individual, in brief, known as a policeman--arrived on the spot, and
inquired what was the trouble. After informing him that he was a day
after the fair, I left the vicinity."

When Mr. Van Dam concluded, on motion of Mr. Boggs it was

_Resolved_, that the members of the club do now proceed, each man for
himself, to light his pipe.

The resolution was acceded to without a dissenting voter.

Dennis, Wagstaff, and Overdale, as usual, had been investigating in
company, Overdale taking the lead, and Wagstaff taking notes, and all
three occasionally taking egg-noggs.

A unanimous call was made for Wagstaff's notebook, which was immediately
forthcoming.

The reading of Mr. Wagstaff's notes was prefaced by statements on the
part of Dennis and Overdale which made the following facts apparent to
the club. The previous evening the three went into a Greenwich street
bar-room, on the invitation of Overdale to pay a visit to Delmonico's,
to get a piece of pie and some cigars. Whilst partaking of the order, a
singular person entered the room. His beauty was decidedly of the
yard-stick character. He was long as a projected Iowa railroad, and as
symmetrical as a fence-rail; his face was as expressionless as the head
of Shakspeare which is seen on the drop-curtain of the Broadway Theatre,
surrounded by a triple row of attenuated sausages. His square and
angular shoulders made him resemble a high-shouldered pump, while his
arms moved with as much ease and grace as the handle to the same. Long,
black hair, parted in the middle, was soaped down until the oleaginous
ends reposed upon the unctuous collar of his seedy coat. His
shirt-collar, guiltless of starch, was unbuttoned at the neck and laid
far back over his vest, doubtless to display a neck which, had it been
cut off, was long enough to tie.

He had seated himself, and had settled down into a misanthropic quiet,
when a little stubby man, with one eye--the very ideal of a Washington
market butcher--happened to enter. As soon as the first-mentioned
subject saw him, he jumped up, rushed at the stubby man, and had hardly
touched him, before a blow from the fist of the stubby man caused him
to collapse on the floor. The stubby man followed up his success by
pulling the nose of his fallen enemy, and threatening to give him a
"tolerable shake-up, if he ever came round his shop agin'."

The conflict was brief, as it soon drew in quite a crowd, and amongst
others a policeman. The ta