e on the coast of Bellevue. The great Harden
Broeck had waxed very wealthy and powerful from his domains, which
embraced the whole chain of Apulean mountains that stretched along the
gulf of Kip's Bay, and from part of which his descendants have been
expelled in latter ages by the powerful clans of the Joneses and the
Schermerhornes.

An ingenious plan for the city was offered by Mynheer Harden Broeck, who
proposed that it should be cut up and intersected by canals, after the
manner of the most admired cities in Holland. To this Mynheer Ten Broeck
was diametrically opposed, suggesting in place thereof that they should
run out docks and wharves, by means of piles driven into the bottom of the
river, on which the town should be built. "By these means," said he,
triumphantly, "shall we rescue a considerable space of territory from
these immense rivers, and build a city that shall rival Amsterdam, Venice,
or any amphibious city in Europe." To this proposition Harden Broeck (or
Tough Breeches) replied, with a look of as much scorn as he could possibly
assume. He cast the utmost censure upon the plan of his antagonist, as
being preposterous, and against the very order of things, as he would
leave to every true Hollander. "For what," said he, "is a town without
canals?--it is like a body without veins and arteries, and must perish for
want of a free circulation of the vital fluid."--Ten Breeches, on the
contrary, retorted with a sarcasm upon his antagonist, who was somewhat of
an arid, dry-boded habit; he remarked, that as to the circulation of the
blood being necessary to existence, Mynheer Tough Breeches was a living
contradiction to his own assertion; for everybody knew there had not a
drop of blood circulated through his wind-dried carcase for good ten
years, and yet there was not a greater busybody in the whole colony.
Personalities have seldom much effect in making converts in argument; nor
have I ever seen a man convinced of error by being convicted of deformity.
At least such was not the case at present. If Ten Breeches was very happy
in sarcasm, Tough Breeches, who was a sturdy little man, and never gave up
the last word, rejoined with increasing spirit; Ten Breeches had the
advantage of the greatest volubility, but Tough Breeches had that
invaluable coat of mail in argument called obstinacy; Ten Breeches had,
therefore, the most mettle, but Tough Breeches the best bottom--so that
though Ten Breeches made a dreadful cl