Cap'n Tom Randall's. You may
call a thing by one name or by another, but, when it comes down to
it, is the business of capturing enemy prize ships in order to grow
rich on the proceeds so different from holding up merchantmen for the
same reason? But we are concerned for the moment with the Randalls,
father and son, and most excellent fellows they appear to have both
been. I should like to believe that Cap'n Tom owned a cutlass, but I
fear it was a bit late for that!

Captain Tom appears to have been generous and kindly,--like most
persons of questionable and picturesque careers. The Silversmith who
left his entire belongings to the Captain in 1796 is but one of many
who had reason to love him. One historian declares that he settled
down, after retiring from the sea, and "became a respectable merchant
at 10 Hanover Street," where he piled up more and more gold to leave
his son Robert Richard. But it is a matter of record that the address
at which he died was 8 Whitehall. On Friday, October 27, 1797, he set
forth on his last cruise,--after seventy-four adventurous years on
earthly seas.

He died much respected,--by no one more than his son, Robert Richard
Randall, who had an immense admiration and reverence for his memory.
It was he who, in 1790, bought the Elliott estate from "Baron"
Poelnitz, for the sum of five thousand pounds--a handsome property of
some twenty-four acres covering the space between Fourth and Fifth
avenues, Waverly Place and approximately Ninth Street. The Elliott
house which has been described as being of "red brick with white" was
clearly a rather pretentious affair, and stood, says Mrs. Lamb, so
that Broadway when it was laid down "clipped the rear porch."

It is a curious fact and worthy of note that the old, original house
stood undamaged until 1828, and that, being sold at auction and
removed at that date, its materials were used in a house which a few
years ago was still in good condition.

Robert Richard Randall was also, like his father, known as "Captain,"
though there is no record of his ever having gone to sea as a sailor.
Indeed he would scarcely have been made an "honourary" member of the
Marine Society had he been a real shipmaster. Courtesy titles were _de
rigueur_ in those days, when a man was popular, and he appears to have
been thoroughly so.

When it came time for him, too, to die, he paid his father's calling
what tribute he could by the terms of his will.

His lawyer--n