“And what has brought you down here?” I demanded, the pedagogue having already informed me that he had put up at a tavern in the suburbs, where horse-keeping and lodgings were “reasonable.” “The Pinkster fields are up near the head of Broadway, on the common.”
“So I hear,” answered Jason; “but I want to see a ship and all the sights this way, in the first place. It will be time enough for Pinkster, two or three hours hence, if a Christian ought even to look at such vanities. Can you tell me where I am to find Hanover Square, Corny?”
“You are in it now, Mr. Newcome; and to my fancy, a very noble area it is!”
“This Hanover Square!” repeated Jason. “Why, its shape is not that of a square at all; it is nearer a triangle.”
“What of that, sir? By a square in a town, one does not necessarily understand an area with four equal sides and as many right angles, but an open space that is left for air and beauty. There are air and beauty enough to satisfy any reasonable man. A square may be a parallelogram, or a triangle, or any other shape one pleases.”
“This, then, is Hanover Square!—a New York square, or a Nassau Hall square, Corny; but not a Yale College square, take my word for it. It is so small, moreover!”
“Small!—the width of the street at the widest end must be near a hundred feet; I grant you it is not half that at the other end, but that is owing to the proximity of the houses.”
“Ay, it is all owing to the proximity of the houses, as you call it. Now, according to my notion, Hanover Square, of which a body hears so much talk in the country, ought to have had fifty or sixty acres in it, and statues of the whole House of Brunswick, besides. Why is that nest of houses left in the middle of your square?”
“It is not, sir. The square ceases when it reaches them. They are too valuable to be torn down, although there has been some talk of it. My uncle Legge told me, last evening, that those houses have been valued as high as twelve thousand dollars; and some persons put them as high as six thousand pounds.”
This reconciled Jason to the houses; for he never failed to defer to money, come in what shape it would. It was the only source of human distinction that he could clearly comprehend, though he had some faint impressions touching the dignity of the crown, and the respect due to its representatives.