Being very Starry and Stripey, I was about to defend the practice in vogue amongst my countrymen, although thoroughly against my convictions, when he asked:

“Do you know who that fellow is?”

“What fellow?”

“That long-eared, long-legged jackass who took that railing as if he was at school.”

“I never saw him before.”

“You’ll see him again. I lay seven to two. And I’ll take the odds that he tells you that he’s Grey Seymour, whatever that may be; that he’s over his long ears in love with a Miss Hattie Finche, whom he followed here from Martha’s Vineyard; and that she has five hundred thousand dollars.”

“I suppose that one of the ladies in the pony-carriage was Miss Hattie Finche?”

“The whip—yaas.”

“I wonder can she be a daughter of Wilson Finche, of New York?”

“The tallow-man, Beaver Street and Fifth Avenue?”