University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

It was truly news for an American, who had been so
long cut off from intelligence from home, thus suddenly to
be told that some of the scenes of the middle ages—scenes
connected with real wrongs and gross abuses of human
rights—were about to be enacted in his own land; that
country which boasted itself, not only to be the asylum
of the oppressed, but the conservator of the right. I was
grieved at what I had heard, for, during my travels, I had
cherished a much-loved image of justice and political excellence,
that I now began to fear must be abandoned. My
uncle and myself decided at once to return home, a step
that indeed was required by prudence. I was now of an
age to enter into the full possession of my own property (so
far as “new laws and new lords” would permit); and the
letters received by my late guardian, as well as certain
newspapers, communicated the unpleasant fact that a great
many of the tenants of Ravensnest had joined the association,
paid tribute for the support of “Injins,” and were getting
to be as bad as any of the rest of them, so far as
designs and schemes to plunder were concerned, though
they still paid their rents. The latter circumstance was
ascribed by our agent to the fact that many leases were
about to fall in, and it would be in my power to substitute
more honest and better disposed successors for the present
occupants of the several farms. Measures were taken accordingly
for quitting Paris as soon as possible, so that we
might reach home late in the month of May.

“If we had time, I would certainly throw in a memorial
or two to the legislature,” observed my uncle, a day or two

before we proceeded to Havre to join the packet. “I have
a strong desire to protest against the invasion of my rights
as a freeman that is connected with some of their contemplated
laws. I do not at all like the idea of being abridged
of the power of hiring a farm for the longest time I can
obtain it, which is one of the projects of some of the ultra
reformers of free and equal New York. It is wonderful,
Hugh, into what follies men precipitate themselves as soon
as they begin to run into exaggerations, whether of politics,
religion, or tastes. Here are half of the exquisite philanthropists
who see a great evil affecting the rights of human
nature in one man's hiring a farm from another for as long
a term as he can obtain it, who are at the very extreme in
their opinions on free trade! So free-trade are some of the
journals which think it a capital thing to prevent landlords
and tenants from making their own bargains, that they have
actually derided the idea of having established fares for
hackney-coaches, but that it would be better to let the parties
stand in the rain and higgle about the price, on the free-trade
principle. Some of these men are either active agents
in stimulating the legislature to rob the citizen of this very
simple control of his property, or passive lookers-on while
others do it.”

“Votes, sir, votes.”

“It is, indeed, votes, sir, votes; nothing short of votes
could reconcile these men to their own inconsistencies. As
for yourself, Hugh, it might be well to get rid of that canopied
pew—”

“Of what canopied pew? I am sure I do not understand
you.”

“Do you forget that the family-pew in St. Andrew's
Church, at Ravensnest, has a wooden canopy over it—a
relic of our colonial opinions and usages?”

“Now you mention it, I do remember a very clumsy,
and, to own the truth, a very ugly thing, that I have always
supposed was placed there, by those who built the church,
by way of ornament.”

“That ugly thing, by way of ornament, was intended for
a sort of canopy, and was by no means an uncommon distinction
in the State and colony, as recently as the close of
the last century. The church was built at the expense of

my grandfather, Gen. Littlepage, and his bosom friend and
kinsman, Col. Dirck Follock, both good Whigs and gallant
defenders of the liberty of their country. They thought it
proper that the Littlepages should have a canopied pew, and
that is the state in which they caused the building to be presented
to my father. The old work still stands; and Dunning
writes me that, among the other arguments used against
your interests, is the fact that your pew is thus distinguished
from those of the rest of the congregation.”

“It is a distinction no man would envy me, could it be
known that I have ever thought the clumsy, ill-shaped thing
a nuisance, and detestable as an ornament. I have never
even associated it in my mind with personal distinction, but
have always supposed it was erected with a view to embellish
the building, and placed over our pew as the spot where
such an excrescence would excite the least envy.”

“In all that, with one exception, you have judged quite
naturally. Forty years ago, such a thing might have been
done, and a majority of the parishioners would have seen
in it nothing out of place. But that day has gone by; and
you will discover that, on your own estate, and in the very
things created by your family and yourself, you will actually
have fewer rights of any sort, beyond those your money
will purchase, than any man around you. The simple fact
that St. Andrew's Church was built by your great-grandfather,
and by him presented to the congregation, will diminish
your claim to have a voice in its affairs with many
of the congregation.”

“This is so extraordinary, that I musk ask the reason.”

“The reason is connected with a principle so obviously
belonging to human nature generally, and to American
nature in particular, that I wonder you ask it. It is envy.
Did that pew belong to the Newcomes, for instance, no one
would think anything of it.”

“Nevertheless, the Newcomes would make themselves
ridiculous by sitting in a pew that was distinguished from
those of their neighbours. The absurdity of the contrast
would strike every one.”

“And it is precisely because the absurdity does not exist
in your case, that your seat is envied. No one envies absurdity.
However, you will readily admit, Hugh, that a

church, and a church-yard, are the two last places in which
human distinctions ought to be exhibited. All are equal in
the eyes of Him we go to the one to worship, and all are
equal in the grave. I have ever been averse to everything
like worldly distinction in a congregation, and admire the
usage of the Romish Church in even dispensing with pews
altogether. Monuments speak to the world, and have a
general connexion with history, so that they may be tolerated
to a certain point, though notorious liars.”

“I agree with you, sir, as to the unfitness of a church for
all distinctions, and shall be happy on every account to get
rid of my canopy, though that has an historical connexion,
also. I am quite innocent of any feeling of pride while sitting
under it, though I will confess to some of shame at its
quizzical shape, when I see it has attracted the eyes of intelligent
strangers.”

“It is but natural that you should feel thus; for, while
we may miss distinctions and luxuries to which we have
ever been accustomed, they rarely excite pride in the possessor,
even while they awaken envy in the looker-on.”

“Nevertheless, I cannot see what the old pew has to do
with the rents, or my legal rights.”

“When a cause is bad, everything is pressed into it that
it is believed may serve a turn. No man who had a good
legal claim for property, would ever think of urging any
other; nor would any legislator who had sound and sufficient
reasons for his measures—reasons that could properly
justify him before God and man for his laws—have recourse
to slang to sustain him. If these anti-renters were right,
they would have no need of secret combinations, of disguises,
blood-and-thunder names, and special agents in the
legislature of the land. The right requires no false aid to
make it appear the right; but the wrong must get such support
as it can press into its service. Your pew is called
aristocratic, though it confers no political power; it is called
a patent of nobility, though it neither gives nor takes away;
and it is hated, and you with it, for the very reason that you
can sit in it and not make yourself ridiculous. I suppose
you have not examined very closely the papers I gave you
to read?”

“Enough so to ascertain that they are filled with trash.”

“Worse than trash, Hugh; with some of the loosest
principles, and most atrocious feelings, that degrade poor
human nature. Some of the reformers propose that no man
shall hold more than a thousand acres of land, while others
lay down the very intelligible and distinct principle that no
man ought to hold more than he can use. Even petitions
to that effect, I have been told, have been sent to the legislature.”

“Which has taken care not to allude to their purport,
either in debate or otherwise, as I see nothing to that effect
in the reports.”

“Ay, I dare say the slang-whangers of those honourable
bodies will studiously keep all such enormities out of sight,
as some of them doubtless hope to step into the shoes of the
present landlords, as soon as they can get the feet out of
them which are now in. But these are the projects and the
petitions in the columns of the journals, and they speak for
themselves. Among other things, they say it is nobility to
be a landlord.”

“I see by the letter of Mr. Dunning, that they have petitioned the legislature to order an inquiry into my title.
Now, we hold from the crown—”

“So much the worse, Hugh. Faugh! hold from a crown
in a republican country! I am amazed you are not ashamed
to own it. Do you not know, boy, that it has been gravely
contended in a court of justice that, in obtaining our national
independence from the King of Great Britain, the
people conquered all his previous grants, which ought to be
declared void and of none effect?”

“That is an absurdity of which I had not heard,” I answered,
laughing; “why, the people of New York, who
held all their lands under the crown, would in that case
have been conquering them for other persons! My good
grandfather and great-grandfather, both of whom actually
fought and bled in the revolution, must have been very silly
thus to expose themselves to take away their own estates, in
order to give them to a set of immigrants from New England
and other parts of the world!”

“Quite justly said, Hugh,” added my uncle, joining in
the laugh. “Nor is this half of the argument. The State,
too, in its corporate character, has been playing swindler all

this time. You may not know the fact, but I as your guardian
do know, that the quit-rents reserved by the crown
when it granted the lands of Mooseridge and Ravensnest,
were claimed by the State; and that, wanting money to
save the people from taxes, it commuted with us, receiving
a certain gross sum in satisfaction of all future claims.”

“Ay, that I did not know. Can the fact be shown?”

“Certainly—it is well known to all old fellows like myself,
for it was a very general measure, and very generally
entered into by all the landholders. In our case, the
receipts are still to be found among the family-papers. In
the cases of the older estates, such as those of the Van
Rensselaers, the equity is still stronger in their favour, since
the conditions to hold the land included an obligation to
bring so many settlers from Europe within a given time;
conditions that were fulfilled at great cost, as you may suppose,
and on which, in truth, the colony had its foundation.”

“How much it tells against a people's honesty to wish
to forget such facts, in a case like this!”

“There is nothing forgotten, for the facts were probably
never known to those who prate about the conquered rights
from the crown. As you say, however, the civilization of
a community is to be measured by its consciousness of the
existence of all principles of justice, and a familiarity with
its own history. The great bulk of the population of New
York have no active desire to invade what is right in this
anti-rent struggle, having no direct interests at stake; their
crime is a passive inactivity, which allows those who are
either working for political advancement, or those who are
working to obtain other men's property, to make use of
them, through their own laws.”

“But is it not an embarrassment to such a region as that
directly around Albany, to have such tenures to the land,
and for so large a body of people to be compelled to pay
rent, in the very heart of the State, as it might be, and in
situations that render it desirable to leave enterprise as unshackled
as possible?”

“I am not prepared to admit this much, even, as a general
principle. One argument used by these anti-renters is,
for instance, that the patroons, in their leases, reserved the

mill-seats. Now, what if they did? Some one must own
the mill-seats; and why not the Patroon as well as another?
To give the argument any weight, not as law, not as morals,
but as mere expediency, it must be shown that the patroons
would not let these mill-seats at as low rents as any one
else; and my opinion is that they would let them at rents
of not half the amount that would be asked, were they the
property of so many individuals, scattered up and down the
country. But, admitting that so large an estate of this particular
sort has some inconveniences in that particular spot,
can there be two opinions among men of integrity about the
mode of getting rid of it? Everything has its price, and,
in a business sense, everything is entitled to its price. No
people acknowledge this more than the Americans, or
practise on it so extensively. Let the Rensselaers be tempted
by such offers as will induce them to sell, but do not let
them be invaded by that most infernal of all acts of oppression,
special legislation, in order to bully or frighten them
from the enjoyment of what is rightfully their own. If the
State think such a description of property injurious in its
heart, let the State imitate England in her conduct towards
the slave-holders—buy them out; not tax them out, and
wrong them out, and annoy them out. But, Hugh, enough
of this at present; we shall have much more than we want
of it when we get home. Among my letters, I have one
from each of my other wards.”

“`Still harping on my daughter,' sir!” I answered, laughing.
“I hope that the vivacious Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke,
and the meek Miss Anne Marston, are both perfectly well?”

“Both in excellent health, and both write charmingly. I
must really let you see the letter of Henrietta, as I do think
it is quite creditable to her: I will step into my room and
get it.”

I ought to let the reader into a secret here that will have
some connexion with what is to follow. A dead-set had
been made at me, previously to leaving home, to induce me
to marry either of three young ladies—Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke,
Miss Anne Marston, and Miss Opportunity New-come.
The advances in the cases of Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke
and Miss Anne Marston came from my uncle Ro,
who, as their guardian, had a natural interest in their making

what he was pleased to think might be a good connexion for
either; while the advances on account of Miss Opportunity
Newcome came from herself. Under such circumstances,
it may be well to say who these young ladies actually
were.

Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke was the daughter of an Englishman
of good family, and some estate, who had emigrated
to America and married, under the impulse of certain theories
in politics which induced him to imagine that this was
the promised land. I remember him as a disappointed and
dissatisfied widower, who was thought to be daily growing
poorer under the consequences of indiscreet investments,
and who at last got to be so very English in his wishes and
longings, as to assert that the common Muscovy was a better
bird than the canvas-back! He died, however, in time
to leave his only child an estate which, under my uncle's
excellent management, was known by me to be rather more
than one hundred and seventy-nine thousand dollars, and
which produced a nett eight thousand a-year. This made
Miss Henrietta a belle at once; but, having a prudent friend
in my grandmother, as yet she had not married a beggar.
I knew that uncle Ro went quite as far as was proper, in
his letters, in the way of hints touching myself; and my
dear, excellent, honest-hearted, straightforward old grandmother
had once let fall an expression, in one of her letters
to myself, which induced me to think that these hints had
actually awakened as much interest in the young lady's
bosom, as could well be connected with what was necessarily
nothing but curiosity.

Miss Anne Marston was also an heiress, but on a very
diminished scale. She had rather more than three thousand
a-year in buildings in town, and a pretty little sum of about
sixteen thousand dollars laid by out of its savings. She
was not an only child, however, having two brothers, each
of whom had already received as much as the sister, and
each of whom, as is very apt to be the case with the heirs of
New York merchants, was already in a fair way of getting
rid of his portion in riotous living. Nothing does a young
American so much good, under such circumstances, as to
induce him to travel. It makes or breaks at once. If a
downright fool, he is plucked by European adventurers in

so short a time, that the agony is soon over. If only vain
and frivolous, because young and ill-educated, the latter
being a New York endemic, but with some foundation of
native mind, he lets his whiskers grow, becomes fuzzy about
the chin, dresses better, gets to be much better mannered,
soon loses his taste for the low and vulgar indulgences of
his youth, and comes out such a gentleman as one can only
make who has entirely thrown away the precious moments
of youth. If tolerably educated in boyhood, with capacity
to build on, the chances are that the scales will fall from his
eyes very fast on landing in the old world—that his ideas
and tastes will take a new turn—that he will become what
nature intended him for, an intellectual man; and that he
will finally return home, conscious alike of the evils and
blessings, the advantages and disadvantages, of his own
system and country—a wiser, and it is to be hoped a better
man. How the experiment had succeeded with the Marstons,
neither myself nor my uncle knew; for they had paid
their visit while we were in the East, and had already returned
to America. As for Miss Anne, she had a mother
to take care of her mind and person, though I had learned
she was pretty, sensible and discreet.

Miss Opportunity Newcome was a belle of Ravensnest,
a village on my own property; a rural beauty, and of rural
education, virtues, manners and habits. As Ravensnest was
not particularly advanced in civilization, or, to make use of
the common language of the country, was not a very “aristocratic
place,” I shall not dwell on her accomplishments,
which did well enough for Ravensnest, but would not essentially
ornament my manuscript.

Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid, who was the son
of Jason, of the house of Newcome. In using the term
“house,” I adopt it understandingly; for the family had
dwelt in the same tenement, a leasehold property of which
the fee was in myself, and the dwelling had been associated
with the name of Newcome from time immemorial; that is,
for about eighty years. All that time had a Newcome been
the tenant of the mill, tavern, store and farm, that lay nearest
the village of Ravensnest, or Little Nest, as it was commonly
called; and it may not be impertinent to the moral
of my narrative if I add that, for all that time, and for

something longer, had I and my ancestors been the landlords.
I beg the reader to bear this last fact in mind, as
there will soon be occasion to show that there was a strong
disposition in certain persons to forget it.

As I have said, Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid.
There was also a brother, who was named Seneca, or
Seneky, as he always pronounced it himself, the son of
Ovid, the son of Jason, the first of the name at Ravensnest.
This Seneca was a lawyer, in the sense of a license granted
by the Justices of the Supreme Court, as well as by the
Court of Common Pleas, in and for the county of Washington.
As there had been a sort of hereditary education
among the Newcomes for three generations, beginning with
Jason, and ending with Seneca; and, as the latter was at
the bar, I had occasionally been thrown into the society of
both brother and sister. The latter, indeed, used to be fond
of visiting the Nest, as my house was familiarly called,
Ravensnest being its true name, whence those of the “patent”
and village; and as Opportunity had early manifested
a partiality for my dear old grandmother, and not less dear
young sister, who occasionally passed a few weeks with me
during the vacations, more especially in the autumns, I had
many occasions of being brought within the influence of her
charms—opportunities that, I feel bound to state, Opportunity
did not neglect. I have understood that her mother,
who bore the same name, had taught Ovid the art of love
by a very similar demonstration, and had triumphed. That
lady was still living, and may be termed Opportunity the
Great, while the daughter can be styled Opportunity the
Less. There was very little difference between my own
years and those of the young lady; and, as I had last
passed through the fiery ordeal at the sinister age of twenty,
there was not much danger in encountering the risk anew,
now I was five years older. But I must return to my uncle
and the letter of Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke.

“Here it is, Hugh,” cried my guardian, gaily; “and a
capital letter it is! I wish I could read the whole of it to
you; but the two girls made me promise never to show their
letters to any one, which could mean only you, before they
would promise to write anything to me beyond commonplaces.
Now, I get their sentiments freely and naturally

and the correspondence is a source of much pleasure to me.
I think, however, I might venture just to give you one
extract.”

“You had better not, sir; there would be a sort of
treachery in it, that I confess I would rather not be accessary
to. If Miss Coldbrooke do not wish me to read what
she writes, she can hardly wish that you should read any
of it to me.”

Uncle Ro glanced at me, and I fancied he seemed dissatisfied
with my nonchalance. He read the letter through to
himself, however, laughing here, smiling there, then muttering
“capital!” “good!” “charming girl!” “worthy of
Hannah More!” &c. &c., as if just to provoke my curiosity.
But I had no desire to read “Hannah More,” as any young
fellow of five-and-twenty can very well imagine, and I stood
it all with the indifference of a stoic. My guardian had to
knock under, and put the letters in his writing-desk.

“Well, the giris will be glad to see us,” he said, after a
moment of reflection, “and not a little surprised. In my
very last letter to my mother, I sent them word that we
should not be home until October; and now we shall see
them as early as June, at least.”

“Patt will be delighted, I make no doubt. As for the
other two young ladies, they have so many friends and
relations to care for, that I fancy our movements give them
no great concern.”

“Then you do both injustice, as their letters would prove.
They take the liveliest interest in our proceedings, and
speak of my return as if they look for it with the greatest
expectation and joy.”

I made my uncle Ro a somewhat saucy answer; but fair-dealing
compels me to record it.

“I dare say they do, sir,” was my reply; “but what
young lady does not look with `expectation and joy' for the
return of a friend, who is known to have a long purse,
from Paris!”

“Well, Hugh, you deserve neither of those dear girls;
and, if I can help it, you shall have neither.”

“Thank 'ee, sir!”

“Poh! this is worse than silly—it is rude. I dare say
neither would accept you, were you to offer to-morrow.”

“I trust not, sir, for her own sake. It would be a singularly
palpable demonstration were either to accept a man
she barely knew, and whom she had not seen since she was
fifteen.”

Uncle Ro laughed, but I could see he was confoundedly
vexed; and, as I loved him with all my heart, though I did
not love match-making, I turned the discourse, in a pleasant
way, on our approaching departure.

“I 'll tell you what I 'll do, Hugh,” cried my uncle, who
was a good deal of a boy in some things, for the reason, I
suppose, that he was an old bachelor; “I 'll just have wrong
names entered on board the packet, and we 'll surprise all
our friends. Neither Jacob nor your man will betray us,
we know; and, for that matter, we can send them both
home by the way of England. Each of us has trunks in
London to be looked after, and let the two fellows go by the
way of Liverpool. That is a good thought, and occurred
most happily.”

“With all my heart, sir. My fellow is of no more use to
me at sea than an automaton would be, and I shall be glad
to get rid of his rueful countenance. He is a capital servant
on terrâ firma, but a perfect Niobe on the briny main.”

The thing was agreed on; and, a day or two afterwards,
both our body-servants, that is to say, Jacob the black and
Hubert the German, were on their way to England. My
uncle let his apartment again, for he always maintained I
should wish to bring my bride to pass a winter in it; and
we proceeded to Havre in a sort of incognito. There was
little danger of our being known on board the packet, and
we had previously ascertained that there was not an acquaintance
of either in the ship. There was a strong family
resemblance between my uncle and myself, and we passed
for father and son in the ship, as old Mr. Davidson and
young Mr. Davidson, of Maryland—or Myr-r-land, as it is
Doric to call that State. We had no concern in this part
of the deception, unless abstaining from calling my supposed
father “uncle,” as one would naturally do in strange
society, can be so considered.

The passage itself—by the way, I wish all landsmen
would be as accurate as I am here, and understand that a
“voyage” means “out” and “home,” or “thence” and

“back again,” while a “passage” means from place to
place—but our passage was pregnant with no events worth
recording. We had the usual amount of good and bad
weather, the usual amount of eating and drinking, and the
usual amount of ennui. The latter circumstance, perhaps,
contributed to the digesting of a further scheme of my
uncle's, which it is now necessary to state.

A re-perusal of his letters and papers had induced him to
think the anti-rent movement a thing of more gravity, even,
than he had first supposed. The combination on the part
of the tenants, we learned also from an intelligent New
Yorker who was a fellow-passenger, extended much further
than our accounts had given us reason to believe; and it
was deemed decidedly dangerous for landlords, in many
cases, to be seen on their own estates. Insult, personal degradation,
or injury, and even death, it was thought, might
be the consequences, in many cases. The blood actually
spilled had had the effect to check the more violent demonstrations,
it is true; but the latent determination to achieve
their purposes was easily to be traced among the tenants,
in the face of all their tardy professions of moderation, and
a desire for nothing but what was right. In this case, what
was right was the letter and spirit of the contracts; and
nothing was plainer than the fact that these were not what
was wanted.

Professions pass for nothing, with the experienced, when
connected with a practice that flatly contradicts them. It
was only too apparent to all who chose to look into the matter,
and that by evidence which could not mislead, that the
great body of the tenants in various counties of New York
were bent on obtaining interests in their farms that were not
conveyed by their leases, without the consent of their landlords,
and insomuch that they were bent on doing that which
should be discountenanced by every honest man in the community.
The very fact that they supported, or in any manner
connived at, the so-called “Injin” system, spoke all that
was necessary as to their motives; and, when we come to
consider that these “Injins” had already proceeded to the
extremity of shedding blood, it was sufficiently plain that
things must soon reach a crisis.

My uncle Roger and myself reflected on all these matters

calmly, and decided on our course, I trust, with prudence.
As that decision has proved to be pregnant with consequences
that are likely to affect my future life, I shall now
briefly give an outline of what induced us to adopt it.

It was all-important for us to visit Ravensnest in person,
while it might be hazardous to do so openly. The Nest
house stood in the very centre of the estate, and, ignorant
as we were of the temper of the tenants, it might be indiscreet
to let our presence be known; and circumstances
favoured our projects of concealment. We were not expected
to reach the country at all until autumn, or “fall,”
as that season of the year is poetically called in America;
and this gave us the means of reaching the property unexpectedly,
and, as we hoped, undetected. Our arrangement,
then, was very simple, and will be best related in the course
of the narrative.

The packet had a reasonably short passage, as we were
twenty-nine days from land to land. It was on a pleasant afternoon
in May when the hummock-like heights of Navesink
were first seen from the deck; and, an hour later, we came
in sight of the tower-resembling sails of the coasters which
were congregating in the neighbourhood of the low point
of land that is so very appropriately called Sandy Hook.
The light-houses rose out of the water soon after, and objects
on the shore of New Jersey next came gradually out of the
misty back-ground, until we got near enough to be boarded,
first by the pilot, and next by the news-boat; the first preceding
the last for a wonder, news usually being far more
active, in this good republic, than watchfulness to prevent
evil. My uncle Ro gave the crew of this news-boat a thorough
scrutiny, and, finding no one on board her whom he
had ever before seen, he bargained for a passage up to town.

We put our feet on the Battery just as the clocks of New
York were striking eight. A custom-house officer had examined
our carpet-bags and permitted them to pass, and we
had disburthened ourselves of the effects in the ship, by desiring
the captain to attend to them. Each of us had a
town-house, but neither would go near his dwelling; mine
being only kept up in winter, for the use of my sister and
an aunt who kindly took charge of her during the season,
while my uncle's was opened principally for his mother.

At that season, we had reason to think neither was tenanted
but by one or two old family servants; and it was our cue
also to avoid them. But “Jack Dunning,” as my uncle
always called him, was rather more of a friend than of an
agent; and he had a bachelor establishment in Chamber
Street that was precisely the place we wanted. Thither,
then, we proceeded, taking the route by Greenwich Street,
fearful of meeting some one in Broadway by whom we
might be recognised.