof terminating in a
piazza, and every thing around it seemed rather to have been
suggested by the wants and tastes of its builder, than to have
been formed after the whimsical fancies of some architectural
jack-a-napes living three thousand miles off. It was not in
the smallest degree bookish, nor deformed by any Walter
Scottisms, to make plain honest men feel like cuffing the proprietor's
ears for his affectations. There was nothing about
it for show, but everything for comfort, and in the early part
of June it was almost smothered in roses; they climbed up
against the windows, with their white and damask cheeks, and
breathed into the rooms from their dewy lips the most delicious
perfume. It was the only cottage that we have ever seen that
exactly realized the wish of lady Mary Wortely Montague, being
“in summer shady and in winter warm.” It was a source
of great delight to John and he loved to anticipate the surprise
and happiness of Fidelia when she should first see it. And
he half wished that he had not embarked in business, that he
might spend his whole time there, for the cares and anxieties
of his present way of life, were beginning to weigh heavily
upon him and oppress him sadly. By insensible degrees he
had been led by his partner to take part in some transactions
that troubled him to think of. He had been visited more constantly
than ever by his father's form, sometimes alone and
sometimes accompanied by his mother and Julia. These appearances
made him sad at times, and cast a shade of gloom
over his thoughts and feelings that he could not always dissipate
by mixing in company, and he thought that he might be
free from them if he were to change his residence. He had
given up all hopes of ever finding his father's will, but the
thought sometimes occurred to him that if he could but communicate
with him by speech, when he appeared to him, he
might be directed to it; but whenever the venerable form of the
old man looked upon him, all mercenary thoughts were chased
from his mind, and he could not have spoken, even though
he had wished to do so. It would have been a great relief
to his feelings if he could have brought himself to make some
friend a sharer of his secret; but he felt a repugnance, which
he could not account for, to divulging a word in regard to his
spiritual visitants. Their mission was to him alone, and he
felt bound to silence. If he could have spoken out, Jeremiah
would have been his confidant. But he could not. He felt
that a spell was upon him.

Jeremiah was not unmindful of a change in the aspect of
his friend, but he attributed it to other causes than the right
one; he knew that John had causes enough for sadness, and,
though he was himself of a hopeful temper, as all good and
sincere people are, he never lacked a reason for a downcast
look, and he did not marvel greatly at the melancholy of
others. But he was full of business at this time, of a strictly
private nature, that left him but little leisure to think of anybody's

affairs but his own. Miss Hogshart's time was up, and
in a few days she was to return to Berkshire county with her
father, that exemplary friend having come down to yearly
meeting with his eldest son, and Jeremiah had ventured to
talk of marriage. It was a tremendous subject, and when he
spoke to the young lady in rather plain and direct terms, he
thought he had accomplished a great feat; his heart beat terribly
at first, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth;
his knees trembled, but fortunately for him, they were sitting
on one of the benches on the Battery, and his trepidation was
not discovered by her. But when he found that she listened
to him, not only without laughing at him, but actually with
fondness and apparent pleasure, and that she seconded all his
propositions with great good nature, and allowed him to put
his arm around her waist without flinching or making any
ado about it, a desperate and tumultous energy suddenly inflamed
him, and before he had time for a second thought, he
clasped his arms around her neck and ravished her lips of at
least a dozen warm delicious kisses, ere she could exclaim,

“What is thee doing, Jeremiah? Thee musn't, thee musn't.”

“But the deed was done; and instead of apologising for
his rudeness, he was half determined to repeat his offence.
In truth we are not certain that he did not before he escorted
her home. A new relationship rom this moment sprung up
between them. He no longer had any doubts of his love for
her, and as she sat in the moonlight with a little bit of her
dove-colored slipper peeping out from beneath her spotted
muslin, he thought her the most bewitching object that the
moon had ever shone upon; he could have fallen at her feet
and kissed them, so full of love was his soul. And she was
to be his forever! Happy, happy, Jeremiah! The world is
not all a fleeting show, after all. They sat a long while on
the Battery benches, watching the moonlight as it flickered
among the trees, and fell in broad sheets of silver upon the
bay, and whispered the most surprising things into each
other's ears, which prompted them ever and anon to a gentle

pressure of the hand; and then they told such amusing stories,
and laughed at each other's pleasantries as freely and as gaily
as though there was nothing but laughter, and kisses, and
moonlight in the world. But Time travelled on, wholly regardless
of them and all the other innocent hearts that were
unfolding themselves, and revelling in the rays of that bright
moon which was fast sinking behind the blue hills of New
Jersey, and Jeremiah, who would not have been guilty of an
indecorum under the influence of fifty moons, proposed returning
home; and they arrived there in good season, although
Mr. Bates was just in the act of blowing out the hall
lamp as they entered the door. The hall being dark, a playful
little scene, mostly pantomimic, was performed by the two
lovers which ended in Jeremiah's catching Miss Hogshart's
pocket handkerchief and bearing it off in triumph to his room,
where he placed it beneath his pillow and was visited by
pleasant dreams while under its potent influence. There is
great witchery in a pocket handkerchief which has once been
handled by one's mistress, as every body can testify who has
been in love; but whether it be in consequence of the aura
which it imbibes from the lips, or fingers of its wearer, we are
unable to state with precision, having never met with any
new-auric professor willing to hazard an assertion upon the
subject.

Jeremiah arose the next morning a new man, neither better
nor worse, perhaps, than he had been, but still a different being.
He felt himself capable of greater things; a new life
had been infused into his veins; the earth and its inhabitants
had a new look; there was a broad bland smile upon the face
of nature that he had never seen before. He called upon
Huldah's father with a bold assurance that surprised nobody
so much as himself, and demanded of that smooth, yet formidable
personage, his daughter's hand. Considering that Jeremiah
had never worn a drab coat, and that he did not esteem
it essential to salvation to say thou when the rest of the world

said you, this was no small proof of courage; for friend Hogshart
was not a man to encourage presumption, even when
habited in his farmer's suit of linsey-woolsey, but attired as he
was now, in his yearly meeting coat and breeches, his fine
portly figure set off to the best advantage, and his authoritative,
yet broad and healthful countenance, shadowed by his
immense broad brim beaver, to make such a demand of him
with tolerable composure, required a set of nerves equal to
great undertakings. But Jeremiah approached him with a
stout heart notwithstanding, and we have no doubt felt a glow
of pride in contemplating such a fine looking old fellow as
his future father-in-law.

He looked not much unlike, saving color, the portly bronze
figure of William Penn which delights the eyes and hearts of
the Philadelphians. He condescended in the most gracious
manner to encourage Jeremiah's addresses, but declined giving
a direct assent to his wishes before he had consulted his wife,
“Thee shall have my consent, Jeremiah,” said the worthy
old soul, “provided my wife don't say nay; we must be consistent,
thee knows, in all things, and it is but right to consult
her, because I require her to consult me in all that she undertakes.
But as Huldah seems to have a strange disposition to
follow the ways of the world, I think it will be best for her
to remain a season under discipline in Berkshire; a change
of pasture, thee knows, sometimes has a good effect upon
stock.”

Although Jeremiah was dreadfully shocked by the old gentleman's
figure of speech, and deprecated the idea of their being
any necessity for such a change as it implied, he made no objection
to the proposal. He left his future father-in-law with a light
and happy heart, and feeling as proud as his meek and gentle
spirit would allow him to do. It was a whole week before her
departure, and he was determined, in his own phrase, to redeem
the time, by which he meant, no doubt, taking moonlight
walks upon the Battery; for so pleasantly had the last

evening's enjoyments impressed themselves upon his memory,
he almost wished that life was but one long moonlight night
and that its chief employment was sitting under the shade of
green trees by the side of Huldah Hogshart. Why should he
not? His hardest duties now appeared but mere pastime to
him, and his deeds of kindness and charity, heretofore his
chief pleasure, were now performed with a new delight;
even Tom Tuck appeared like a gentleman in his eyes, and
F. Augustus almost a man.

8. CHAPTER VIII.

WE know not what temptations may beset the paths of
other historians, leading them off from their legitimate
labors into dismal swamps of digression, but the will-o'-the-wisp
that most frequently flashes across our path, is a disposition
to sermonise as we hurry along. We see not how it can
well be otherwise, since every act of a man's life would furnish
a text for a discourse as long as an Oxford tract; and we
who write the histories of mankind, with their lives spread
before us like a map and know in the beginning to what catastrophe
or good fortune each particular action will lead, how
their most serious interests will be travestied by themselves or
their decendants, and their loftiest aspirations soonest tumbled
into the dust, above all others, might preach with good effect
on the uncertainties of human labor if it were our vocation to
do so in direct terms. But the sermons that men find in
stories must be like those which the exiled Duke found in
stones, unwritten and unspoken. Our privilege is limited,
we must teach by example only; but, were it otherwise, we
should be tempted past resistance to dilate at some length on
the vanity of human calculations when we took note of the
remarkable manner in which the wishes of those hard working
and thrifty merchants, Hubbard Croaker Tremlett and
Griswold Bacon Tuck, had been thwarted in the disposition

of that property the acquisition of which had cost them so
many years of their lives and so many of the world's pleasures.

Mr. Tremlett had been forty years in accumulating his property;
the anxieties, the sleepless nights, the heart burnings,
the unwholsome labor, and the waste of thought it had cost
him, were vastly disproportioned to its value, but he repined
not at these things, because, at last, he could enrich with it one
whom he loved; and yet, by some slight accident, his wishes
were defeated, the object of his affections received not a penny
of his earnings, and his life and his labors had been spent in
vain. But still worse did it happen to Mr. Tuck, for those
who were the especial objects of his dislike, whom he had
designed to cut off from the least participation in his wealth
were the complete masters of his earnings, and made themselves
drunk with the sweat of his brow, while they despised
him for his labors. Poor man, he had been hoarding up dollars
all his life for his worthless nephews to squander, when
he would not while living have given them a shilling.

If departed spirits ever do look upon the earth, what a perturbed
condition must the unhappy ghost of poor Mr. Tuck
have been in, had he chanced to be regarding his two nephews
one morning, when seated alone in their private office, the
following conversation passed between them.

Tom.—What, does that scoundrel Jacobs ask for more
money?

Fred.—Yes, and he must have it. Listen to his unconscionable
demands. The low wretch; the ungrateful tiger! I'll
kill him. If there's any virtue in lead or steel he's a dead Jew

Tom.—Don't trifle about the matter; read the letter.

Fred.—(Reads) “Friend T.” (the rattlesnake,) “I want
a trifle to help me out of a little difficulty which I got into
about something which I got accused of, and which I am innocent
as the child unborn. Friend T. you must send me
this or I shall be down upon you like bricks. I'm sorry it's
so much, but it can't be helped, I want five thousand six

hundred dollars ammediently, and you must send it. I say
nothing, but you know what I mean; you must send the
money. I want the dust and no mistake. You have always
been a trump card, so am I. Times are hard. I have been
unfortunate in my speculations, and if you don't send it you
know what will happen. I can give you my word and honor
as a gentleman. But send the money and there's no mistake
in me.

Your Ob't S'vt and esteemed friend,
S. Jacobs.

P. S. Don't mistake about the amount, five thousand six
hundred (5,600 dollars,) if you don't send it there's no Texas
about me, and you know what comes next.

Tom.—Curse him, the Iscariot wretch; I wish there was
an Inquisition for his sake and that I was grand Inquisitor, I
would tear his dog's flesh with hot pincers for this. The
whelp, he has already spent almost half of old uncle Gris's
earnings, and but for the miserly old hound I should not have
got in this villian Jew's clutches.

Fred.—That's true, confound him, if he had left us his
money in a gentlemanly decent manner, as he should have
done, we should never have been compelled to make a league
with this Isrealitish devil to secure our own rights. However
it's done now, and there's no help for it. He must have the
money. One thing I will swear to, I will never take a rogue
into my confidence again. I would sooner make a contract
with the old boy himself than with one of his agents. Curse
every body and every thing. To be threatened by a scoundrel
Jew. I am half resolved to go to Europe.

Tom.—Stop. You talk like a woman. The man must
have the money and we will dispose of him afterwards. It
will be the last. And now for the means. Our account at
the Bank is already overdrawn, so you must shin for it. I

will send him a check, and I must trust to you to provide for
it. I have got other matters to attend to.

The great coffee speculation had been entered into so deeply
that the entire funds of the house were absorbed in their
purchases; they had got the sole control of the market and
their venture promised to return them a profit nearly equal to
all their losses, when a cargo unexpectedly arrived from
Sumatra, and the owners of it, knowing that our firm would
be compelled to purchase it or lose the advantage which they
had gained at so great a risk, refused to sell it, except for cash
and at a very great advance on the current price. The resources
of the financier were already exhausted; all the paper,
stock, and merchandise of the House had been hypothecated,
and their credit exhausted, in making their purchases; they
had sold all their negotiable notes to the Brothers Mildmen,
and used to its fullest extent the line of discount allowed them
at the Banks, and the only possible means by which they
could obtain more money was by procuring good endorsers to
their notes. They had already used the names of their friends
to as great an extent as they could be procured, but there was
one name, if they could by any means get it, that would enable
them to procure the sum they needed. This was the
name of Andrew Kittle, a Scotchman, who had once been in
the service of the old firm of Tremlett & Tuck as a porter,
and who had saved up enough from his monthly salary to
establish himself in a grocery in the Five Points, and had
there made money enough to enable him to set up as a jobber
in Front Street, where he had become very rich, and was
looked upon, not without good reason, as the very staunchest
merchant in his line of business in the city. The financier
proposed to John to call upon Mr. Kittle and offer him a share
in the profits of the coffee speculation, for the use of his name
to the amount of twenty thousand dollars. But John refused,
knowing the cautions and griping disposition of the grocer,

until at length, overcome by the persuasions of his partner, he
consented to make the application, and entertained some hope
that the favors which his father had done for Mr. Kittle, in
his outset in business, might induce him to comply with their
proposition.

It was dark when John called at Mr. Kittle's store, and he
found the rich old grocer busily engaged in mixing liquors
with the aid of a young lad whom he was instructing in this
lucrative part of his profession. But the old gentleman dropped
his proof-glass, and invited John into his back office, when
he began to talk about the money market and the prospects
of trade, for these were the only subjects upon which he was
ever known to converse, excepting only church affairs, which
occupied his attention on Sundays. John made known the
object of his visit, but did not at first offer him a portion of the
profits in the speculation.

“Well, and what good will it do me to endorse a note for
you?” replied Mr. Kittle.

“It may not do you any good, sir,” said John, “but it will
do me and my partner a great deal of good.”

“But that's nothing to me. My money is mine, young
man, mine, mine,” said the old man, striking his breast vehemently,
to impress the idea more forcibly upon his auditor's
mind that he meant himself and nobody else. It was an intensely
selfish motion. “My money belongs to me, myself. I
made it and I mean to keep it, young man. It belongs to me.”

“I did not ask you for money, sir, but your signature,
which will cost nothing.”

“Ha, ha, young man, my signature, what shall I get by
that?”

“Do you never do anything, but for a consideration?” said
John, “would you refuse to save a man from drowning because
you were not paid for your labour?”

“Ah, ha,” said Mr Kittle, “you will never get rich, young

man; my credit is for myself, I can't lend it to my neighbors,
it's against scripture. I earned it and I mean to keep it good;
always above proof. You won't find old Kittle's paper flying
about in the market; that's the way to have a credit.”

“I proposed offering you a per centage on the profits growing
out of this operation,” said John, “and besides, we will
guarantee you against loss in the case of any accident.”

“You can't afford it; it's not safe; no, no, your father
wouldn't have done such a thing. It's too much. I can't. It
won't do. I'm principled against it. You have no right to
ask such a thing of me.”

“I know I have no right, but—”

“Well, well, then don't do it; don't do a thing you know
to be wrong,” said the grocer, impressively, at the same time
taking hold of the candle-stick as though he was impatient to
return to his brandy-pipe, “I am afraid, young man, you don't
go to church on Sundays. You musn't do things that are
wrong. It's no way to get along in the world. Do as I have
done, and as your father did before you; keep your own money
and ask no favors, and then you'll not be obliged to grant
them to others.”

“Good night,” said John, making no other reply to his excellent
advice but hurried out of the store.

“Good night; be careful of the skids,” said Mr. Kittle, as
he held the candle above his head to light the young man
out. “Now Jake, take fifteen gallons out of that new pipe
of Otard Dupuy and fill it up with pure spirits.”

Mr. Kittle having delivered this order to the lad, returned
to his little back office and took a large yellow pocket-book
out of the iron chest, from whence he drew a huge bundle of
notes and selected four bearing the signature of Tremlett and
Tucks. His hand trembled as he made a minute of their
amounts. It was a large sum, so large that it frightened him.
He had bought these notes of the Messrs. Mildmen at a very
large discount, and the application for his name alarmed him

and as ill luck would have it, the next day was Sunday, and
he would not be able to sell them. Unhappy Mr. Kittle.
After a week of contention and turmoil, one day of holy peace
was necessary to a pious soul like his. Let us hope that the
thoughts of his doubtful paper disturbed not on the morrow
the comforting exercises of the blessed Sabbath, and that he
enjoyed, in his velvet cushioned pew, his accustomed hour of
repose, under the soothing influence of Doctor Slospoken's
drowsy discourse and the slow and solemn chaunt of Mr.
Parsnip, the precentor's voice.

John returned from the grocer's to his own counting room,
and reported his ill success to the financier, who thereupon
gave utterance to prodigious volumes of abusive epithets, not
only upon the head of Mr. Kittle, and the whole Scottish
people, but upon the respectable fraternity of grocers throughout
the world. It was a strange peculiarity of the elder
Tuck's, that when an individual offended him his displeasure
included every possible person and thing in the most remote
degree connected with the offender, extending even to all of
the same name, profession or country. He was, indeed, the
most thorough and complete hater that ever lived, and yet he
never allowed his dislikes to interfere in any manner with
what he conceived to be his interest. To do so would have
been to do an injury to himself, and not to the object of his
hatred. And we must not deny him the justice to admit that
he was a person of such strict impartiality that he had as
little scruple in sacrificing a friend as an enemy, when
either stood in his way. He was one of those people whom
it is dangerous even to know or be known by; and if he did
not do you an injury, it was because it was inconvenient.
And yet, in spite of these singularities, the financier was a
very adroit person in making friends of those from whom he
wanted favors; he had two winning qualities, which are
very serviceable in giving a man a quiet passage through
life; he could always laugh when he thought it necessary,

and he never did think it necessary unless something was to
be gained by it; and he could lie without blushing. He was
a true laughing philosopher, not one of those merry cackling
creatures who are forever throwing away rich streams of
mirth upon promiscuous witticisms, and so exhausting their
powers that when anything is to be gained by laughing at a
dull story, or a stupid practical joke, they cannot command a
smile to save themselves. No, he was none of those vapid
minded ne'er-do-weels, not he. His mirth was always sincere;
he meant something by it.

It was Saturday night, as we have already stated, and on
Monday the bargain for the newly arrived coffee must be either
closed or rejected. Upon this one transaction depended the
result of their speculation. If they could obtain possession
of this one cargo the market would be in their hands, and a
magnificent fortune would be the result; otherwise, the
issue of their extensive and hazardous enterprize would be
extremely doubtful. They required but a small sum of money
compared to the whole amount they had embarked in
this speculation, but they had exhausted all their resources,
and there was no way by which it could be obtained but by
a good endorser, and this they had in vain tried to procure.
The two partners parted for the night, with their minds full
of the matter, and John had been so absorbed in it, that he
could think of nothing but coffee; everything that he saw or
heard, or smelt, was tinged, or scented with coffee; and even
when he fell asleep he dreamed that he had stolen a sack of
Mocha and was pursued over the desert by a horde of wild
Arabs; then again he found himself in that place bargaining
for a cargo of it with an unmentionable prince, where the
Haytien President said that you might lure a Yankee merchant
with only a bag of the berry. As for Fred, the junior
partner, he had selected out a bag of the finest old government
Java from all their purchases, and had sent it over to his beau
ideal villa, where he was entertaining a small party of foreigners,

consisting of singers, authors, and actors, to whom he
swore that his coffee was the genuine Mocha, imported in one
of his own ships direct from the Red Sea.

Let us leave them all to their cares and revels, and give
ourselves up to the refreshing quiet and repose of the blessedest
day of the seven, ere we enter upon the exciting and
eventful week which is to follow.

9. CHAPTER IX.

WHETHER Mr. Kittle had allowed his mind to dwell
upon mere worldly matters during the Sabbath just
past, or not, we have no means of knowing, and as he attended
with his customary strictness to all the duties of the day,
we have no right to believe that he did; but we have the
best reasons in the world for presuming that with Monday's
light his thoughts reverted back to the subject which had
occupied them on Saturday night, as earnestly as though no
Sunday had intervened. For no sooner did he reach his
store than he grasped the notes of Tremlett & Tucks which
he had bought of the Messrs. Mildmen, and hastened with
them to those gentlemen, and gave orders for their sale at a
larger discount than that at which they had been purchased,
which was a very large discount indeed, for they were some
of Fred's renewal notes. Mr. Kittle did not give any explanations,
but merely said that he was in want of the money,
which the brothers Mildmen understood in a figurative sense,
for they knew that Mr. Kittle was a moneyed man, and that
he could procure as much as he might want at legal interest;
therefore they inferred that he had discovered something unfavorable
in relation to our new firm, and as they held some
of Fred's notes themselves, as collateral security for a temporary

loan, they resolved to protect their own interests first
by making sale of the notes in their possession, and offer those
belonging to Mr. Kittle afterwards. Mr. Kittle could very
easily have obtained the money for the notes by offering them
at the Grocers' Bank of which he was a director, but as he
would in that case have been obliged to put his own name
upon them, he would have gained nothing by the operation.

While the Brothers Mildmen are running about trying to
make sale of their securities, we will look in upon the new
firm and see how they succeed with their suspended bargain,
upon which their own fortunes, as well as the fortunes of
many who do not as yet dream of danger, hang. Tom and
his brother met their partner when he came into the office
with a pleasant smile, and shook him cordially by the hand,
an unusual demonstration of good feeling, and then rubbed
their own hands as though they were excessively happy; and
they well might be, the mails had brought them intelligence
from every quarter of a rise in coffee, and they informed John
that they had completed the bargain for the new cargo that
had stood in their way. He enquired upon what conditions,
and they, or rather Tom, informed him, after locking the
door, in a whisper, that they were to give endorsed notes at
ninety days, upon condition that the notes should not be put
into the Banks and that the terms should not be made public.

“And who is the endorser?” asked John.

“Who?” replied the financier, “ha! ha! ha! old Kittle,
of course.”

“But he has refused; and I will sooner forego the whole
profit of the speculation than ask him again,” said John.

“Never mind; a bird that can sing, and won't sing, must
be made to sing,” said the financier, “leave him to me. I have
got his name, and all that I require of you is to complete the
arrangement with the owners of the coffee, and keep the transaction
to yourself. Ask no questions.”

“But I must ask one question, and it must be answered,”

said John, “by what means did you gain Mr. Kittle's consent
to this arrangement?”

“I see no necessity for your asking such a question,” said
Tom, “and I have already told you that it is a private arrangement,
and it must remain so.”

“It takes Tom to do the financiering,” said the junior partner,
with a knowing wink.

“But in a matter like this,” said John, “you have no right
to have any secrets, you must not forget that I am a party interested,
and I shall consent to no arrangement so important
as this, unless I know all the conditions of it.”

“Then you may go to—” the financier checked himself
suddenly and gulphed down whatever word it was that he
was going to utter. “Do you doubt my honor?” he continued,
more mildly, but still with an angry flash of his grey eyes,
“do you leave me to do all the business of the house, make all
the contracts, write all the letters, and after you have yourself
failed to complete a negotiation for an endorser, insist on
breaking the contract when I have succeeded in arranging for
one through the aid of my personal friends and my own personal
influence? To gratify your stubborn whims, myself
and mother and brother must be ruined, when we gave you
an interest in the concern out of charity to you.”

“You have said enough,” replied John, “I will destroy
nobody's property or happiness to gratify my own feelings;
but bear in mind that you and I are no longer as we were.
I will ask for no explanations; complete the arrangement that
you have begun and when this speculation has been closed,
we will revert to this morning's talk again.”

“Just as you please,” replied Tom, “but henceforth I am
going to be head of this house, whether my name stands first
or not.”

“We will not quarrel about that now,” said John, and one
of the clerks coming in just at that moment, put an end to the
conversation, and when they were left alone again, the financier

requested John to call upon the managing partner of the
house of Madden & Co., the owners of the Sumatra coffee,
and tell him that they would complete the bargain for the
entire cargo by a delivery of the notes the next day, to the
estimated amount of two-thirds of its value, according to
agreement.

“Curse him,” said Tom, as his partner closed the door,
“we will have him now, and if he doesn't repent of the day
that he was dragged from the pauper's nest where he belongs,
my name is not Tom Tuck.”

But this hideous speech called forth no remark from his
brother Fred, who sat behind his violet curtain reading the
last new novel; nor was it in truth intended to do so, it being
a kind of soliloquy in which the financier indulged too often
to excite any particular remark when he was overheard,
as he was not in this instance. Fred was deeply engaged in
in the midst of one of those delicious bits of description which
the fertile pens of the great geniuses in Great Britain are constantly
throwing off for the benefit of our young ladies and
gentlemen, and steam presses and paper makers and literary
street hawkers and pedlars, and he had become quite
oblivious to coffee speculations and ninety days notes, being
employed much more to his liking in cramming himself with
such interesting facts as these:

“The round red sun was fast sinking like a weary and
“battle-stained knight, far into the distant west, while a gor
“geous canopy of glorious clouds, bathed in streams of fiery
“gold, hovered around him as though they were the hangings
“of the violet-colored bed in which he was about to stretch
“his mail-covered limbs, when Sir Reginald halted on his
“coal-black charger before the quaintly carved oaken gates of
“a somewhat dilapidated baronial castle of the olden time.
“On either side might be seen clumps of England's glorious
“trees, while above the distant coppice a light blue smoke
“arose in the air, like some gentle spirit just exhaled from
“the earth. In front was a terrace flanked with quaintly
“carved flower-pots, and beyond that stretched a lawn several

“possed to the eyes of all who looked upon it. Beyond the
“lawn again were seen the lines of a distant city, apparently
“of considerable extent. Winding along at the foot of the
“hill and making the commencement of what might be called
“a plain—though to say the truth, the wide space to which
“we must give that name, was broken by many undulations
“—appeared a hard but sandy road, from which a carriage
“way led by a circuit up to the mansion. In some places
“high banks covered with shrubs and bushes, &c.—The
“Castle itself had nothing very remarkable in its appearance
“and therefore we give a particular description of it. The
“middle part consisted of a large square mass of stone
“masonry, rising somewhat higher and projecting somewhat
“farther than the rest of the building. On either side of this
“centre was a wing flanked with a small square tower, and
“in each wing and in each tower was a small door opening
“upon the terrace. Manifold lattices, too, with narrow panes
“set in lead, ornamented these inferior parts of the building
“in long strait rows, and chimneys nearly as numerous tow
“ered up from the tall ivy-clad gables, not quite in keeping
“with the trim regularity of the other parts of the building.
“It had in the centre a large hall door with a flight of stone
“steps, and on each side of the entrance were three small
“windows in frames of chisselled stone, &c.”

He had already read near two hundred pages of similar
description about distant copses, quaintly carved pots, lattice
windows, and England's glorious clumps of trees; and he
had in the course of his life read some millions of pages of
similar powerful writing, by the same eloquent and prolific
author, who had for twenty years produced his three or four
novels yearly, to the utter amazement and great delight of
hosts of readers on the American Continent, who never could
cease wondering at his amazing fertility; although, had they
ever looked through a kaleidiscope and noticed what an infinite
number of shapes may be made by shaking together half
a dozen bits of stained glass, and then remembered that there
are some forty thousand words in the dictionary, it strikes us
that their wonder need not have been so excessive.

The splendid production from which the above glowing
extract was made, was a novel called “Sir Reginald, a Tale
of other days,” which at this time was in everybody's hands;
and everybody was fired with a noble emulation to see who
should read it through first, so that when the question should
be put, “have you read Jones' last novel?” they could say,
“yes.” But we doubt not Fred Tuck had left every body
behind him, unless indeed it were the Editors, who have a
wonderful faculty of reading through all new books the same
day that they are issued, provided they be re-publications from
the English Press and issued here by some wealthy publishers
who has grown rich by pilfering the fruit of other
people's labors. And then these patriotic Editors relieve their
overburdened hearts and enlighten their readers by bringing
out their most exciting expletives, “powerful,” “brilliant,”
“splendid,” “glorious,” “profound;” and the literary circles,
and the literary street hawkers are in a state of most brilliant
excitement for at least two days. Our main object, however,
in making this extract was not for the purpose of stating
these grave facts, but that our readers might know what it
was that so fascinated the junior partner of the firm of
Tremlett & Tucks, and diverted his mind from the really
grave and important cares which should have pressed heavily
upon him; which gave his mind that romantic tinge so remarkably
developed in his “beau ideal villa,” and the general
style of his conversation and dress. It was owing to this
very “Sir Reginald,” that he forgot to make provision for the
check which his brother had sent to Mr. Jacobs on Saturday,
in consequence of which that gentleman had became involved
in a most unpleasant dilemma, that cannot but lead to the
unhappiest results.

Mr. Jacobs had been so imprudent as to join an association
of gentlemen who were extremely averse to eating bread
which was savoured by their own sweat, probably from an
ignorance of the fact that such food was conducive in a high

degree both to sweet sleep and healthy digestion. The means
adopted by these gentlemen for making a genteel living, was
by circulating very exact resemblances to bank notes, which
were in truth, so far as intrinsic value was concerned, in
every particular as valuable as the originals, being composed
of exactly the same materials, and quite as creditable as works
of art. And no doubt these financiers looked upon themselves
as very honest people, and entertained a proper degree
of righteous indignation towards those unworthy men who
circulate counterfeit coin, which is a very different thing from
what it appears to be, and will not bear the test of analysis;
whereas a counterfeit bank note will. We do not intend to
defend these associates in their bad practices, but we are unwilling
to judge any man harshly, and therefore we give the
best construction to their motives which they will bear. Furthermore,
they had each made a private resolve, unbeknown
to the others of course, that in case of difficulty by coming in
contact with the law, they would turn state's evidence, and
get clear of imprisonment themselves by informing against
their associates, and therefore they were not troubled by any
of those hideous fears which often, perhaps always, afflict
those who indulge in solitary crimes. But if this feeling of
there being a secret passage of escape in time of difficulty
tended to make their lives more pleasant and comfortable, it
had a counterbalancing ill effect by rendering them more
careless in their operations, and consequently more liable to
detection than they would otherwise have been. And in consequence
of this very resolve, Mr. Jacobs had the ill luck to
be detected in attempting to pass a ten dollar note in payment
for a bowl of oyster soup at a cellar in Mulberry Street. The
proprietor of the establishment, “the Mulberry Oyster Saloon”
chanced to be a good judge of bank-bills from the fact
of his having been engaged in the manufacture of them once
himself, and he knew that Mr. Jacobs' tender was a counterfeit
the moment he put his eye upon it, and guessing the
character of his customer, he leapt over his bar and caught
the unfortunate gentleman in his brawny arms before he had
a chance to escape.

Mr. Jacobs was vehement in his protestations of innocence,
and swore that he had just received the note from the teller of
the Bank. But the Mulberry gentleman knew something of
the world—at least the worst part of it, which is alone called
The World, by the world—and, to use his own expression,
he read Mr. Jacobs like a book, which, in justice to him, we
acknowledge was a very bad simile, since his manner of reading
a book was the very reverse of facile, while his reading of
his prisoner was very neat and precise. Therefore he turned
an adder-like ear to all his oaths and protestations and dispatched
his colored assistant to the police office for his old
acquaintance and chum, Cornele Racry, into whose hands he
meant to deliver Mr. Jacobs with an understanding that they
should share in whatever emoluments might arise from his
arrest. But no sooner had the black emissary left the saloon
than Mr. Jacobs became alarmed for his personal freedom and
offered the oyster proprietor a very large sum if he would allow
him to escape. And we are by no means positive that he
would not have overcome his captor's scruples, but, unfortunately,
the gross amount of real money which he had in his
possession did not exceed four and sixpence, and the honest
gentleman remained as inflexible as Brutus.

When the police officer arrived, who, of all other men, should
he prove, but the very individual that had arrested Mr. Jacobs
before on the complaint of Jeremiah. They knew each other
at a glance, and the prisoner made no attempt at concealment;
but knowing that police officers and proprietors of oyster saloons
were possessed of like feelings with other men, he made
his captors a plump offer of a thousand dollars, if they would
let him go as soon as it should be paid. Now, as this was a
much larger sum than they could hope to gain by delivering
him into the hands of Justice, they would have accepted his

proposition without hesitation had they not thought, from his
making so handsome an offer at first, that they would get
more by holding off. Therefore they made a great parade of
their indignation, which they did so well that even Mr. Jacobs
was deceived by it, and he kept increasing his offer, five
hundred dollars a bid until he reached five thousand dollars,
when they gave in; although the sum appeared to them so
preposterously large that they had scarce a hope of its being
paid. Had Mr. Jacobs been possessed of that magnificent
sum himself, it is probable that he would not have parted with
it to purchase his neck from a halter, but as he meant that
somebody else should pay it, he cared less about it, although
his instinct made him higgle for a good bargain. He had, as
he thought, exhausted the Tucks long before, and he would
not, under ordinary circumstances, have dared to apply to
them, but now there was no other resource for him, and he
sent them the threatening letter which the reader has already
seen, and increased his demand six hundred dollars that he
might have something in his pocket when he got clear of his
present difficulty.

Almost as much to his own surprise as that of his captors,
he received a letter from Tom Tuck, with a check enclosed,
for the required amount. As the police officer could not be
known in this transaction without injury to his professional
reputation, he was obliged to entrust the check to his chum
to get it cashed; and this gentleman had no sooner got it in
his possession than he conceived the brilliant idea of keeping
the whole amount, and not returning to his saloon. But he
was prevented from carrying out this idea, for the Teller of
the Bank refused to pay the check, alledging as a reason that
the account of the firm was not good for it. But Mr. Jacobs
assured the exasperated gentlemen, when they threatened to
hurry him off to prison, that the check would be paid on
Monday, and begged them to furnish him with refreshments
becoming a person of his station while they kept him in confinement.

And the proprietor of the saloon, with great good
nature, allowed him to call for the choicest refreshments in
his establishment.

When Monday arrived the check was again presented, and
again refused; and as the Teller eyed the holder of it very
suspiciously, he began to fear that Mr. Jacobs had been playing
a foul game, and he retreated very precipitately from the
Bank, and called at the office of Tremlett & Tucks to enquire
whether the check were genuine or not. Unluckily both the
Tucks were out, and as John, on referring to the check books
could find no entry of such a check, and none of the clerks
knew of any such payment being made, he pronounced it a
forgery, although the filling up and signature so nearly resembled
his partner's hand. He was about to question the
Mulberry gentleman as to his becoming possessed of it, when
that personage took flight, lest he should be arrested as an
accomplice, and ran with all his might until he reached the
saloon, when, not content with heaping all the abusive epithets
of which he was master on Mr. Jacobs' head, he had the
meanness to bestow upon him some pretty severe kicks. It
was in vain now, that Mr. Jacobs begged for more time, both
the officer and the saloon proprietor were so exasperated that
they would listen to none of his explanations and promises,
but after they had emptied his pockets of everything of value
that they contained, they hurried him off to the house of detention
and cursed themselves for putting any faith in the representations
of a rogue.

Mr. Jacobs' reflections when he found himself in prison
were the very reverse of agreeable, as may well be conceived;
'twas a strange fact, considering the risks which he voluntarily
encountered, but he had a horror of confinement amounting
almost to mania. Indeed, it might have been owing in
a great degree to his love of freedom, that he had never
adopted any regular business, but preferred the uncertainties
and dangers of the lawless life he had led, with its sweets of

liberty, to the irksome confinement of a profitable profession.
He could hardly believe that the Tucks had intentionally deceived
him, although he had not formed a very high opinion
of their morals from his intercourse with them, and yet it was
evident enough that they had treated him with neglect and
allowed him to be sent to prison; and he felt bitterly disposed
towards them. If he did not render them a greater disservice
than they had done him, it would be rather out of consideration
to his own happiness than theirs. He paced up and down
the narrow apartment in which he was confined, debating in
his mind whether or not the pleasure of ruining two persons
would be a sufficient compensation for bringing ruin upon
himself, when the grated door of his prison was unlocked
and another subject was thrust in. As the new-comer was
decently dressed, and wore altogether a respectable rather
than a flashy air, Mr. Jacobs felt happy in the prospect of a
genteel companion, for he hated low company with all his
heart, probably from never having been familiar with any
other. So he advanced towards his new companion and held
out his hand in a frank and agreeable manner, but, as he took
a nearer look he started back with unfeigned amazement and
consternation, as we doubt not almost any other person would
have done under similar circumstances. The new prisoner
was Jeremiah Jernegan.

10. CHAPTER VI.

AS our motive in writing this history is not to tantalize our
reader by exciting his curiosity without satisfying it at
the first convenient moment, we hasten to narrate the strange
events which led to the incarceration of Mr. Jernegan, and
also to remove any unjust suspicions which that unlooked-for
circumstance may have awakened in the reader's mind.

Although we commenced our last chapter with the events
of Monday morning, we must now revert to Saturday night,
and happy should we esteem our lot, could we, consistently
with our duty, avoid the narration of certain facts which
have so important a bearing upon the fortunes of the main
personages of our history as to forbid their suppression. The
reader will bear witness to our constant aim to represent human
nature in its very brightest aspect, but he cannot know,
of course, how often we have sacrificed a thrilling and startling
incident, lest we should, by the exhibition of it, undermine
his faith in the dignity of humanity and give cause to
ill-favoured minds to sneer at human nature; and if our narrative
appears dull and tame, when compared with other histories,
justice to our subject compels us to aver that it is rather
owing to what may be deemed by some a too fastidious temper
in the author, than to any want of exciting interest which

the materials placed in our hands intrinsically possessed. But
of one thing we can boast, with a consciousness of having
performed our duty, that where necessity has compelled us
to spread before the reader an unworthy action, we have endeavoured
to find some palliating circumstances to screen the
perpetrator of it from the contempt which a virtuous mind
must always feel towards a vicious man. It is a foul bird
that defiles its own nest. Truly it must be an ill-ordered
mind that finds gratification in underrating its own nature;
that can only see in mankind the evil which cannot, unhappily,
be hid; that shuts its eyes, like a moping owl, to the
brightness and beauty of day, but opens them to the night
only to howl at the darkness which it would be better to endure
in silence, like the other fowls of the air whose notes of
gladness make even the brightness of day more cheery and
pleasant.

As the time was so near at hand when Miss Hogshart was
to leave for Berkshire, Jeremiah had asked for a few days
leave of absence from the counting room, that he might be
able to spend more time in her society, and also to show her
more of those little attentions, which are so pleasant to give
and receive, than he had before done. In conformity with his
resolution to “redeem the time,” he had invited her to another
walk on the Battery; and to that pleasant spot they had
betaken themselves; and beneath the green boughs of a huge
sycamore, through whose motionless leaves the stars were
shining like golden fruit upon the wide spread branches, they
sat down and re-enacted some of those thrilling and never forgotten
passages which are common in the lives of almost all lovers,
but which had been exceedingly rare in the lives of Jeremiah
and Miss Hogshart. As their occupations had detained
them until after dark, the evening was nearly spent before
they reached this pleasant resort. They sat as long as prudence
would allow, and just before they were to return, Jeremiah
took a little Bible from his coat pocket, and opening it,

somewhere in the middle of the old Testament, held it upon
his knee, while he and Huldah clasped their hands across it,
and repeated together the vow of the Moabitess. “Whither
thou goest I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge;
thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where
thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried; the Lord
do so to me and more also if aught but death part thee and
me.” Although the stars glittered brightly through the trees
and besprinkled the turf around them with faint rays of light,
yet there was not enough to enable them to read the small
print of Jeremiah's pocket bible, but he had the words by
heart, and she repeated them after him. Never were words
repeated with a more devout feeling than were these by Jeremiah,
and at the end, as if not satisfied with their solemn meaning,
to make them still more binding he put his arms around
her neck, and sealed his vow with an earnest and hearty kiss
upon her lips.

But while they were thus yielding themselves up to these
tender, yet chaste dalliances, a scene was enacting in their
boarding house which was to turn all their bright anticipations
into dark and gloomy forebodings, which was to change
confidence into suspicion, love into hate, and hope into despair.
Alas for earthly anticipations! Alas for human frailty!

Scarcely had the two lovers left their boarding house when
a four wheeled cab stopped at the door they had just closed,
and a very magnificent lady accompanied by a splendid gentleman,
rang the bell and inquired for Mrs. Bates. Mrs. Bates
made her appearance and invited the lady and gentleman, into
her parlor, where some remarkably genteel courtesies were
exchanged by the ladies and some very stylish bows were
made by the gentleman, all in the strictest fashion and according
to the latest advices from Paris. The magnificent lady
was tall, thin and genteel; she was dressed en rigeur, and
perfumed á merveille; her jewelry was recherché, and every
thing about her was Parisian except her tongue and her taste,

both of which were indigenous to the soil; her name was
Madame Grandemaison, and she was the proprietor of the Parisian
Rooms, and the boss of Huldah Hogshart. The gentleman
was Monsieur Grandemaison, her husband, some fifteen
years her junior, and the proprietor of a pair of coal-black mustaches
and a glossy imperial, which he kept in very perfect
order. These were his possessions and his employments. It
may not be uninteresting to the reader to know that Monsieur
was a count in his own country, and that he had in his possession,
or rather his wife had in hers, undoubted testimonials,
which she sometimes showed to an intimate friend, in proof of
the fact. But it is very much to the credit of Madame Grandemaison,
that she never allowed herself to be called by her
proper title of countess, except in sport, alleging what was no
doubt true, that she was well satisfied with the title of an
American lady, although she had told some of her more intimate
acquaintances that when she went over to Paris with her
husband she should of course, “stick up for her rights,” and
Madame Grandemaison's friends commended her spirit and
intimated, though not in direct terms, that she would create
quite a sensation at the French court.

“My name, Madam,” said the lady as soon as she had seated
herself “is Madame Grandemaison, and this is Monsieur, my
husband.”

“Yes'm,” replied Mrs. Bates holding her head very stiff
lest Madame Grandemaison should flatter herself that she was
in the slightest possible degree overcome by the announcement.
“I have seen you in your store when I have called to look at
your hats'm.”

“Hem! hem!” ejaculated Monsieur, and his lady felt a
tingling in her cheeks, although there was no visible evidence
of an unusual sensation in that part of her system; it being
many years since the habit of blushing had fallen into desuetude
with her.

“You keep a boarding-house, I believe, Madam,” said

Madame Grandemaison, while her greyish eyes twinkled with
malicious pleasure.

“I accommodate a few of my friends, if you please, 'em,”
said Mrs. Bates, straightening herself up into a more erect position.

“I believe that one of my workwomen by the name of
Hogshart, or something of that kind, boards with you, Madam?”

“A young lady of that name, a friend of the South street
merchants, Tremlett and Tucks, is staying with me, 'm,” replied
Mrs. Bates with dignity.

“A quakeress, I believe, madam?” said Madame Grandemaison.

“A friend,” replied Mrs Bates.

“It's all one to me, only I never could see the propriety of
calling those people friends; they are no friends to my business,
I am sure I should be forced to shut up my store if all the
ladies dressed like quakers, Mrs. Bates. And as for the young
person that I have been enquiring about, she has been a miserable
friend to me, I assure you; she has proved my greatest
enemy,” said Madame Grandemaison, who, finding that Mrs.
Bates was not a person to be awed by her grandeur, easily fell
into a very natural and colloquial style, which was immediately
assumed by Mrs. Bates who exclaimed in great consternation,
“Good Heavens! Mrs. Grandmason, what is it you
mean?”

“I have just discovered, Mrs. Bates, that that minx, Miss
Hogshart, that demure creature which I have nourished in the
bosom of my business like a daughter, has robbed my showroom
of hundreds of dollars.

“Hundreds, tousands!” said Monsieur Grandemaison.

“Hush my dear, don't open your lips,” said his lady, “the
ungrateful minx has ruined me, Mrs. Bates, and ruined herself
too.” Here Madame Grandemaison sobbed hysterically,
and said she actually shed tears; not so much for her own
loss, as for the poor girl's sake.

“Impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. Bates, “it cannot be; such a
sedate young lady; one of the society of friends, who never do
anything wrong, and her father a public speaker too. Impossible!
impossible!”

“Ah! you will see,” said Monsieur Grandemaison.

“My love, will you hush, or must I quit my business!” said
the excited lady. “It's true, Mrs. Bates, I assure you. I wish
it was not. Whole dozens of the finest gloves, and such laces
and scarfs, O! it's incredible.”

“Be careful, Madame Grandemaison, be careful,” said Mrs.
Bates.

“I wish I had been more careful, Mrs. Bates,” said Madame,
“if I had I should not be a ruined lady as I am now. Lace
veils, and French slippers without number, and the very best,
too; such an avaricious creature, and I so good to her too;
many's the lunch of cold fish cakes that I have given that
girl. I will never again believe there is such a thing as
goodness in the world, Mrs. Bates.”

“Have you any proof, Mrs. Grandmason?” said Mrs. Bates.

“Proof! Lead me to her room and you shall see, Madam.”

“By all means,” replied Mrs. Bates, for she was curious to
know herself what truth there might be in Madame Grandemaison's
charges, and taking the candle she led the way towards
Huldah's apartment, followed by the magnificent milliner
and her husband. But Madame Grandemaison, thought
that a young lady's chamber was not a proper place for Monsieur
to visit, and she ordered him back into the parlour where
he sat in the dark and whistled a fashionable waltz until his
wife returned.

The two ladies having reached Miss Hogshart's room, locked
themselves in, began their search; the first object that arrested
their attention was a plethoric looking band box tied up
with scarlet ribbons; this they tore open without hesitation
and discovered a very curious collection of Parisian gew gaws,
which being turned out upon the floor caused both ladies to
lift up their hands in amazement.

“My richest satins,” exclaimed Madame Grandemaison,
“here's a dozen of my fifty dollar pocket handkerchiefs. O,
heavens, the lace caps! Merciful powers, the gauze scarfs!
O, mon Doo, mon Doo! what bunches of orange blossoms!
Five dozens of kid gloves. Goodness, goodness, what remnants
of shot silks.”

Next they examined a clothes press, from whence they
drew brochè shawls, lace scarfs, and stockings innumerable;
under the bed they found another band box with a similar assortment
of finery, together with bottles of orange water, a collection
of pearl hair pins, mosaic broaches and a box of genuine
Farina cologne, and lying upon the bureau, Madame
Grandemaison found a gold locket of very red hair, at the sight
of which she came very near fainting away. It was a present
from her first husband and contained one of his precious
curls; and her own initials were marked upon the back of it,
or rather letters intended for that purpose, “U. A.” for Eunice
Allen. She had missed it for months, and she declared
that she valued it more than all her goods. Other articles of
less value were discovered in the bureau drawers, which Madame
Grandemaison recognized as her property, and increased
the heap upon the floor to a frightful size. It was so astounding
that Mrs. Bates ran down to call her husband to look at
it, and Madame Grandemaison went for Monsieur. It was a
curious sight, and we wish that all young ladies who indulge
in an inordinate love of dress could have seen it. We do not
wish that they could have seen the unfortunate Huldah, when
a few minutes after the ladies had retired with their husbands,
she came home with Jeremiah, and finding no light in the
parlour thought that Mrs. Bates had gone to bed, and so
bounded lightly up to her own room, where as she burst open
the door she uttered a terrible scream and fell senseless upon
the floor, because we would not that anybody should have
witnessed her melancholy condition, and therefore we shall
not describe more particularly what took place, excepting to

state that Jeremiah heard the scream and hastened up stairs
when the dreadful truth was told him, and he was so much
overcome that he sat all night in his chamber unable to speak
or even to pray.

Monsieur Grandemaison and Mr. Bates took up the finery
in their arms and loaded the cab with it; and then Mr. Bates
went in pursuit of friend Hogshart, whom he found at the
house of a rich quaker in Beekman street. And the old man
came, thinking that his daughter was suddenly taken ill, but
when he saw her, and was told the cause of her distraction,
for she lay upon the floor uttering the most piteous moans, it
was the most heart-breaking sight that ever was witnessed,
to see him as he knelt over her and wept. Poor old man!
He uttered no reproaches to her, but he reproached himself
for having exposed her to such cruel temptations.

It was past midnight before the house had regained its
usual quiet. Before Madame Grandemaison left, Mrs. Bates
fell upon her knees and begged that out of regard to the character
of her establishment, she would not make the affair
public; and the magnanimous milliner promised to exercise a
proper degree of Christian forbearance. The next morning
was Sunday, but Mr. Bates thought that the strange affair
would be so gratifying to Tom Tuck, inasmuch as Jeremiah
was a party concerned, that he hastened off before breakfast
and related all the circumstances of the case to that gentleman.
What the exact motives were which influenced Mr.
Bates, we know not, whether he thought that the Financier
would make more mischief out of it than any body else, or
that he would contrive some very ingenious plan to heal up
the wounds that were now bleeding in many bosoms in consequence
of the unhappy event, we have no means of knowing
to a certainty, because he never made any declaration on
the subject, but the fact is undeniable that he could not have
made a confident of a more improper person, as will appear in
the sequel. If he had gone to John, some good might have

come of his errand, but he had gone out of the city to remain
until Monday, or he might have done so.

It so happened that Mrs. Tuck and Madame Grandemaison
were on very intimate terms; the ladies bore, indeed, some resemblance
morally to each other, although physically they
were quite dissimilar, and an acquaintance which was formed
in the first place, in the way of business, for Madame Grandemaison
furnished Mrs. Tuck with her dresses, had ripened
into a friendship. They were members of the same church,
sat in adjoining pews, wore the same dresses, partook of the
same communion, slept under the same sermons and subscribed
ed to the same articles. They always met at the church door,
and Mrs. Tuck, to show her Christian humility and let the
world know that she was not too proud to speak to her dressmaker
in public, would sometimes condescend to stop and
talk as familiarly with Madame Grandemaison as though she
had been the wife of an importer or jobber. And in these
little conversations Mrs. Tuck would sometimes gather information
in regard to the cost and texture of half the ladies'
dresses in church, which was mutually comforting and pleasant,
one lady taking as much pleasure in imparting as the
other did in receiving such knowledge. The next morning
after the exposure of poor Huldah's crimes, the two ladies,
were so impatient to see each other and talk over the awful
affair, that they never nodded once during the sermon, although
we are by no means sure that they imbibed more of
the blessed words of the good doctor than they had usually
done. As they emerged from the wooden portal of the Gothic
temple in which they worshipped, they drew towards each
other as if one were a magnet and the other a bar of steel.
Being in the shadow of the church their thoughts were, of
course, far removed from the sublunary sphere in which they
dwelt. Their salutations were simultaneous.

“What an excellent discourse,” said Mrs. Tuck.

“What a beautiful sermon!” said Madame Grandemaison.

“Such language!”

“Such sentiments!”

“So orthodox!”

“So high church!”

“I could have listened forever.”

“I could have sat until night.”

“Do tell me, Madame Grandemaison, what frightful thing
has Mrs. Peter Smith got on her head?”

“Don't ask me, Mrs Tuck, I beg of you. You know I am
bound not to divulge my customers' secrets; but as 'tis you,
and it will go no farther, its a poult de soie, made up a la Duchesse
d'Orleans, cheap and out of date.”

“How like her! But what a dreadful affair that is of your
young quakeress, Madame Grandemaison. What wickedness
there is in the world!”

“Awful, Mrs. Tuck, but as I told the count, what can you
expect of a society that wears mob caps and has no ministers.”

“But have you recovered all your goods, Madame Grandemaison?”

“All! O, mon doo, mon doo! Mrs. Tuck, not half. But
what I regret most, is a splendid camel's hair shawl, which
was part of my trousseau when I married the count. I lost it
months ago, and I supposed at the time that it had been stolen
out of my hall.

“Well, Madame Grandemaison, let me give you a piece of
advice; get a search warrant to-morrow morning and search
that man's premises who is engaged to Miss Hogshart. My
son knows him well, and he says that he has no doubt of his
being a particeps criminis.”

“Indeed, and what is that, Mrs. Tuck?” said Madame
Grandemaison.

“O, a partner in the robbery, of course.”

“Ah! but that cannot be, he is said to be such a pious creature,”
replied Madame.

“Pious! O, he is a dreadful infidel. My son says he is not
even a member of any church. He's dreadful loose in his
morals.”

“Not a member of any church, Mrs. Tuck? You amaze
me. I had always supposed him to be an excellent man.
What a wretch!”

“Birds of a feather, Madame Grandemaison.”

“True. I am greatly obliged to you, Mrs. Tuck, I will send
the count after an officer to-morrow. Good morning, madam.

“Good morning, Madame Grandemaison,” said Mrs. Tuck
sweetly, and thus the ladies parted; Mrs. Tuck stepping into
her carriage which had been waiting with a driver and a
footman, while she was at her devotions, and Madame Grandemaison,
taking the arm of Monsieur, who had been waiting
for her at the corner.

The next morning an officer, accompanied by Mons.
Grandemaison, made his appearance at Mrs. Bates' door,
and demanded admittance to Jeremiah's room, which was
not denied him, of course. Jeremiah was still in bed, for
he had not closed his eyes during the night, but he got up
and told the officer to satisfy himself. The first place they
examined was the clothes-press, which was found to contain
nothing but old coats and pantaloons, and a bundle of
religious tracts; the officer was about to close the door when
Monsieur Grandemaison discovered a drawer which had not
been opened, and requested Jeremiah to unlock it.

“Ah ha!” thought monsieur, “you blush eh?”

“What makes your hand tremble so?” said the officer.

“Nothing,” replied Jeremiah.

“Nossing!” exclaimed Mons. Grandemaison, as he sprang
two or three feet from the floor, “Nossing. You rascal tief,
here's my wife's shawl. Sacre non de Dieu!”

“That looks bad, my man,” said the officer, as he turned to
Jeremiah, whose face was redder than any scarlet. “But
stop Mr. Grandmason, how do you know that that's your
wife's property?”

Monsieur could swear to it; Madame could swear to it,
and the importer from whom he purchased it could swear
to it.

They examined still further but found only an old bonnet
which Monsieur could not identify as his wife's property, but
under the bolster of the bed they found a delicatecambric cambric pocket
handkerchief with Madame Grandemaison's initials embroidered
in the centre. They could find nothing more. But
they had found enough for a commitment. Jeremiah confessed
that the articles had been in Miss Hogshart's possession,
although he said that she had not given them to him,
and in his confusion told such a crooked and improbable story
that Monsieur Grandemaison and the officer both believed
that he had stolen them himself. He was terrified beyond
expression, and the whole proceedings were so unlooked for
and astounding that he knew not what to do. He saw that
appearances were against him and knew not how he could
possibly establish his innocence, but he requested that Mr.
Bates might be sent for, who, when he came, could afford no
other comfort than to shake his head and say that he was sorry
to have his house disgraced by such ugly work. Monsieur
Grandemaison ran immediateiy to his wife to report progress
and ask what her pleasure was, and she insisted that Jeremiah
should be sent to prison and tried for theft, or for receiving
stolen goods at least; and on his way back to Jeremiah's
room, he encountered Tom Tuck, who, on being informed of
the affair, advised him to have Jeremiah committed without
delay.

So Jeremiah was thrown into prison where he encountered
Mr. Jacobs as we have already seen in the last chapter.
He was not possessed of that refined and fastidious virtue
which causes its possessors to shrink aghast from a suspicion
of guilt or from the haunts of vice, lest their morals should be
tainted by their persons coming in contact with one a little
less righteous than themselves, and therefore when he fonnd

himself in the same apartment with Mr. Washington Mortimer
instead of flaring up on the score of his greater respectability,
when that person addressed him he returned his salutations
in a very civil manner, and told him he was sorry
to meet him in so bad a place. As we have before stated,
Jeremiah's early education had been sadly neglected, and he
had fallen into a loose habit of looking upon all men with
nearly the same feelings; regarding none so bad but there
might be some extenuating circumstances in his conduct, nor
no one so good that he might not be a good deal better. Although
he never allowed himself to underrate the good qualities
of others, or question one's motives when his actions
were in themselves proper. For himself, if he could preserve
his own self-respect he cared but little for the opinion of the
world, but he was not by any means indifferent to a good name,
although he would not have sacrificed a hair's breadth of his
conscience to gain one. In the present case he felt guilty,
not of the wrong of which he was accused, but of having
practiced deceit, of acting a lie, when he took the shawl, to
screen himself from ridicule; and he felt that his punishmet
was just, while a consciousness of having intended no wrong
nerved his soul to endure whatever degradation he might be
compelled to suffer. In his present frame of mind, induced
by the revelation of Miss Hogshart's crime, the walls of a prison
were more congenial to his feelings than any other place,
save the solitude of the country, would have been. He knew
so little about criminal courts, or of their manner of dealing
with offenders, that he never dreamed of such a thing as being
bribed, or he would have sent for John, who would gladly
have been security for him. He did not know that a wealthy
rogue could commit crimes with impunity for which a poor
one would have to endure the rigors of the law. It had never
entered his simple mind that the law could be mollified with
money, or that a criminal could purchase himself clear of its
penalties; for he thought, simple creature, that the law of
the land was as impartial and exacting as the Law of Nature.

“If it is not presuming too much,” said Mr. Jacobs, “may I
take the liberty to enquire what you are box'd for?”

“I am accused of stealing,” replied Jeremiah, “but I hope
it is not necessary for me to assure you that I am innocent of
the charge.”

“Ho! ho! ho!” roared Mr. Jacobs so loud that all the prisoners
crowded to the grated windows of their cells to learn
the cause of such an unusual explosion, “ho! ho! ho! O, of
course not.” But Mr. Jacobs could not sufficiently express
his admiration of such an exquisite bit of humor without
throwing his arms around Jeremiah's neck, and hugging him
close to his bosom. “Of course you are not guilty. Nobody
is guilty in this place. Of course not, Mr. Jernagen. But,
I say, I always thought there was something deep under that
sober face of your'n. You're a sly one. How much did you
get, hey? how was it”?

“Ah!” replied Jeremiah, “I got nothing; I have wronged
no one; but it's right that I should suffer. It's all right.”

“So, you got cotched before you got hold of anything?—
Well, that's bad. You'll do better next time; but, I say, mister,
you won't go to blabbing about that business of mine and
those scamps of Tucks?”

“If I should be called upon to tell what I know about you
I shall do so, of course.”

“What, when you and I are chummys?” said Mr. Jacobs,
turning his protuberant black eyes insinuatingly up to Jeremiah's
face, “come, come, let's be friends. If you'll keep dark
about me, I'll get a fust wate witness for you. Come, Come.”

“I would not do you any injury,” said Jeremiah, “if I
could avoid it, but you have—”

“Good! I knew you was a true card! you're a weg'lar fust
wate twump.”

“I beg you to believe me in earnest—”

“Oh, I do,” said Mr. Jacobs as he grasped him by the hand.

“If I were called upon to give my testimony against you
I would not hesitate if you were my brother.”

“What a malicious wascal,” said Mr. Jacobs flinging away
Jeremiah's hand, “you owe me a gwudge because I kept that
old watch; but, if you'll agwee to keep dark about that, I'll
give you one worth two of it.”

“You wrong me, indeed you do, I forgive you with all my
soul; I know how easy it is to err, and as I hope to be forgiven
for my own misdeeds, I do not harbor an ill feeling against
you; but when you ask me to deny your crime, you would
make me a partaker of it, which you have no right to do.”

“You're a weg'lar fool or a weg'lar methodist,” said Mr.
Jacobs, sulkily, “but never mind, old fellow, I'll fix you for
it, Parson Gummigum.”

“There's no need of anger or abuse,” replied Jeremiah mildly,
“I have done you no wrong, nor threatened any. What
reason have you to fear my evidence? I have made no complaint
against you.”

“I am afwaid of you hypokwits, I know.”

“Well, well, I am sorry for you. You are right. I am a
hypocrite, I fear. Those who have caused me to be brought
to this place, have seen something in me worse than I thought
I could be guilty of. Ah, my friend, we are all hypocrites:
we all strive to appear better than we strive to be. But if it
is not an impertinent question may I ask for what you are imprisoned.”

“Ah you may well ask that. I am here for somebody
else's villany. I am empwisson'd for fogewy.”

“And you are not guilty!”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“No more am I. Is it a likely story that I would commit a
fogewy?”

“Well, it's a crime of frequent occurrence in all commercial
communities,” replied Jeremiah, “but yours is a hard case
indeed, my friend.”

“It's pwescious hard, and I am a good mind to tell all about
it too. It's all of them scamps of Tucks that has done me up.”

“But you have no right to complain of them for doing their
duty,” said Jeremiah, “if they caused you to be arrested it was
because you had been guilty of an outrage upon their uncle,
or they believed so, at least.”

“An outwage upon their uncle!” exclaimed Mr. Jacobs in
undissembled alarm, and with a scowl which made Jeremiah
start, “do they say that, the wetches?”

“Undoubtedly, and they must have believed you guilty or
they would not have caused you to be arrested.”

“They cause me to be awested! when? when? The
scamps! when?”

“When you got clear for lack of evidence before,” replied
Jeremiah.

“What, the Tucks! Tom and Fwed!” exclaimed the Jew
with an incredulous whine. “Enough said. Say no more.
Their names is Goslins. If I don't blow them they'll blow
me. I told 'em to look out, and now they've went and cheated
me with a bad check, and got me into this scwape. I'm
despwate at those wascals.”

“You talk strangely my friend, I do not comprehend you.”

“You don't? well, keep your ears open tight, and I'll tell
you something stwanger yet. Those scamps are the lyingest,
cheatingest, murdwingest wascals alive. Tom is the biggest
wogue, but Fwed is the biggest fool.”

“Hush, hush,” said Jeremiah, “you know not what you
say; wait until you are less excited. Be quiet.”

“Don't be fwightened at me, I won't hurt you.” But Jeremiah
was frightened, for the Jew's face assumed a look of ferocity
that startled him, and his large black eyes glared fiercely
at him.

“Stop, don't wun,” said Mr. Jacobs as he caught hold of Jeremiah's
collar, “there's no harm in me now; but it was I that
killed their uncle. I gave him laudanum. Yes, it was I.”

“Let go my collar,” gasped Jeremiah, “let me go, I am
choking.”

“Not yet; not till you hear more. It was they that hired
me to do it; yes it was them, and they pwomised to pay me
well for it, which they would'nt do, because I got the wong
will for them; and now they've gone and sent me a good-for
nothing check. Now I'm even with 'em, I'll turn states' evidence,
and we'll see who'll hang now. Now I am easy, I've
got that off my mind, and I want a cigar. What, fainted at
that. Poo! You've got no gizzard.”

Jeremiah's face grew pale, his knees tottered, and he fell upon
the stone floor of the prison. Upon which Mr. Jacobs gave
him a look of proud contempt, and walked away and left
him to recover at his leisure.

11. CHAPTER VII.

When the financier returned to the counting-room he
reached the notes intended for Madder & Co., with the endorsement
of Mr. Kittle to John, and requested him to deliver
them himself in the morning. John promised to do so, but
as he put them in his pocket he saw his father's spirit standing
by his desk, gazing upon him with a sad reproving look, such
as he had never worn before.

At sight of this apparition he grew sick at heart, his hand
trembled violently and his face turned deadly pale. The financier
noticed the sudden change in his countenance, and asked
what ailed him.

“Did you see nothing?” said John.

“Nothing,” replied Tom, with a slight trembling of his
voice, “did you?” he added, looking keenly into John's face.

“I thought I did, but I was mistaken. It was the fault of
my eyes. I must go out and breathe the fresh air.” He rose
from his desk, but suddenly fell back in his seat; his father's
form again stood before him and seemed to bar his way.

“What is it? What ails you?” said the financier.

“A slight giddiness,” said John, “it will pass off soon.”—
He sat a few minutes, and again rose to go, and again fell back
in his seat, for the same appearance seemed to float before him.

“Are you subject to fainting fits?” asked the financier.

“No, but I have been subject to turns like these ever since
my father died; poor old man! Would I had been near him
to close his eyes!

“Aye, and to enquire about his will; I do not wonder at
your faintness when you think of him.”

“You do not understand me. I care nothing about his
will, except that I fear his wishes have been thwarted, and
that it causes him unhappiness now.”

“Ha! ha! excuse me for laughing. I can't help it, you
must excuse me.”

“I excuse you,” replied John seriously, “you need not repress
your mirth, it does not annoy me. But I shall be unfit
for business to-day, and you must excuse me. I must go
home.”

“Very well, but give me back the notes; they will not be
safe in your pocket.”

John returned the notes to him, and after sitting a moment
longer, rose from his desk and left the counting-room without
again being crossed by his spiritual visitant.

Jeremiah having obtained leave of absence for a few days,
John had made no enquiries after him, and neither of his partners,
nor Mr. Bates had told him of the events of Saturday evening,
or of Jeremiah's subsequent arrest, doubtless influenced
by a benevolent wish to spare him the painful feelings that
they must have known such news would have caused him;
at least we can conceive of no other motive that could have
induced them to keep silent in regard to that unhappy circumstance,
for they knew that he would immediately procure the
poor fellow's release, if he were aware of his arrest. He had
hardly left the counting-room when a note was brought in for
him, which the financier perceived was from Jeremiah, and
with that peculiar readiness to serve a friend which had ever
been a prominent feature in his character, he tore it open and
read it, and then tore it up and scattered the fragments upon
the floor. The contents of the note were as follows:

“Business before friendship,” said the financier, as he took
up the note, “Mr. Jeremiah must wait his time.”

Had Tom Tuck known how nearly Jeremiah's note concerned
himself, it is probable that he would have treated it with vastly
greater consideration. But we grope about in the darkness
of our misdeeds, little dreaming what important results will
grow out of our most trifling errors; and forgetful of that
important rule which never can be safely forgotten, of doing
unto others as we would be done by.

When Jeremiah had recovered from the shock which the
confession of Mr. Jacobs had given him, his first thought was
to convey a hint to the Tucks of their danger, that they might
be enabled to make their escape before the Jew could cause
them to be arrested, and for that purpose he had addressed a
note to John, thinking him th emost suitable person to be put
in possession of the secret; for he had no doubt of the guilt of
the brothers, and his kindly feelings towards them and their
mother, entirely destroyed his sense of what was due to the
Law. Indeed, he was so much in the habit of regarding the
law of God as paramount to all others, that we are by no
means certain that he ever thought of what was due to the
criminal code, or reflected on the enormity of his own guilt in
trying to aid a criminal to escape from the gallows; thereby depriving
one of his fellow citizens of the privilege which the
law allowed him of putting a human being to death in a quiet
business like manner, by hanging him up in the presence of a
select party of friends, assembled for the express purpose of
witnessing so comforting and exhilarating a ceremony.

So completely had his feelings become enlisted in behalf of
the guilty but unfortunate brothers, that he entirely forgot his
own misfortunes, and only lamented his confinement, because
it prevented him from serving them as effectually as he wished
to do, and he walked up and down the little space allotted to
him for exercise in an agony of suspense, wondering that
John did not make his appearance, and watching Mr. Jacobs

narrowly to see that he had no communication with the
keepers of the prison. Some of the other prisoners noticing
his anxiety, and naturally supposing that he felt the pricks of
a guilty conscience, very kindly offered their condolence, and
tried to keep him in heart by bidding him keep a stiff upper
lip, and using many similar comforting expressions, for which
he thanked them civilly; but his anxiety increased and his uneasiness
became more manifest as the day wore away, and no
one came to see him. At sunset he was locked up in a narrow
little cell by himself, and it was a relief to him to fall upon
his knees and pray for those who were regardless of themselves.
And he did not forget Huldah Hogshart, but prayed
for her with greater earnestness than he had ever done before,
when he believed her to be innocent of crime or evil thoughts.
He could no longer love her, but he could pity her. Those
who did him a kindness were sure of his gratitude, but those
who wronged him gained his pity and his prayers. The blow
that inflicted a wound in his heart, opened a stream that washed
away the guilt of the hand that struck it, like the sacrificial
blood of a Jewish altar.

But Jeremiah was not forgotten, although he was not cheered
by the face of a kindly visiter. When friend Hogshart heard
that he had been carried to prison on a charge of being an
accomplice of his daughter, he was grieved beyond measure, for
he had no doubt of his innocence, and upon questioning Huldah,
she made the most solemn protestations to that effect and
begged that her father would obtain his release from prison.
But she declared that she would sooner die than ever have him
speak to her again. The old man found means, through the
influence of one of his yearly meeting friends, a rich jobber in
Pearl street, to obtain sufficient money to satisfy Madame
Grandemaison for all the damage she had sustained by the
depredations of his daughter, and having taken her receipt in
full, he addressed the countess milliner in this manner:

“Well, friend, thee says thee is satisfied?”

“O, perfectly,” replied Madame Grandemaison, in a very
sweet and bewitching manner, or at least in a manner meant
to be sweet and bewitching, “perfectly; and allow me to ask
you to accept this mosaic pin as a slight memento of my respect
for you. I am sure I did not know that there were such
gentlemanly people among the friends.” These words were
uttered with such a genuine air of admiration that we wonder
much at the reply which they elicited.

“Woman!” said friend Hogshart, as he put on his broad
brimmed drab hat, “I despise thy gew-gaws and trinkets.—
Does thee wish to tempt me to ruin, as thee did my daughter?
Is thee satisfied when thee lies down at night to remember that
thy vain and worthless merchandise has drawn an innocent
and simple-minded girl from the paths of honesty and godly-mindedness,
that thee now seeks to lure my feet to perdition?
Keep thy finery for such as thyself, I wish for none of it.—
Thee has caused enough of grief and shame already in one
family. I weep for my poor child's sin, but I reproach myself
for placing her in the way of temptation. Thee must not
allow thee self to boast of thy own honesty when thee tells of
my poor daughter's fall. She was tempted to take thy painted
baubles with the idle hope of making her person more comely,
but thee takes the money of vain people by overcharges for
thy trumpery goods that thee and thy idle husband may riot in
vain-glorious show; and thee has no longer youth as an excuse
for thy wickedness!”

Madame Grandemaison lost all her native sweetness and
dignity of manner long before friend Hogshart arrived at the
end of his speech, and her face would have turned to the color
of parchment but for the rouge on her cheeks, so great was her
indignation; she stamped on the floor with an energy peculiarly
her own and screamed in the highest tone of her fine
voice, to Monsieur Grandemaison, to come up stairs and kick
friend Hogshart down. But the old quaker was not one of
those slight subjects that a person of Monsieur Grandemaison's

physical pretensions would care to exercise his powers upon,
and therefore he was cautious to make his appearance just in
time to be too late to execute his wife's wishes, although
unhappily for him, not too late to receive the full force of the
indignant feelings that belonged of right to friend Hogshart.
He having secured his daughter and Jeremiah from the risk
of further annoyance by Madame Grandemaison, and delivered
his sentiments to the great relief of his overburdened mind,
walked deliberately down stairs with the calm air of a man
conscious of his own strength of limb and rectitude of purpose.
He then proceeded to procure the release of Jeremiah,
which he accomplished with but little difficulty, although not
in time to save him from a night's lodging in prison. Having
no longer occasion to remain in the city, he departed immediately
for Berkshire county, taking his unhappy daughter
with him, and shaking the dust from the soles of his feet, as
he entered the steamboat, with a firm, though silent resolve
never again to venture within the influence of the city's temptations.

The next morning, at the usual hour of bringing the prisoners
out for examination, Jeremiah was told that he was at
liberty to go where he pleased. But he almost felt loth to
go, overburdened as he was by a knowledge of the guilt of
the Tucks, and doubtful in what way to discharge the
fearful duty imposed upon him of making it known. It
would have been a relief to him had he been kept in close
confinement where he could neither see the guilty men themselves,
nor hear of the distress which a knowledge of their
crimes must occasion. But he was sure of one friend, who
would bear with his weakness and sympathise with his feelings,
and in pursuit of him he immediately went. As he
entered the counting-room there was a general commotion
among all the clerks, except only Mr. Bates, who with a
loftiness of manner that conscious dignity and merit could
alone impart, turned over the leaves of his ponderous ledger

without even deigning to look at the culprit. Let Mr. Bates
have been possessed of what weakness or evil quality he might,
he had a grateful heart, and he never saw a transgressor in
the toils of the law but he thanked his God he was not like
other men.

Jeremiah replied to the enquiries of the clerks as to his confinement,
and how he had effected his escape good-naturedly,
but without giving them any positive information on the subject,
and then passed into the private office where he met the
financier and the junior partner, John having just gone out to
deliver the note to Madder & Co. At sight of the brothers
Jeremiah gave an involuntary start, which they were pleased
to consider an evidence of his guilt.

“What do you want here?” demanded Tom, with a stern
look.

“I am looking after Mr. Tremlett,” replied Jeremiah.

“Out of prison, are you?” said Mr. F. Augustus, looking
over his violet curtain, “so, you were apprehended for stealing
shawls and pocket handkerchiefs. A remarkably nice
cashier you would have been.”

“Who bailed you out?” asked Tom.

“I do not know, and I do not see that you have any right to
ask. I presume that I am not indebted for my freedom to your
good will,” replied Jeremiah, and the next moment his heart
smote him for his rudeness to a man who was in his power.

“Out of this you insolent thief,” cried the financier as he
leaped up from his desk, “do you presume on the friendship
of my partner to insult me? Leave the office, sir.”

“Kick him, Tom,” said F. Augustus, as he threw down
the last volume of Sir Reginald, for he had that moment
devoured the last word of that splendid production, “kick
him.”

But Jeremiah wished to avoid any disturbance, and he
retreated from the office before the financier had time to
improve upon his brother's hint.

“We must be rid of that fellow,” said Tom, “he's a sneaking
treacherous snoop, and if there is no other way of getting
him off, I will dissolve with his friend, Mr. Jack Tremlett, as
soon as this coffee speculation is closed.”

“How will it turn out?”

“Well. Better than I could have expected. I shall clear
a pretty penny by it, but I am resolved that that fellow
Tremlett shall not finger the first cent of the profits. I will
have a settlement with him and turn him over the stock of
the Cranberry Meadow rail-road. He means to get married
soon to somebody he has met in his rambles through the
Bowery, but he shall spend no money of my earning upon
his Bowery beauty.”

“Good, capital!” exclaimed Fred in his joyous light-hearted
tones, “but hush! Here he comes.”

“Have you delivered the notes?” asked the financier, as his
partner entered the office.

“I have,” replied John, “and now we must make some
arrangements for sales.”

“Leave that to me,” said the financier, “I will make the
sales and you Fred, go and—”

But Fred was already gone; he had promised to drive a
distinguished artist, just returned from Europe, over to his
beau ideal villa, to show him the conservatory, built, as his
architect assured him, exactly after the Duke of Devonshire's,
at Chatsworth, and he had contrived to slip out, unperceived
by his brother, as John came in.

“Gone, is he!” said the financier, “then I must go myself.”

The brothers having left the office, John remained alone.
He was unusually serious, and his face looked care-worn and
his eye heavy; and instead of the clear ruddy complexion
natural to his face, it looked pale and bilious. During the
past night his father's form had been constantly present to
him; and even on his way to the office of Madder & Co.,
the same appearance seemed to float before his eyes, as if to

hinder him from his errand. But since he had delivered the
notes the apparition had ceased to haunt him. He was perplexed
at this unnatural visitation and harrassed at the recollection
of the great extent of his business obligations, and the
risk he had encountered in the coffee speculation; if it should
prove disastrous, he would not only be reduced to absolute
beggary himself, but those who had intrusted their property
to his management, with no other security than his honor,
would be ruined with him and by him.

While he sat at his desk reflecting on these things, old Mr.
Clearman, the grandfather of Fidelia, called in and asked for
the money which was due to her from her father's estate.
One of his neighbors had been talking to the old man and had
pursuaded him that his grand-daughter's money would be safer
in the Savings Bank than in the hands of a merchant. Never
before had the old sailor's visits been ill-timed; his rough,
honest face was a very sun of good humor which had never
failed to light up a pleasant smile on whatever object it shed
its beams, but now John was annoyed at the sight of him,
and his hearty careless laugh increased his sadness. It was
impossible to comply with his request, and John told him
that the next day or the day after, the money should be paid.
As the old sailor withdrew, Mr. Kittle came in.

“Young man,” said the grocer, abruptly, “you asked me
to endorse your notes.”

“Well?” replied John sternly, for the unceremonious manner
of the grocer offended him:

“Well! but 'tis not well. You wanted to swindle me,
sir; yes, you wanted to swindle me!”

“Be careful, and do not presume too much upon your grey
head,” said John.

“I defy you, I say you did, sir, I say you did,” repeated
Mr. Kittle, his carbuncled face growing redder than any red
substance that we know of, “you have got no credit in the
street, sir, your paper isn't worth a fig, sir, here's your notes,

take them and give me my money back, sir; my money, sir,
mine, mine; not yours, mine.

“I owe you nothing,” said John, calmly, for the old grocer's
passion rendered him so ridiculous that it was impossible to
be angry with him, “you have got no notes of mine.”

“What, do you deny your own paper sir, are you going to
plead usury against me? Come, give me my money, my
money that I worked for, not yours.”

“If I owe you anything I will pay you, but not a minute
sooner for your ill mannered abuse; I know nothing of these
notes, they were not given by the firm; they are in the handwriting
of Fred Tuck who is not authorised to give a note.”

“Ah, ha, young man, ah, ha, so, that's your game, that's
the way you mean to cheat me, I know. Come give me my
money, mine, mine; give me fifty per cent. Come, be a man
and don't cheat a hard-worker like me; give me my money.”

“I know nothing about these notes, and I care not how
you obtained them,” replied John, “but they are not yet due,
and you have no right to ask for your money until they be.
Now sir, I should be sorry to be guilty of a rudeness towards
you for the sake of your grey head, but more for the sake of
my father, who once employed you, and trusted you, and
enabled you by his generosity to grow rich, and I beg you
will save me the shame of putting my hands upon you, by
walking out of my office.”

“Do you know who I am, sir, do you know how much
I am worth, sir? do you know I could count out dollars for
your cents, sir,” exclaimed the enraged grocer, snapping his
fingers and dancing furiously round the counting-room, “me
me, yes sir, me, Andrew Kettle, sir; I made it myself, sir,
it wasn't left to me, sir, I made it myself. It's my money;
mine, mine,” and again Mr. Kittle beat his breast violently to
impress the young man that he meant himself, Andrew
Kettle, and no mistake. “I could buy a dozen of you, with
all your dandy clerks and blue curtains. Yes, you were

forced to come to me to endorse your notes to keep up your
credit, and you wanted to cheat me, but you could'nt. There's
your paper, I won't have it; plead usury and cheat me out of
money; take 'em, I won't have 'em!” so saying he rolled up
the notes and threw them at John's head, who thereupon
jumped up from his desk, and pushed the old grocer out of
the office. He repented of it the next moment, and would
willingly have called him back and apologised to him, but it
was too late.

John had scarcely resumed his seat, when Mr. Teunis
Mildmen, the junior of the brothers Mildmen, made his
appearance, and although his countenance was as smooth and
as placid as a new cheese, and every particular hair of his
glossy head occupied its accustomed place, and a perfect
serenity reigned over his shining black suit, it was easy to
perceive, from a peculiar cast of his keen black eye, that the
broker had some weighty business on hand. He sat down
close by John's desk and took a deliberate pinch of snuff, as if
to fill up an awkward pause that necessarily occurred while
he was gaining entire possession of himself.

“How is money with you, plenty?” said Mr. Mildmen.

“No,” replied John, “you know it is not, or we should not
have applied to you for a loan.”

“O, yes, ah, very true, yes indeed, I remember,” said Mr.
Mildmen, as though he had forgotten the circumstance, when
in fact he had remembered nothing else for the last hour or
two, “I didn't know, however, but you might have received
a remittance. It's confounded tight with us, confounded
tight,” and he took another pinch of snuff and looked John
steadily in the eye while he held open the box.

“I never snuff,” said John.

“O, ah, indeed? Is it possible! You don't. You are one
of Colonel Stone's men; you don't smoke, perhaps? Well
they are both bad habits, I suppose, but there are worse,” and
again he looked steadily in John's face.

“That may be, but there are none nastier or more unnatural,”
answered John, with a strong expression of disgust.

“Yes indeed, ah, very true, I don't know about that, I suppose
so; I like a cigar, myself, sometimes, and a pinch of
snuff is company to me when I am alone.”

“Very fit,” thought John although he did not say so. “A
man may do a worse thing than take a pinch of snuff,” continued
the broker, “at all events,” and he looked steadily in
John's face as he uttered the words, “it harms no one, sir.”

“Excuse me,” said John, a little disconcerted at the broker's
earnest stare, “perhaps I expressed myself with a little
too much emphasis, but tobacco is particularly offensive to
me; it is a nauseous thing in any shape, and I have known
some dealers in it who were such dirty contemptible fellows,
that I have, perhaps, imbibed an unreasonable dislike to it.
I hope I have not offended you.”

“O, no indeed, not at all, don't mention it,” said he, as he
knocked off a scarce perceptible particle of dust from his black
satin vest, “not in the least, by no means, I wouldn't have
you think so. So, then you are not flush to-day. I must
have some money. Must. I'm short as pie crust.”

“I am sorry that I cannot help you. But how much do
you want?”

“Not much; a trifle; just the amount of those last notes
that I did for you. But you look ill, anything the matter?”

“I have slept badly of late, but I am well,” replied John.

“O, ah, indeed, is it possible? well, I shouldn't wonder.
That's bad though. You must take more exercise. Brother
Peter, he has been quite sick with the gout in his toes. And
you don't sleep well? Something on your mind perhaps?”
And again he looked seriously into John's face as though he
expected to find something very strange and startling there.
“A good many are disturbed in their sleep about these times;
money is so tight! the dry goods men suffer some now. I
must have some money. You must squeeze me out something.”

“I cannot.”

“You must, I am in earnest; I must have it.”

“I assure you it is impossible; and it strikes me that you
are a little too pressing, sir.”

“O, ah, does it, indeed; well, come, but I am in earnest.
Credit is a slippery thing, now; just reflect a moment; here's
the three last notes that I did for you, come, give me your
check for them, and take off a commission, come.”

“I have already told you that I cannot do it,” said John,
“furthermore, the notes have a long time to run, and you told
me that they were sold to a third party.”

“O, ah, yes indeed, well, that's very true, but it's for a
friend, your friend as well as mine. I won't say too much,
but let me tell you, I am in earnest, it will be for your interest
to cash up. You can trust me, I am your friend. It's not
necessary to tell all I know.”

“Keep nothing back if you know aught that can affect me
or my firm; speak out, I neither understand your dark sayings
nor like them.”

“O, ah, very true, yes, but I think I had better not now.
But let me see, by the way, you are not the financier of the
firm I believe?”

“No,” replied John.

“Ah, well, very true, by the way, perhaps you give out the
notes.”

John signified that he did.

Ah, very well, you do, perhaps then you have seen that
note before?” and Mr. Mildmen held up to him one of the
notes that he had passed to Madder & Co., but a few hours
before.

“Certainly I have, I delivered it myself, and I am surprised
to find it in your hands.”

“Ah, very likely, very likely indeed, and I dare say you
would not care for anybody else to see it?”

“I should not, indeed.”

“Well, let me see, by the way, just hand over the money

for these three pieces of paper, and it shall go no further.
You understand?”

“No, I do not understand, and I promise you I shall give
you no money before the time agreed upon.”

“Ah, indeed, perhaps you will change your mind. Talk to
your partner about it. I'm in earnest, I am, indeed; I shall
wait in my office until three o'clock; but remember! I must
have my money back again. Good morning.”

John was completely confounded at the strange behavior of
Mr. Mildmen, and as he had regretted his rudeness towards
Mr. Kittle the moment the old grocer had quitted the office,
he now regretted that he had been so civil to the broker and
had half resolved to follow him and pull his nose, when
Jeremiah appeared before him.

“What has happened, Jeremiah, and where do you come
from?” he exclaimed, not a little moved by his downcast
looks.

“I came from prison, but I cannot tell you, in this place
all that has happened. You must go with me to your own
room where we shall not be liable to interruptions.”

“From prison, Jeremiah, and have you been visiting the
prisons with friend Hogshart and his daughter?”

“Surely you knew that I have been in prison on charge of
stealing!” said Jeremiah with a blush.

“Stealing, Jeremiah! you are jocose.”

“Ah, I thought you could not have heard. And you did
not receive a note from me yesterday?”

“Indeed, I did not; explain this riddle to me. I have
lived in the midst of mysteries to day, and this is the strangest
of all. Explain, Jernmiah, explain.”

“I will, but not here; go with me to your house, there's no
time to lose; I have something to tell that I wish I had never
lived to know.”

“I will go with you this moment,” said John, and having
given some orders to Mr. Bates, the two friends left the
counting-room together.

12. CHAPTER VIII.

THERE is no need that we should follow the two friends
and listen to the narrative of the one and witness the grief
and amazement of the other. Horror-struck at the dreadful
crime of the Tucks, John could think of nothing at first
but the shame and disgrace that must attach to himself from
his having been associated with the brothers in business; and
his first impulse was to screen them from exposure as much
for his own sake as for theirs. The world only knew him as
their partner and brother-in-law, and how should he free himself
from the suspicion of having been polluted by his close
connexion with them. He shuddered at the thought, even,
of suspicion attaching to his name. He had kept it unsullied,
and he meant for the sake of him from whom he received it
without a blemish or a stain, to preserve it pure while he
lived. Disgrace appeared to him a thousand times more
terrible than death; he knew how sensitive his father had been
on the score of integrity and mercantile honor, and he had a
feverish fear of being suspected of unfair dealing in the
smallest trifle. Although conscious of his upright intentions, he
had, perhaps, too little reliance on his own integrity and
feared too much the appearance of evil. As to seeing the
brothers again, he felt it was impossible; the thought of meeting
them or their mother completely unnerved him and he

resolved never again to hold intercourse with them in any
manner. After some discussion with Jeremiah, he at last
determined to endeavor to bribe Mr. Jacobs to silence that the
brothers might have time to escape. Unhappily it was an
emergency in which they could not ask advice, or they might
have been cautioned against pursuing a course that would be
attended with so much difficulty and peril to themselves.
In pursuance of this plan, however, Jeremiah started immediately
for the prison to make overtures to Mr. Jacobs, and
John agreed to remain in his chamber until he returned to
report the success of his negotiation.

In the mean time, Tom Tuck was working out his own
destruction, and bringing ruin on the heads of those who
were periling their lives for his sake.

The firm of Madder & Co. had agreed not to offer the
notes of Tremlett & Tucks, with the endorsement of Mr.
Kittle, at Bank, and the financier in making this stipulation,
supposed that he had a sure warrant of their being
kept in the hands of that firm, for he knew them to be exact
and conscientious merchants, and by the term “offering at
Bank,” he meant offering them for discount in any manner;
and he thought that he was so understood. But the managing
partner of the house of Madder & Co., like other merchants,
was satisfied if he kept to the letter of his agreement,
which, it must be owned, is the only safe rule for a merchant,
and being in want of money he did not scruple to offer the
notes for sale to the Brothers Mildmen. Mr. Teunis Mildmen
had been tempted by the very liberal offer of Fred Tuck, to
discount some of that young gentleman's renewed notes, with
his own private funds, unknown, even to his brother Peter;
although he had reported the sale as to a third party; and
when Mr. Madder brought in the note of Tremlett & Tucks,
with the endorsement of Mr. Kittle, he became dreadfully
alarmed, for that prudent grocer had but a few moments before
returned three of Fred's notes with orders for them to be

sold at any sacrifice. Mr. Mildmen perceived at once that
there must be something amiss in regard to the endorsement
of Mr. Kittle, and in strict obedience to his instincts, although
directly opposed to his professions and principles, he resolved
to get rid of his own notes first, and then save his employers
if he could. Brother Peter was confined to his room with an
attack of gout, but Mr. Teunis was fully equal to his position.
He had not the slightest doubt that the endorsement of Mr. Kittle
was a forgery, and he thought that by hinting as much to
John Tremlett, and promising to keep it secret, he might induce
him to repay the money which he had given for Fred's
note. But in this he was disappointed, as we have already
seen; and, in fact, the coolness with which John had received
his hints, led him to believe that his suspicions were unfounded.
But to satisfy himself, he showed the notes to Mr. Kittle,
who pronounced his signature a forgery. The old gentleman
was still inflamed with anger against John, and swore that
he would cause him to be immediately arrested; but Mr.
Mildmen knowing that such a course would endanger the
payment of the note which he held, prevailed upon him to
restrain his passions and allow him to try to get some security
from the firm before he made the arrest. Mr. Kittle reluctantly
consented and the broker hastened back to the office of
Tremlett & Tucks, where he found Tom Tuck alone, and
without much delicacy of expression accused him of uttering
forged notes, and told him that unless a certain sum of money
were paid on the spot, a complaint should be lodged against
him.

The financier heard the accusation without other emotions
than such as were perfectly natural to indignant innocence.
He swore in the most solemn manner that the notes had been
brought to him by his partner with the endorsement of Mr.
Kittle, and that believing them to have been properly obtained,
he had asked no farther questions about them; and to substantiate
his own assertions he referred to Messrs. Madder & Co.

who stated that the notes were brought to them by the
senior partner of the firm. Mr. Kittle also stated that John
had called upon him and tried to procure his endorsement.
These facts, when put together, seemed to confirm the statement
of Tom Tuck, and fasten the guilt of forgery upon John,
but Fred Tuck coming into the office while the broker and
Mr. Kittle were in conference with the financier, unhesitatingly
swore to all his brother had said, and to manifest his
abhorrence of his partner's crime, insisted on his being immediately
arrested. The financier made a solemn promise
that the claims of Mr. Kittle and Mr. Mildmen should be secured
the next day, and though he entreated that his partner
might not be arrested, confessed that his crime deserved the
utmost rigor of the law.

But Mr. Mildmen, having, as he thought, secured the payment
of his claim, felt extremely loth that so dangerous a
person as John should be allowed to roam at large through
the world, and he insisted on having him arrested without
delay; Mr. Kittle also had so keen a sense of his obligations
to society, that he refused to listen to any delay. The senior
partner of the firm of Madder & Co. was sent for and informed
of the forgery, and he confirmed the suspicion of
John's guilt by stating that himself and his partner had noticed
a very strange expression in the young gentleman's face
when he delivered the notes, and that he trembled and looked
pale when he took them from his pocket. Indeed, Mr. Madder
was so entirely convinced of the innocence of the Tucks,
and that they had suffered from an unworthy partner that he
consented to hold to his sale of the coffee, and allow them to
secure the payment of their notes at their leisure. He then
proceeded to the office of a magistrate, accompanied by Mr.
Mildmen, to procure a warrant for John's arrest, after which
Mr. Kittle and the brothers were to accompany them, to aid,
if necessary, in securing him.

Not satisfied with the harm they were doing to their innocent

partner, the Tucks persuaded Mr. Madder to include
Jeremiah in their complaint, for they knew that he would be
very likely to frustrate their ultimate plans if he were left at
liberty. It so happened that just as they were about to leave
the magistrate's office with the warrant, Jeremiah passed
by on his way to the prison. Tom Tuck saw him and
dispatched an officer after him with orders to keep him until
they returned with John, that they might be both examined
together. This was an exceedingly unfortunate move for the
Tucks; for Mr. Jacobs, having been in a state of great uncertainty
as to the proper course for him to pursue in regard
to them ever since he had discovered that Jeremiah had been
released, had just resolved to make a confession of his crime,
partly out of revenge and partly through fear; and had sent
for the keeper of the prison for that purpose. But had Jeremiah
been allowed to proceed on his benevolent errand, he
would have arrived in time to have prevented the unfortunate
disclosure. But affairs were differently ordered. Mr.
Jacobs made a full confession to the keeper of the prison,
who lost no time in making the matter known to the district
attorney, and that indefatigable officer was not long in deciding
upon his proper course of action.

Mr. Madder and Mr. Mildmen proceeded in a cab to the
house of Mrs. Tuck where they were joined by the two
brothers in their own carriage, who took up Mr. Kittle on
their way and they all proceeded to John's house together.

They found him in the hall pacing the floor with impatient
strides, and his countenance wore a pale and haggard look,
such as it had never worn before. He was hardly startled at
sight of his visiters, although he shuddered when he saw his
partners.

“Poor fellow,” whispered Mr. Madder to Tom Tuck, “he
evidently knows what we have come for.”

“Sit down gentlemen,” said John, “sit down;” but he
averted his face from the brothers, for the sight of them

chilled his blood, “I would I could have been spared this
painful scene.”

“It's too late to hope now,” growled Mr. Kittle, “you
should have thought of this sooner.

“I did not intend it,” replied John, “but the bungling of
Jeremiah I suppose has imposed it upon me.”

“Don't try to put your faults upon other people,” replied
Mr. Kittle.

“That Jeremiah's a deep fellow; it's well we caught him,”
observed Mr. Mildmen in a whisper to Mr. Madder.

“My dear sir,” said John to Mr. Kittle, “I regret that any
harsh words should have passed between us; perhaps I was
too hasty. O, if you knew what cause I had for irritation
you would not think ill of me! I beg your pardon, for what
I said and did;” he reached out his hand to Mr. Kittle, but
the indignant grocer held back his own.

“This is an awkward business, sir,” said Mr. Madder.

“O, it is terrible,” replied John with a shudder, “none of
you can feel it as I do.”

“No, I dare say not,” remarked the broker, with a faint
smile, as he glanced towards the financier, who stood with
his arms folded, quite confounded at the strange dialogue that
was going on.

“What have you done with Jeremiah?” continued John,
speaking at large, for he could not discover who was conducting
the proceedings.

“Jeremiah? O, ah, very true, well, yes,” said the broker,
“Jeremiah is safe; he will be kept at the magistrate's office
until we return.”

“Poor fellow,” said John, “it's a painful duty for him; he
would gladly have avoided it.”

“He might easily have done so,” remarked Mr. Kittle,
“those that sow the wind must reap the whirlwind.”

This ambiguous remark was rather puzzling to John, but
after a whispering between Tom Tuck, the officer and Mr.

Madder, he was still more puzzled at a speech of the latter
gentleman.

“The officer is in a hurry to be off,” he said, “and if you
have any little arrangements to make about your family it
will be well for you to attend to them immediately. We
must return to the magistrate's office; he is waiting for us.”

“I have no arrangements to make,” replied John, “and I
beg that I may not detain you, for every moment that you
remain is extremely painful to me; but you must excuse me
from going with you; I can be of no service and my feelings
have been painfully excited already. You must excuse me.”

The gentlemen all exchanged glances, and just the faint
shadow of a smile crossed the features of Mr. Madder.

“Singular remark, that!” said Mr. Kittle.

“Well, yes, rather, I must say I think it is,” said the broker.

“You do not misunderstand me, I take it?” said Mr.
Madder.

“No, no,” replied John, “but, indeed, this matter is too
painful, for me to speak in more definite terms. I feel more
keenly than you can conceive of.”

“Tut, tut,” said Mr. Madder, “this is the merest folly.
We do not doubt the keenness of your feelings; indeed, we
only wonder at your moderation; but we cannot consider feelings
in such a case as this. You have put it out of our power
to exercise our own discretion in the matter. If you want
any legal advice we will send for your lawyer to meet us at
the magistrates, but really you presume too much on our
good nature by obliging us to wait here.”

“I know not what you mean,” replied John, “I have taken
no part in this thing, and my attendance cannot be necessary.
Jeremiah will answer all your purposes; and once more I
assure you that I cannot go with you. Believe me, I am in
earnest.”

“We would not make use of force if it were possible to
avoid it,” replied Mr. Madder, “but you compel us, and the

consequences be on your own head. Officer, do your duty!”

“What's the meaning of this? Am I to be treated like a
criminal!” exclaimed John as the officer grasped him by the
collar.

“The meaning of it!” exclaimed the grocer, “the meaning
of it, indeed; ah! my young fellow, it is too late to give
yourself airs now; little did your old father think that you
would ever come to this. The meaning of it, indeed! The
meaning of it is that you have been forging my name; mine,
mine, mine, young man, mine, injuring my credit in Wall
street! and you are caught and must go to prison for it.
Shame on you, you turn an honest man out of your counting-room,
when he civilly asks for his money; yes, you! Ah,
you look astonished; well, well, I hope you will repent of
your roguery.”

“That's a little too hard,” said the broker.

“Do I understand that you have come here to arrest me,
for forgery?”

“I am sorry to say that we have,” replied Mr. Madder
“and although I am willing, for my part, to allow you all
the benefit which your denial of the charge may secure to
you, yet I would advise you as a friend to make a frank confession
of your crime. You will stand better in the estimation
of business men for doing so, I assure you; and it is no
use to deny the charge; the evidence against you is so direct
and positive, that you can have no hope of acquittal. I
received the notes from you myself, Mr. Kittle here says
that you tried to procure his endorsement, and both of your
partners, who came very near being suspected of a participation
in your crime, swear that you brought the notes to them,
and told them that you had procured the endorsements by
paying a commission. It is a very clear case and I see no
possible chance for your escape. I do not wish to give any
distress that can be avoided, for I doubt not that you had no
expectation that any harm would come of the act, but you

see how impossible it is to do wrong with impunity. Somebody
must suffer, and it is well when the chief aggressor is
the chief sufferer.”

“Ah, yes indeed, that's the ordering of Providence,” said
Mr. Kittle.

“Do my partners swear as you have said?”

“They do,” replied Mr. Madder.

“O, how can I repel this! Have I no friend among you,
gentlemen? Will either of you believe me? As he turned to
them he burst into tears and exclaimed, “if there is truth
in Heaven, they lie; I am innocent of all knowledge of the
forgery which you say has been committed.”

“Come, come, young man,” cried Mr. Kittle, “don't add to
your fault by perjury. Your partners are well known in this
community as smart fellows.”

“O, O!” ejaculated the broker, quite overcome at the enormity
of the young man's hardness of heart.

“Let him go on,” said the financier “his abuse can do me
no harm, I expect it as a matter of course.”

“So do I,” said Fred with an air of determined resignation,
“but I can endure his abuse so long as all is right here,” and
he put his hand to his heart.

“O, God! O, God!” exclaimed John, “I little dreamed of
this! I see that I am ruined. O, that I should have lived to
be accused of a crime like this. I cannot look upon my
friends in this world again, but those that look upon me from
the other, know that I am innocent. My partners, gentlemen,
have done this thing themselves; it is true that I delivered
the notes myself, but I received them from the financier who
refused to tell me how he had procured them. But, you do
not believe me, I see; it is idle to declare my innocence.
O, it is cruel! cruel! I cannot speak to my partners, I cannot
appeal to them, I have nothing to hope from them; they
are murderers, I dare not look at them; the crime of which

they accuse me is a righteous deed compared with that of
which they are guilty.”

“Let me come at the villain,” cried Tom Tuck, while his
brother stood gasping, as if for breath.

“Shame! shame!” cried Mr. Madder, as he held the financier
back, “we must not allow this. You only aggravate
your crime, Mr. Tremlett, by conduct like this; your partners
have already suffered too much from your bad acts.”

“I can wait no longer,” said the officer; “if you wish to
take a valise with you, I will go with you to your chamber
to get it, or you can send for it, but I must go right off.”
“I will not detain you long,” said John, “this will soon be
over. Be so kind as to call my house-keeper. I must see her
before I go.” The officer stepped into the next room and
returned in a moment with Mrs. Swazey.

“O, my dear God, what is the matter?” exclaimed the
housekeeper;

“Mother,” said John, “these gentlemen have come here to
carry me to prison. They say that I have committed a forgery;
but you know that I am innocent, do you not?”

“Know it! Precious sweet, aye; who is it says so? Do
you? do you say it? do you? No, nobody shall say so before
me!”

“Be quiet old lady,” said Mr. Kittle, “I know my own
business.”

“I am innocent, mother, innocent of this crime as my poor
father; and so is Jeremiah; he knows nothing of it; tell me
again, mother, that you believe me innocent.”

“Help me God! my dear God, I know you are. I do
believe it, I know it my precious child!”

“And will you tell Fidelia so, will you tell her I say so,
tell her to believe so, for my sake?”

“Precious, precious soul, I will; but why should I,” sobbed
the old woman.

“Do not weep, I beg of you. There is no need of shedding

a tear for me, they cannot harm me. Kiss me mother again.
Now, let me go; God bless you, mother! They are waiting,
O, take her from me, gentlemen, and I will keep you here no
longer. Will you allow me to go to my room one moment,
I will not detain you?”

“I will wait for you at the foot of the stairs,” said the
officer, “but I can't wait long.”

“Thank you, thank you,” and he pressed the officer's hand
and hurried up stairs.

“Remember, it is at your peril,” said the financier.

“I know my duty, sir,” replied the officer.

“Don't be too harsh,” said Mr. Madder, as he wiped his
eyes. And even the broker and Mr. Kittle were obliged to
look out of the window to hide their emotion; but the brothers
stood apart, pale and apparently unmoved by pity.

John's footsteps were heard a moment in the room above
them, but suddenly it was still as though he had sat down.
Mrs. Swazey had retired to her own apartment, and the gentlemen
in the hall looked at each other in silence. It was
awfully still for a few minutes, and the officer began to look
uneasy.

“He is gone a long while,” said Mr. Madder.

“I will hasten him,” said the officer, and he leaped lightly
up the stairs; “we are waiting for you sir,” said the officer
speaking through the key-hole of the chamber door, “we can
wait no longer.” But there was no response. He knocked,
lightly at first, and then louder, but there was still no reply.
“There is something wrong, I am afraid,” said the officer.

“Knock down the door,” said Mr. Kittle, “he may have
fainted.”

“Wait, wait,” said Mr. Madder, “let me speak, perhaps he
will reply to me,” but still there was no response.

“Well, upon my word, it is strange, however; what must
we do, officer?” said Mr. Mildmen.

“There is but one way, sir, I must force open the door,”
replied the officer; and after two or three attempts the door
flew open and they all rushed in, but started back with an
exclamation of horror.

“God of Heaven! What a sight!” said Mr. Madder.

Sitting in an arm chair, with his head resting on the side
of the bed on which his father had died, they found the unfortunate
young man with a frightful gash across his throat and a
stream of thick black blood running upon the floor; an open
razor lay on the bed beside him. The wound was very deep,
and he appeared quite dead; but they sent off the officer for a
surgeon and tried to stop the effusion of blood. But their
efforts availed nothing. He was dead.

“Plain proof of his guilt,” said the financier.

“I am by no means sure of that; it strikes me differently;
there has been foul play somewhere,” said Mr. Madder.

“Poor fellow! poor fellow!” said Mr. Mildmen, “what a
rash young man; well, ah, indeed, but its a bad business.”

“I hope he thought nothing of my remarks; for I liked
the young man, after all; I meant nothing,” said Mr. Kittle,
and his carbuncled visage changed to a dismal blueish hue.

“This is too much for us; my brother and I must retire,”
said the financier, “you know where to find us. My poor
mother will be prostrated by this sad news.”

The brothers hurried down stairs together, and leaping
into their carriage, which stood at the door, drove with all
haste to their mother's house. They found her in her dressing
room alone, just prepared to go out to a dinner party.

“My children! my children! What ails you? How
dreadfully pale you are. You tremble, Fred. What has
happened to you? Tell me quick?”

“Ask no questions, I have no time to talk; I am off on a
journey, and you musn't know where,” said Tom.

“My son! my son! you will kill me!”

“I cannot help it, I tell you I am off, and you must not
know where.”

“My dear, dear Fred, tell me what has happened, or I shall
die. You will not leave your poor mother!”

“Nothing has happened to speak of, only we are ruined;
it matters not how; it is better for you not to know.”

“O, my children, if you are ruined, if you have failed, don't
let that trouble you. I can get money for you.”

“You can?—O, yes, I dare say.—By stealing, I suppose.”
said the financier.

“Ah, now, my son, how can you say such a word to your
dear mother?”

“Dear mother! yes, you have been a dear mother to me;
and dearly am I paying for you now. Come, don't stop to
cry. Don't you see we are in earnest? If you know of any
way of getting money, let us know it. I am serious. I must
have some money.”

“O, my children, O, my son, if your poor father could
have heard that speech—”

“Will you leave off with your trifling, and if you can help
us to anything, let us know it,” said Tom.

“My dear son; be patient, and you shall know. But don't
reproach your mother, remember that I have lived only for
your sake, and what I am going to tell you was done for
your good—”

“Well, well, let us hear it, then,” said Tom.

“The day that old Mr. Tremlett died,” said Mrs. Tuck, “I
watched by his bedside, and while I was engaged in changing
his pillow, I discovered a small package lying under the
bolster; I had a curiosity to look at it, and being left alone
in the room a few minutes after he died, I slipped it into my
pocket—”

“Stop! stop!” cried Tom, while large drops of sweat ran

down his face, “don't tell me it was his will,—don't tell me
that!”

“It was, my son, it was. I have got it now. He bequeathed
all his money, to that bad fellow who robbed us of our Julia,
and our property. I was resolved to be revenged for the
wrong he did us, and I kept it to spite him. But, now that
you are in want of money, my children, you shall have it;
he is your partner and you can, of course, share with him.—”

“O, mother, mother, why did you not tell us of this before!”
said Fred.

“He our partner!” said Tom with a sneer, “he's in Hell;
The will is worth nothing to us, nor to him.”

“O, my son, you affright me, what is it?”

“It is this; he cut his throat not an hour since, and he
now lies drowned in his own blood.”

“O, horror! horror! but do not blame me my son, do not
blame me, it was done for your good; love me still my
children; do not forget that I am your mother.”

“Love you,” said Tom, as he shook his clenched fist at
her. “I hate you! see what you have brought us to. I tell
you I hate you. Yes, I am in earnest. You have ruined us,
you have learned us to—. But never mind, you will know
in the end. Love you! I tell you I have not so much love
for you as could fill the space which a needle's point would
occupy on the surface of my heart. Now let me go, I have
no time to waste.”

“Never, never,” shrieked the wretched woman, as she fell
upon his neck, and clasped her arms around him, “never
shall you leave me until you recall those words and tell me
that you love me; never! never! until you tell me that you
forgive me!

“You will strangle me, you will murder me,” exclaimed
Tom as he struggled to free himself from her, “you will

repent this; let me go, or you will murder me;” but she
clung to him and shrieked wildly, while Fred sat pale as a
ghost and trembled as though he had been shaken by an
ague.

While this terrible struggle was going on between the
mother and son, the sound of men's feet was heard on the
stairs. The brothers started at the sound.

“Hush! mother! hush you will destroy us,” said Fred,
there was no way of escape, and he crept into a clothes-press
and hid himself beneath a heap of clothes.

“Mother! mother! let me go, I will do anything, I will
promise anything,” cried Tom as he struggled in vain to free
himself from her embrace.

The sound of footsteps approached nearer, the door was
forced open and three men made their appearnce. They
started back at the strange sight that presented itself, but
immediately re-entered.

“You are my prisoner,” said the foremost one.

“For what?” said Tom, haughtily, as he turned upon them,
for his mother had released him as the door opened.

“For murder!” replied the officer, “for murdering your
uncle.”

“O, my son! my son!” shrieked his mother, and fell, as
though she were dead upon the floor.

For the first time the financier was thrown off his guard.
The announcement was so unexpected that it fell upon him
like a stunning blow. He staggered; his eyes glared wildly;
his face turned ashy pale; his tongue was stiff with fright
and he gasped for breath.

The officer, accustomed to distinguish between the evidences
of innocence and crime, which, to the unobserving,
often appear the same, saw with an unfailing instinct that he
was guilty, and fearing some violence on his part, immediately
secured him. “Where is your brother?” demanded the
officer.

“Am I my brother's keeper?” replied the financier, helped
no doubt to this little scrap of scripture by the enemy of
men's souls, who has the reputation of making apt quotations
when they can be done to serve his purpose.

But it was not necessary to repeat the question, for the
reply was hardly uttered when the door of the clothes-press
flew open and Fred Tuck rolled out upon the floor; he had
fainted; but a dash of cold water soon restored him and
the brothers were taken to prison, while their mother lay insensible
in the arms of the servants who were striving to
revive her.

Tom preserved a haughty, stern demeanor, and conducted
himself with great dignity and propriety; but Fred set up a
most dismal howling and behaved in a manner altogether
different from what one would have supposed a gentleman
of his elegant tastes and fondness for aesthetics would have
done.

13. CHAPTER IX.

HAVING no ambition to furnish a history for Lawyers to
quote from, or to help establish precedents for the bad
practices of criminal prosecutors, we shall refrain from giving
a report of the trial of Mr. Jacobs and the brothers Tuck.
The verdicts alone must satisfy our readers. The brothers
were both found guilty. Not that the evidence against them
was by any means strong, or the prosecution conducted with
unusual ability; for one was exceedingly slight, and the other
remiss and gentle, and in ordinary cases would have failed to
procure a verdict of guilty; but there had been three or four
acquittals of murderers during the year, in cases where the
evidence was of such a nature that the juries could not have
failed to convict without perjuring themselves; and the public
had manifested such a spirit of resentment that the jury who
sat upon the Tucks, rather consulted the wishes of the public
(like good republicans as they were) than their obligations as
jurors, and returned a verdict accordingly, after being absent
from the jury box but a very few minutes. They were sustained
by the public sentiment, and highly complimented for
their moral courage by the press, and even clergymen thanked
God in their pulpits that there was some virtue yet left in the
community. Demonstrations like these must have been infinitely
more gratifiying to good citizens, than the approval
of so inconsiderable a monitor as conscience. A man's conscience

having no vote, and being without any political influence
whatever, can never be a safe tribunal for an American
citizen to appeal to.

It was midnight when the brothers were brought into court
to hear the verdict; and as soon as it was pronounced, the
judge and jurors, hurried home to their wives and little
ones, the prisoners were hurried back to their cells, and officers
and lawyers, and all the denizens of filthy court rooms
and hideous prisons,—human vultures that love to pray on
human suffering and crime—the whole brood of unclean
creatures that gorge themselves with such pickings as may
be found in the precints of the gallows, threw aside their
wooden badges of authority, their red tape documents, and
bundles of worthless papers, and hurried home to their places
of rest like the spectators of a melo-drama when the last scene
is ended. The judge and the jurors, the crier and the counsel,
the attornies and the turn-keys, had all earned their fees
and lay down to sleep with the consciousness of having done
their duty to their country. They had succeeded in condemning
two fellow beings to death, and then put up their
prayers for pleasant dreams and long life to themselves. Of
the whole brood, perhaps not one thought more of the wretched
men whose sufferings had been the subject of their gratification,
than the crow does of the once noble racer whose
carcass has afforded him a meal.

The next morning Tom Tuck was found hanging by the
neck from a beam which crossed his cell. It having appeared
in the course of the trial that he was the sole originator of
the crime for which himself and his brother were condemned,
the Governor was induced to pardon Fred, and the public
was cheated of all the agreeable incidents of a hanging, for
Mr. Jacobs got clear of the gallows by turning State's evidence,
although he was found guilty of uttering counterfeit
notes, for which he was sentenced to the state-prison, where
he had the satisfaction of being joined in a short time by
every one of his old associates.

There being not the slightest evidence to criminate Jeremiah,
he was released from confinement the day after his
committal, and during the whole trial of the Tucks he labored
incessantly in their behalf, and exerted himself to the utmost
of his ability to solace and comfort their mother, making
many sacrifices for her sake, and sending her money when
he supposed her to be in want.

The estate of the firm was put into the hands of receivers
appointed by the Chancellor, who employed Jeremiah for
their chief assistant at the same salary that he had been receiving
as correspondent clerk. The coffee speculation turned
out as profitable as the financier had anticipated, and fully
justified the high character as a merchant which his friends
had given him. The year before had been one of unusual
depression in the mercantile world; everybody felt poor, without
any particular cause, however, and it was universally admitted
by business men and politicians that the country was
on the verge of bankruptcy and ruin; now, a change had
taken place and prices of everything were advancing, and
everybody felt rich with as little cause as they had before for
feeling poor. The consequence was that the estate of Tremlett
& Tuck, to the astonishment of everybody, paid all its
debts, including even the fradulent notes of Fred, which had
been sold to the brothers Mildmen, and there being a balance
of a few hundred dollars left, the Receiver presented it to
Jeremiah, as a reward for his industry and honesty. But Jeremiah
did not consider himself privileged to keep it, and made
a present of it to Fred Tuck, who was thereby enabled to establish
a shop in the Bowery for the sale of segars and
cheap novels, from the profits of which he supported himself
and his mother quite genteelly, although in a style so far removed
from their former magnificence, that it will admit of no
comparison with it. After a few months he removed from
the Bowery into Broadway, where he enlarged his stock and
made a very manifest change in his manner of living, which

caused many ill stories to be circulated in regard to him, for it
was supposed that he had not become honestly possessed of
his means. But lest the reader should entertain any such ill
thoughts, we will explain the cause of his sudden advancement.

As soon as Mr. Loudon heard the melancholy news of the
breaking up of the firm of Tremlett & Tucks, by the death
of the senior partner and the arrest of the others, he forwarded
on to Jeremiah the will that John had deposited with him for
safe keeping, before leaving Charleston. It had been lying
in a pigeon-hole of his iron chest, quite forgotten. The testator
had bequeathed his entire property to be divided equally
between Jeremiah and Fidelia, but Jeremiah refused to receive
anything for his own portion excepting a gold pencil
case that had been a new year's present from old Mr. Tremlett
to his son the year before he died; the remainder of the
personal property, consisting of a small collection of books, a
few good pictures, a gold watch and his wearing apparel, he
insisted that Fidelia should receive; and she was too happy
to receive anything that had once belonged to her affianced
husband to refuse them. The Staten Island cottage had to
be sold. Jeremiah would have bought it, but it was infinitely
beyond his reach; he could not hope ever to be rich
enough to buy it; but still he could not endure the thought
that anybody should inhabit it but Fidelia, for he knew that
it was built expressly for her, and he modestly requested the
purchaser of it, Mr. Haverstraw, a dry goods jobber, not to sell
it without first giving him the refusal of it.

When Fred Tuck heard that John's will had been found,
it occurred to him immediately that the legatees might recover
the whole amount of Mr. Tremlett's property, which
had been taken possession of by the State, upon their producing
the will of the latter, which had been secreted by his mother;
and having consulted with his lawyer and found that
he was right in his conjecture, he determined to bring the

matter to a profitable account for himself. He therefore called
upon Jeremiah, and after obtaining a promise of secresy
from him, told him that he could put him in possession of
Mr. Tremlett's lost will by which he could recover one half
of the old merchant's estate. At first Jeremiah was incredulous,
but Fred told him if he would give a conditional bond
for ten thousand dollars, to be paid when he got possession of
the estate, the will should be placed in his hands in less than
an hour. With these conditions Jeremiah complied, and the
will was brought to him within the stipulated time. At sight
of this once eagerly souglit document he was quite overcome
and unable to speak for a long time; not that he exulted in
this sudden and altogether unlooked for good fortune to himself.
Very far from it. He thought not of his own interests
in the matter at all, but of his dear friend whose life had been
sacrificed, and of all the suffering and distress that had been
endured by others for want of the worthless parchment
which he held in his hand. He retired to his chamber and
wept, and prayed Heaven not to desert him in the day of
prosperity which now seemed dawning upon him.

Having given vent to his feelings in tears and fortified himself
against temptation by prayer, he hastened to Fidelia and
imparted the strange news to her; but he cautioned her
against indulging in too lively hopes for as they could only
gain possession of the property by a suit at law, if they gained
it at all, he could not allow himself to entertain any anticipations
of success. Mr Polesworthy had assured him that there
could be no doubt of his recovering the property, but he had
seen enough of legal tribunals to know that of all uncertain
things the law is the most uncertain.

In process of time, after being harrassed, and perplexed and
put to as much expense, as the law in its most liberal construction
would allow its ministers to inflict, the money was
recovered, amounting to a trifle more than four hundred
thousand dollars.

The first investment that Jeremiah made, was in the purchase
of the Staten Island cottage, for which he was compelled
to pay about three times its original cost; for Mr. Haverstraw,
the owner, perceiving that he had got hold of a customer
who was determined to purchase, demanded a sum
which brought a blush into his own face when he named it.
But Jeremiah gave his check for it, without hesitation, as he
would have done had it been three times as much, and then
tendered the cottage to Fidelia. She accepted of it, for she
well knew that he would be grieved if she either refused it,
or offered to pay for it. Fred Tuck received his reward, but
we regret to be compelled to record the fact that he relapsed
into his former extravagant habits, got deeply in debt and at
last was obliged to abscond to escape imprisonment for some
offence, the exact nature of which we never ascertained. His
mother being left in complete destitution, Jeremiah took it
upon himself to see that her wants were duly supplied, although
he never could prevail upon himself to see her, and at
her death, which happened in a few months after her son, deserted
her, defrayed the expenses of her funeral, and caused a
plain white stone with the simple record of her death, to be
placed above her remains.

While the suit for the recovery of Mr. Tremlett's property
was in progress, Jeremiah and Fidelia were, of necessity, often
brought together; but apart from this cause a community of
grief made the society of each other at first a solace and at last
a delight. How it happened we know not; indeed, the parties
scarce knew themselves, but when Fidelia went down to
Staten Island in the flowery month of June to take possession
of her cottage, Jeremiah accompanied her as her husband.
Thither her grand parents and the old drab parrot were removed,
and a flaunting brick store with square granite
columns soon supplanted the modest little yellow house which
they vacated. The old bird seemed at first a little discontented
by her change of residence, but seeing the same faces about

her and hearing the same voices, and above all, inhaling the
same fumes from the old sailor's pipe, she soon grew reconciled
to her new abode and behaved with unexceptionable
propriety for a whole year, when, one morning at breakfast
she threw the whole family into ecstasies of delight by striving
to imitate the piping tones of a new born child. But to
the day of her death, which did not happen until many such
little episodes had occurred, she never failed, at the prescribed
evening hour, to ejaculate, in her hoarse voice, the always
welcome sound

“LET US PRAY.”