In a quarter of the town to which the reader
already has been introduced, and at the outlet of
the steep street opening into the square which the
Arden Eugenie crossed to gain the mansion of
General Washington, stood, at the period of our tale,
an ancient brick dwelling, with sunken foundations,
and a steep tiled roof projecting far over the sidewalk.
It looked on the square, and had the air of
having been, in earlier days, a mansion of the better
sort, although now displaying broken sashes, shattered
hinges and shutters, and dilapidated steps
leading to the only door in front, which seemed to
be nailed up and never used.

The side bordering on the steep lane which, with
a short descent and a longer ascent, led to Broadway,
was a plain dead wall, tarnished and crumbled
with time, perforated in the midst by one small
square window, set with four glass panes of the
kind called “bull's eyes,” admitting light, but impervious
to vision. At the termination of this wall
of the house, and about thirty feet down the alley,
was a low, narrow door cut in the angle, apparently
done after the house was built, and sunken

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beneath the pavement several inches. The door was
strong, of thick oak, and had once been painted red.

About nine o'clock on the evening of the battle
of Brooklyn, and just before we took leave of the
chevalier and his party on their way to their rendezvous,
a man in a military chapeau, and wrapped
in an ample Spanish cloak, rather worn for disguise
than for comfort, suddenly turned from the square
into this lane. Glancing hastily up, and seeing a
faint light shining through the little window of the
house we have just described, he quickened his
pace down the steep sidewalk, and, approaching the
little wicket, knocked deliberately four times, and,
after a brief pause, repeated two additional strokes
in quick succession. In a few moments a shuffling
footstep was heard within, a light glimmered
through the keyhole and shone over the top of the
door, which was on a level with the applicant's
eyes, and a croaking voice asked his business at
that hour of the night.

“Unbar, Father Gerret! Dost not know, old
skinflint, how much IV. and II. make?”

The noise of a falling bar was followed by that
of the clattering of a key, applied with trembling
hands to the lock, and the creaking of the bolt; the
door slowly turned on its hinges, and an old man
appeared with a haggard face, sharp features, and
sunken eyes, in whose countenance fear and suspicion
were mingled. He bore a piece of tallow
candle, placed in a gourd, in his hands, which also
grasped a bunch of keys, securely attached to his
skinny wrist by a leather thong. He appeared
about fifty years of age, to which care and imaginary
want had added full ten more. His garments
were composed of elements widely differing from
each other in texture and hue. His breeches represented
every variety of bombasin that ever was

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given away from shops in the shape of patterns,
and his broad-flapped coat, which buttoned so
closely to his chin as to leave his property in under
teguments a matter of doubt, as if determined
not to be outdone by the nether garment, vied in
the variety of its shape, in the texture and colour
of its component parts, with the party-coloured display
of the smallclothes: the coat, being the more
honourable garment, was, however, a patchwork
of broadcloth, with an economical intermixture of
cassimere. His shoes, plainly, were never made for
his feet, but doubtless the fruit of some forage in
the suburbs; one was too large, and the other as
much too small, having to be worn down at the heel,
which protruded some two inches behind. His
stockings were a labyrinth of darns, defying anal
ysis for the detection of their original hue. His
head was covered with a coarse brown wig; it was
worn awry, and long had been oblivious of powder.
Altogether, in wig and breeches, stockings and
shoes, miser was written as plainly upon the external
man of Joseph Gerret, or Dom. Joseph Gerret,
as he was called from the circumstance of his having
taught Latin in his earlier days, as if each article
of apparel stood forth in an individual letter
to form the word. His face wore an anxious air,
and his glassy gray eyes were at all times restless.

“Enter, enter quick, that I may shut to the
door,” he said, in a querulous voice; “this opening
o' doors o' nights is awful. I shall be robbed—
murdered in my bed! For tenpence more than
you give me for the sue of my lumber-room, will
I not have thee here another night.”

“Peace, old man, and light me up,” said the
stranger, sternly. “Are they all here?”

“God be praised, they are. Heaven ha' mercy!
I shall yet be robbed among ye!”

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The old man led the way through a passage so
narrow as not to admit two to walk abreast; at
the extremity was a winding, dilapidated stairway.
This they ascended with some difficulty from the
obstruction of empty boxes, bags of feathers, and
broken furniture, which Joseph seemed to have
placed there to break the necks of robbers who
might venture to ascend to his stronghold. The
stranger moved on, however, in silence, while Joseph
muttered to himself,

“Must let um out soon! But how do I know
what I may let out with um? They haven't got
hold of my keys; they're safe, thank the good angels!
I was at my chest not five minutes gone;
that's safe. Pecunia, sacra pecunia! Mind that
hole in the floor, sir! Don't strike your head and
knock down that basket; it holds my mushrooms
for ketchup. I glean um in the fields; twelve
pence a bottle! That's not the door, sir; oh Lord,
sir, no! Nobody opens that door, not I even!”
cried the old man, in the extremity of alarm, as, on
gaining the head of the stairs, and entering a large
square room, with several doors opening into it, the
stranger advanced to open one of them. “This,
this door; this is your room; not that door; no,
no! I haven't been in that room for a year. This
is the door. Don't you see the lights through the
chinks? Two lights, sir; think of that; two lights
when one will do! money wasted, gone to air!”

The stranger opened the door, and, entering,
closed it after him, while Dom. Joseph, with a grin
of exultation, muttered,

“He don't suspect, he don't suspect! Oh, merciful
Father, if he had opened that door!”

His voice sunk at the thought, and, shuffling to
the interdicted door, he applied, with agitated fingers,
one of the keys hanging to his wrist to the

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lock; then looking round to see if he was observed,
he glided into the room, closed the door after
him, barred, and locked it. Drawing a wretched
cott from one side of the apartment, he exposed a
large square oaken chest, the front edge of its lid
and a large space about the keyhole having a
smooth, oily look, as if much handled. Crouching
down before it, he applied a key, which was as
bright as silver from constant use, to the wellworn
wards, and with an eager hand turned the bolt. It
moved easily and noiselessly, as if it had never
known that rest which rust invades. He raised
the cover, and his eyes glistened as they rested
on its bottom paved with small piles of gold and
silver.

“Bless the mercies!” he said, scarcely above his
breath, “ 'tis here, three, four, five, seven—yes,
twelve piles of Spanish gold.” Then passing his
attenuated finger nicely over the level surface of
upright roleaus, and feeling no cavity, he continued,
“All is here! None gone! No false keys yet.
Kind Heaven keep me from them! Wretched
man that I am, if I should be robbed! Heaven
save us!—what was that? a stitch breaking in
my coat! 'Twill cost thread and wax to mend it!
Lord, everything goes to wreck and ruin! It is so
expensive to live, and then it costs so much to
bury one when dead. So much for digging the
grave; so much for shroud and candles; so much
for hearse and sexton; so much for coffin! Lord,
Lord, dreadful! I could not stand it! I'll—I'll
have it in my will to be sunk in the North River.
Coffin and shroud? Never! I could not rest in
my grave with such a load of extravagance on my
conscience. Let me see; I'll count over my money,
and see how much 'twill all come to with the
sevenpence ha'penny I put to it to-day that I got

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for the pocket-handkerchief one of these gentlemen
left in the lumber-room last night. I will then clip;
'tis three months since I have clipped, and times
are getting harder. I'll begin with the gold. One,
two, three guineas; four—that is something light;
five—that's heavier; six,” balancing it on his finger,
“good—'twill bear to lose full two grains and a
half; seven—even weight, 'twill lose half a grain.”

In this manner, with his whole soul absorbed in
his occupation, his eyes twinkling with pleasure at
a weightier coin than ordinary, and changing their
gleeful to a sad expression on balancing a lighter
one on his finger, he pursued his eager task. The
room fronted on the square, but its two windows
were not only closely barred, but nailed, the light
entering by day through two circular holes three
inches in diameter cut in the top of the shutters.
These apertures, which a cat could not pass through,
were also secured by strong wires woven across
them. The walls had once been hung with paper,
but they were now nearly divested of it; a strip
here and there, too firmly adhering to the plaster
to yield to age, bedimmed with smoke and grease,
showed the original blue rose of cabbage dimensions
which had constituted its pattern.

Besides the cott, which was scantily supplied
with miserable bedding, a chair without a back,
and with a leathern bottom, the polish of which indicated
it to be the usual seat of the inmate of the
room, there were ranged along the mantelpiece a
cracked teapot; an earthen cup and saucer; a
wooden bowl, with the remnant of soup in it still,
and a pewter spoon; a pipe, which seemed never
used; and a pair of horn spectacles, with one glass
wanting. On the hearth was a broken washbowl,
where also stood a gridiron, with its ribs jammed
together, as if screwed up with the rheumatism; a

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spider with one leg, like a warworn veteran; and
an iron pot in good preservation. A three-cornered
hat, foxy and greasy, and a staff which had belonged
to some man of fashion, divested of its gold head,
a piece of smooth horn supplying its place, stood
in the corner as if for ready use.

In a remote corner of the room stood a jeweller's
workbench. Upon it were a pair of thin copper
scales, and half a dozen instruments of the trade,
which had the appearance of being frequently used.
By the wall were piled a score of old and half-worn
boots, shoes, and slippers of all sizes, not
only of men and boys, but of females, mingled with
old spurs, bitts, knives, straps of leather, stirrups,
chapeaus, and swordbelts; and stowed in a box
near by were a score of coats, waistcoats, breeches,
cloaks, and linen, as heterogeneous an assemblage
as if a boarding-house had been drained of all the
refuse and pledges of defunct boarders, and Dom.
Joseph had fallen heir to them. These, doubtless,
were his stock in trade, the mint and mine of his
fortune. At the head of his cott was suspended a
huge old blunderbuss, charged to the muzzle, the
formidable defender of the miser's premises.

He at length completed his nightly orisons before
the gold and silver idols of his worship; and, taking
a pile of dollars and a lesser one of sovereigns,
which he had gradually accumulated beside him as
he threw down coin after coin that would bear the
loss of a ninth part of a grain without the loss being
detected, he said, “Twenty-one sovereigns and
a half; seventy-three dollars and three quarters.
Very well! These have come in to me this three
months past,” he added, rising, carefully locking
his chest, and replacing his cott over it. Going to
the little workbench, he seated himself, and, placing
the money before him, he continued,

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