this manner was assisted by
personal magnetism and beauty. Wilkes said he was only half an hour
behind the handsomest man in the world. But he would never have overtaken
him if the handsome man had been Wilkes.

In his dress Abel was costly and elegant. With the other men of his day,
he read "Pelham" with an admiration of which his life was the witness.
Pelham was the Byronic hero made practicable, purged of romance, and
adapted to society. Mr. Newt, Jun., was one of a small but influential
set of young men about town who did all they could to repair the
misfortune of being born Americans, by imitating the habits of foreign
life.

It was presently clear to him that residence under the parental roof was
incompatible with the habits of a strictly fashionable man.

"There are hours, you know, mother, and habits, which make a separate
lodging much more agreeable to all parties. I have friends to smoke, or
to drink a glass of punch, or to play a game of whist; and we must sing,
and laugh, and make a noise, as young men will, which is not seemly for
the paternal mansion, mother mine." With which he took his admiring
mother airily under the chin and kissed her--not having mentioned
every reason which made a separate residence desirable.

So Abel Newt hired a pleasant set of rooms in Grand Street, near
Broadway, in the neighborhood of other youth of the right set. He
furnished them sumptuously, with the softest carpets, the most luxurious
easy-chairs, the most costly curtains, and pretty, bizarre little tables,
and bureaus, and shelves. Various engravings hung upon the walls; a
profile-head of Bulwer, with a large Roman nose and bushy whiskers, and
one of his Majesty George IV., in that famous cloak which Lord
Chesterfield bought at the sale of his Majesty's wardrobe for eleven
hundred dollars, and of which the sable lining alone originally cost four
thousand dollars. Then there were little vases, and boxes, and caskets
standing upon all possible places, with a rare flower in some one of them
often, sent by some kind dowager who wished to make sure of Abel at a
dinner or a select soiree. Pipes, of course, and boxes of choice cigars,
were at hand, and in a convenient closet such a beautiful set of English
cut glass for the use of a gentleman!

It was no wonder that the rooms of Abel Newt became a kind of club-room
and elegant lounge for the gay gentlemen about town. He even gave little
dinners there to quiet parties, somet