Here he resigned his charge to Captain Merrill's care, and, after narrating the circumstances, went forth again, attended by two choice spirits, to continue investigations. On reaching Chambers Street, he became confused and dubious. A row of houses, all precisely alike excepting in color, stood not far from the corner of Green Street. From a lower window of one of these he believed that the apparition had sprung; but, in his agitation, he had neglected to mark with sufficient care the precise spot. Now, no open window nor any other trace of the event could be discovered.
The three policemen, having arrived at the end of their wits, went back to the station for an extension.
There they found Captain Morrill listening to a strange and startling story, the incidents of which can here be more coherently recapitulated than they were on that occasion by the half-distracted sufferer.
On the morning of Saturday, February the 7th, this young man, whose name was Richard Lorrimer, and who was a clerk in a New-York mercantile house, started from that city in the early train for Boston, whither he had been despatched to arrange some business matters that needed the presence of a representative of the firm. It chanced to be his first journey of any extent; but the day was cheerless and gloomy, and the novelty of travel, which would otherwise have been attractive, was not especially agreeable. After exhausting the enlivening resources of a package of morning papers, which at that time overflowed with records of every variety of crime, from the daily murder to the hourly garrote, he dozed. At Springfield he dined. Here, also, he fortified himself against returning ennui with a supply of the day's journals from Boston. Singularly enough, five minutes after resuming his place, he was once more peacefully slumbering. The pause at Worcester scarcely roused him; but near Framingham a sharp shriek from the locomotive, and the rapid working of the brakes, banished his dreams, and put an end to his drowsy humor for the remainder of the journey. It was soon made known that the engine was suffering from internal disarrangement, and that a delay of an hour or more might be expected. The red flag was despatched to the rear, the lamps were lighted, and the passengers composed themselves, each as patiently and as comfortably as he could.
Lorrimer felt no inclination for further repose. He was much disturbed at the prospect of long detention, having received directions to execute a part of his commission that evening. Comforting himself with the profound reflection that the fault was not his, he turned wearily to his newspaper-files.
A middle-aged man with a keen nose and a snapping eye asked permission to share the benefit of his treasures of journalism. As the middle-aged man glanced over the New-York dailies, he ventured an anathema upon the abominations of Gotham.
The patriotic pride of a genuine New-Yorker never deserts him. Lorrimer discovered that the maligner of his city was a Bostonian, and a stormy debate ensued.
As between cat and dog, so is the hostility which divides the residents of these two towns. So the conversation became at once spirited, and eventually spiteful.
Boston pointed with sarcastic finger to the close columns heavily laden with iniquitous recitals, the result of a reporter's experience of one day in the metropolis.
New York, with icy imperturbability, rehearsed from memory the recent revelations of matrimonial and clerical delinquencies which had given the City of Notions an unpleasant notoriety.