of a hotel life in
the city, during summer. On this occasion, to secure additional ease,
the individual had adopted the American attitude of raising his feet to
a level with his head, by placing them upon a cast-iron fender behind
the window--an attitude, by the way, not particularly characterized by
its classic grace.

There was nothing remarkable in the dress of the person to whom we have
alluded. He was evidently a victim to the popular insanity of conforming
to fashion. So strictly were his garments cut and made in accordance
with the prevailing style, no one could doubt for a moment that the
taste, or want of taste, manifested in his dress, was not his own, but
the tailor's. In his hand he held a small cane, with which he amused
himself, first, by biting the ivory head, then by making it turn
summer-saults through the fingers of his right hand, after the manner
in which Hibernians are supposed to exercise their shillelahs.

Whether the activity in the streets, the appearance of the ladies with
every variety of dress, or the gymnastic eccentricities of his cane,
were particularly entertaining, is very questionable; certain it is,
that the expression of his eyes showed gradually less and less of
animation. By degrees his eyelids closed. His head soon vibrated with an
irregular motion, until it found a support against the back of the
chair. His hat fell from his head, and his cane dropped from his
fingers. His muscles became fully relaxed. He was, undeniably, asleep.

He had been sleeping nearly a half hour, when an individual, who was
walking leisurely down Broadway, casually glanced in the window of the
Shanghae, where our first person singular was sleeping, with more
seeming comfort than real elegance of position. He seemed struck with
the appearance of the sleeper, and pausing for a brief time to survey
his form, contorted, as it was, into all sorts of geometrical
irregularities, curves, angles, and indescribable shapes, he entered the
hotel, passed around into the room where the sleeper was, and did not
stop until at his side. He again stood for a moment, silently
contemplating the form and features of the sleep-bound stranger.

The second person was also singular. He was, apparently, about
twenty-five years of age, with a full, florid, and expressive face. His
body was quite rotund, even to corpulency; and, save a heavy moustache,
his face was closely shaven. His clothes were of the thinnest material,
and we