oughtless, or so heartless, Cupid, as
to ride an overworked beast, at night!"

"Well, I get pretty ole, Masser Myn'ert an' I forget all he do when a
young man. But here be'e Patroon, who know how to tell'e Al'erman such
t'ing better than a poor color' slave."

"A fair rising and a lucky day to you, Patroon!" cried the Alderman,
saluting a large, slow-moving, gentlemanly-looking young man of
five-and-twenty, who advanced, with the gravity of one of twice that
number of years, from the interior of the house, towards its outer door
"The winds are bespoken, and here is as fine a day as ever shone out of a
clear sky, whether it came from the pure atmosphere of Holland, or of old
England itself. Colonies and patronage! If the people on the other side of
the ocean had more faith in mother Nature, and less opinion of themselves,
they would find it very tolerable breathing in the plantations. But the
conceited rogues are like the man who blew the bellows, and fancied he
made the music; and there is never a hobbling imp of them all, but he
believes he is straighter and sounder, than the best in the colonies. Here
is our bay, now, as smooth as if it were shut in with twenty dykes, and
the voyage will be as safe as if it were made on a canal."

"Dat werry well, if a do it," grumbled Cupid, who busied himself
affectionately about the person of his master. "I think it alway better to
travel on 'e land, when a gentle'um own so much as Masser Oloff Der war'
'e time a ferry-boat go down, wid crowd of people; and nobody ebber come
up again to say how he feel."

"Here is some mistake!" interrupted the Alderman, throwing an uneasy
glance at his young friend. "I count four-and-fifty years, and remember no
such calamity."

"He'm werry sing'lar how a young folk do forget! 'Ere war' drown six
people in dat werry-boat. A two Yankee, a Canada Frenchman, and a poor
woman from a Jarseys. Ebbery body war werry sorry for a poor woman from a
Jarseys!"

"Thy tally is false, Master Cupid," promptly rejoined the Alderman, who
was rather expert at figures. "Two Yankees, a Frenchman, and your Jersey
woman, make but four."

"Well, den I s'pose 'ere war' one Yankee; but I, know all war' drown, for
'e Gubbenor lose he fine coach-horses in dat werry-boat."

"The old fellow is right, sure enough; for I remember the calamity of the
horses, as if it were but yesterday. But Death is monarch of the earth,
and none of us may hope to escape his scythe, when