patent leather and kid
gloves, preferred ten-pins to billiards, and running after a fire-engine
to waltzing. The cousins, who had been at school together, were on very
amicable terms with each other, but their tastes and pursuits not
exactly coinciding, they seldom met except for a few minutes in the
street, or a few days at a watering-place.

"By Jove! Lefferts, that's a delicate cane of yours," said Travis,
glancing from the other's stupendous bludgeon to his own gold-headed
Malacca, which, as he would have expressed it himself, had knocked a big
hole in a fifty dollar bill. "Preparing for the meeting to-night, you
see," answered Lloyd, with a significant waggle of the big stick, that
would have gladdened an Irishman's heart. Nothing more was said on the
subject, and they separated, after a few trivial remarks; but Travis
took good heed of the allusion, which he seemed not to notice at the
time. On the look-out for mischief, he set himself to reconnoitre that
evening in the vicinity of Tammany Hall, fearless of detection, for no
one could have recognized the Broadway exquisite in his assumed garb.
His upper garment was an old great coat razeed into a frock; his feet
were cased in heavy fireman's boots, which, with their impermeable
uppers and ponderous soles, were equally serviceable for keeping out
snow-water and kicking niggers' shins; his head was protected by a stout
leather cap, and in his hand he carried a hickory, not so ponderous as
Lloyd's stick, but none the less capable of doing worthy execution in a
row. Seeing the Butt-enders proceed up Broadway in a body, he at once
suspected that the Masonic Hall was the object of their attack, and
accordingly put on all his disposable quantity of steam, that their
coming might not be unannounced. There was no time for ceremonious
entry, or oratorical delivery, but bursting impetuously into the room,
he informed his friends in straightforward terms that the enemy were at
hand in great force. The Whigs were somewhat taken aback, most of them
being unarmed; but it was not an occasion to stand upon trifles. _Furor
arma ministrat_; the meeting was broken up into a committee of the
whole, and the benches into their component timbers, the fragments of
which were distributed among the company, while a long plank, under the
particular supervision of Travis himself, was suspended over the
banisters, so as to sweep the staircase.

Hardly were these preparations completed, when t