"'Tis Friday afternoon of the week," he bellowed, "and all householders shall take notice they must collect their refuse and offal and dump the same in the river or the swamps beyond the city limits. And they are to sweep the streets before their shops and dwellings and destroy or remove the sweepings after the same fashion. Proclaimed by order of the worshipful mayor and aldermen."
He was beginning his oration all over again, when I approached him with a request for the location of Captain van Horne's house.
"Do you but follow your nose straight before you," he directed me, "until you come to the red-brick mansion with the yellow-brick walk this side of the Green Lane.[[2]] That is his."
[[2]] Now Maiden Lane.
Except for the walk he had specified, the house the bell-ringer described had nothing about it to distinguish it from those adjacent, and I could not forbear a smile at thought of the different degrees of magnificence which were deemed necessary by the potentates of the Old World and the New.
The negro servant who answered my knock admitted that the governor was within.
"But Massa Burnet done hab de gen'lemen ob de Council wid him jus' now, sah," he added doubtfully.
"I am this minute landed with letters for the governor from London," I said.
"Oh, bery well, sah. Dat be a dif'runt matter. Yo' come dis way, please. Massa Burnet be plumb glad to see yo'. Dis way, please."
He ushered me into the wide hallway which ran from front to rear of the house, and knocked on the door of the first room on the right.