"Why, John,"—for that is my name,—"why didn't you tell me beforehand what a glorious creature you were going to see? I'd been a little more particular about my dress, or probably refused to accompany you," said cousin Charles, half complainingly, as we got well out of doors.
"Ah! ah! Charley,—aren't you glad, on the whole, though?" said I, touching him under the chin, "that I didn't tell you, my boy?"
"Indeed—no—yes—well, I don't know as I care, after all; but isn't she elegant. And if I'm any reader of human nature she's as good as she is beautiful."
I saw that he was thoroughly "smitten;" and as we went on to my hotel, narrated to him the story of the will. The romance of the thing served to engage him the more. Well, I needn't repeat all. They loved, and were married, and are the happiest couple out of heaven, I reckon.
Such was my room-mate's tale, for which I thanked him, and we both then managed to sleep thereafter. But perhaps the reader will have curiosity to know what was the peculiar advertisement which had drawn me to Philadelphia at that time.
It was this:—
"Astor discounts, Wednesday, the 9th. So does Independence Hall.
Rudolph, Cashier."
"Astor" I had read by contrary. It meant "Girard," I thought,—Girard Bank. "Independence Hall" I construed as signifying a place of meeting in front of that building; and "Rudolph"—for this was the point—was a notorious bank robber, on whose track I wished to get, by the name of Ralph Seeker, among his "aliases," but Ralph was his real name—"Rudolph" being the German for the same; and doubtless I was right in my translation; but as nothing came of that, as I have said before, I here leave "peculiar advertisements" in general, to the unravelling of the curious. But it is a science of itself, which, in its subtleties, sometimes baffles the keenest wits. I am prompted, as I write, to add hereto, for the pleasure of the curious reader, sundry of the "blind methods" (in advertisements usually) by which one scoundrel intimates to another his whereabouts, and what he has accomplished, or where he would meet another to aid in some crime, etc., under circumstances which forbid their communicating through the mail or by telegraph. But I have hardly room in this article, already too long.