The man whom I followed led me through a gloomy passage, at the
extremity of which was a square apartment hung with watch-coats,
glazed helmets, rattles, clubs, and other paraphernalia of the city watch.
Benches, two feet wide, were placed against the wall, and worn smooth
and polished with the greasy clothes of those who had been brought in to
lodge upon them for the night. On one side of this room was a door,
across which was an iron bar secured in a ring by a stout padlock. Into
the wards of this lock my man inserted a key and turning it looked at me
for a moment before opening the door with a searching glance.

`Are you the covey what the young sparks wrote for to get 'em out?'
said he, as if to make sure that my object in coming was what he doubtless
suspected when he first saw me.

`I am sir,' was my reply.

`Then I guess they'll be glad to see you,' was his rejoinder, as he let
the iron bar drop and pulled open the door.

It led into a dark chamber, dimly lighted by an opaque looking lantern
hung over head. I could not at first see objects distinctly, but I was
made aware of the presence of my brothers, by a burst of joyous exclamations
from the obscurity in which I had dimly made out a group of human
figures stretched upon wooden pallets.

`Ah, Paul, you are a noble fellow,' cried my brother Tom rushing
towards me and grasping one of my hands, while Sam took the other, and
between them they had well nigh torn my arms from their sockets. Josiah
came up and hugged me round the neck, swearing I was `an Emperor,'
while a little in the back ground stood their two friends, who did not feel
that they could assure so much as my brothers in making demonstrations
of gratitude; indeed, I had no portion of my body at their service unless

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

they had each kneeled down and grasped a leg. I could now see the
faces of my brothers, my eyes becoming use to the darkness. 'Siah
looked pale and hollow-eyed; and Tom's optics had a sleepy look. Sam's
left orb was swollen and ornamented with a semi-circular blue ring of
bruised blood; while the coats of their two friends were sadly torn in
the back and sleeves, the effects, doubtless, of their battle with the
watchmen.

After my three brothers had given utterance to their expressions of
thanks for my prompt attention to their epistle, they released me and began
to survey my features to see if they could read in them the `ten dollar
bill' on which all their hopes depended. I assumed a very grave aspect.
The last night, at my room, they were in the ascendency, ridiculing me,
and looking down upon me as a person of no spirit. Now the tables
were turned. The whole five, as it were, lay at my mercy. I felt like
showing them my power, while at the same time I wished to manifest to
them my disapprobation of their conduct.

`I am sorry,' said I in my gravest manner, `to find my brothers in
such a place as this!' Here I looked round upon the rough plastered
walls and mean appearance of the room. `I never expected to find any
with whom I claimed relationship prisoners in such a condition! I assure
you all that I was very much mortified even to be seen coming into
it!'

`We are all confoundedly penitent, Paul,' answered Tom in a whining
one.

`We confess we have been in fault, and swear morality, if you only fork
over the X,' added Sam.

`That's my dear good boy, Paul,' stammered Josiah feebly and still
tipsily, as if he had not yet become fully sobered; `just get us out o' this
and I'll do any th—thing for you, won't we fel—fellows?'

`I will release you on one condition,' I answered.

`Name it, Paul,' they repeated altogether.

`That you promise to ride no more Sundays!'

`Done! If we do may we get our wicked necks broke,' they responded
with commendable energy.

`That you stroll the streets no more nights!' I continued.

`If we do may we be locked up in the watchhouse!' said Tom with
emphasis.

`Aye, or in Leverett street Jug,' added Josiah solemnly.

`That you give up the soda-shops and oyster suppers, and cease to
tipple!'

`Done as if it was already done,' responded brother Tom slapping my
hand. `We'll be as moral as a meeting-house, won't we boys? You
won't hear of us Sundays'cept at church! We'll reform the town!'

`Yes,' reiterated Josiah, `we'll set an example to all the young clerks
in Boston, and they shall go in our foot steps, and the soda shopses, and
the Livery stableses shall all break down for want o' cus—customers,
shan't they though?'

This sentiment was echoed by the other four with unanimity.

`Now I have one other condition,' said I.

`Name it and we'll do it, if it is to go to prayer meetings before six

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

o'clock every morning,' answered my brother Tom with an oath; for all
three of my brothers I found had gained, with other things, the accomplishment
of swearing since they had left the paternal roof.

`It is that you terminate your intimacy at once with these two young
men, who I am aware are no credit to you; and to whom I doubt not you
are indebted for many examples of profligacy; for I was told by Mr. Merriam
after you left last night that they were `two of the hardest cases' in
town. Nay, young gentlemen,' I added, seeing one of them bristle
up, while the other clenched his fist, `I do not fear your anger or your hatred.
You are wholly at my mercy, unless you prefer going before the
Police. I shall, however, for my brothers' sake release you with them!'

`That's noble, Paul,' exclaimed Tom. `You are a good fellow at
bottom. So you have the money! Don't you think I was just beginning
to think you had only come here to read us a lecture and then leave us to
reflect upon it. But you are a trump!'

`I have no idea what `a trump is,' I answered; `I only know that I
do what I think is my duty, and what under the circumstances my father
will approve of!'

Here I saw Tom whisper to one of the strange young men, and the
words `green, not to know a trump,' and from the other, `dare say be
never saw a card in his life!' reached my ears.

`A trump, my dear Paul,' answered Tom, `a trump is—is a devilish
good-fellow. Is n't boys?'

`A devilish good fellow,' repeated all-four, with the fawning readiness
of persons who look to another for a present-favor.

`I do n't ask any praise,' I answered in a serious tone; `for if you
could be relieved in any other way I would not aid you, for it looks
like conniving at your profligacy; but as you have promised amendment,
and as I still trust that you are not so far lost to honor or truth
as to forfeit your pledged word, I am ready to do my part toward setting
you at liberty. If you will inform me to whom I am to pay the
money I will transfer it to him.'

`To me,' answered the man who had let me in, and who had listened
to all I had said, and he extended his hand for the price of their
liberty.

I took from my pocket the eight dollars and a half and placed it in
his hand, when the whole nice party of five set up a chorus of joyful
exclamations and surrounded me in high glee. Tom then gave him
the one dollar fifty he had raised in all their pockets.

`You are at liberty to go, young gentlemen,' said the Captain of the
Watch, for such was this dignitary, `and I recommend to you to take
the advise of this young man who seems to have more virtue in his little
finger than all of you put together. Here, my young gentleman,'
he said turning to me, `I read the note they sent you, and I know you
are not rich, and had to borrow half of this. I have no power to receive
pay for letting these chaps loose; if I took a bribe I should lose
my place. It is for me either to let them go at once, supposing they
have not done had enough to haul 'em up to the Police, or else
send 'em down to the Court. I did n't intend to buy off the young
men, I only wanted to make 'em pay for their frolic; and I find to

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

touch the pockets is a good plan as any. The ten dollars I meant to
have sent down to the Court as was my duty; but as circumstances
be, and you seem to have come hard by the money, and are such a
moral young man, I return you not only your eight dollars, but the
part they scraped together. Take it, and you my larks remember all
your lives how much better virtue and morality fare than vice and
busting!'

With this speech the honest Captain of the Watch gave into my
hands the amount he had received, and which he might have safely
kept. I complimented him upon his integrity, and would have prevailed
upon him to take a dollar at least, as a present. But he refused;
and so we all bade him good morning and sallied forth into the
street.

Fortunately it was very early, or the breezy look of my companions
might have told to hundreds of passers by their story. Tom's sunken
and red eyes, Sam's bunged peeper, and Josiah's tipsy look with the
torn apparel of the others, were so many chapters of unwritten spreeing
and Watch-house experiences.

Tom took my arm affectionately while the remaining four locked
two by two and followed after us. When each of the two `cronies'
arrived at the point nearest his store he slunk off, and by the time I
had reached Milk street my brothers only were with me.

`Now Paul,' said Tom winningly, `I propose that as you are flush
you treat us all to a breakfast in at Bruce's; for we are confoundedly
hungry!'

I told them that I thought they were in a great hurry to open their
stores, and advised them first to do that and then come and breakfast
with me. To this they finally consented, though not until Sam had
borrowed a dollar of me, and 'Siah fifty cents, leaving me but the
amount I had taken with me to the Watch-house.

After they had left me I went in and returned the five dollars to Mr.
Merriam, not a little grateful in my heart to the honest watchman for
enabling me to do it. At length my brothers came in and we breakfasted
together for the first time in eighteen months, our last meal
together having been beneath the paternal roof.

To say the truth the three young men behaved themselves very
humbly and quietly at the table, and on my promising, at their urgent
entreaty of me, not to mention the watch-house affair to their father,
they looked as if they thought me one of the best friends they had in
the world.

I had no been in Boston four days, and it will be seen by the
reader, that during that time, through my brothers, I had picked up no
little experience of metropolitan life. I felt thankful that my fate had
not destined me to a clerkship in a retail-store in the city; for what I
had observed of life among them did not by any means give me a taste
for it.

My brothers did not come near me again until the next evening,
when they acted under a certain restraint, as if not perfectly at ease in
my company; and I was not at a loss to discover that their habits and
tastes had grown so corrupt with loose companionship that they relished

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

no society where they could not give a free rein to freer speech, especially
upon the beauty of young milliners, their susceptibility to flattery,
the ease with which their virtue might be conquered by a person of
address; also they loved to discourse about gay females of the town
whom they had fallen in with in the streets in their night-wanderings,
or else encountered at the theatres. They also discussed wines, oysters,
their soda-shop friends, bowling and billiards, and even race-horses;
for I found that my trio of brothers had twice been to horse races at
Cambridge, feigning sickness as an apology for getting off from the
store. In a word, I had not been with my precious brothers twenty-four
hours before I had my ears shocked, and my sense of delicacy
offended by their free and libidious conversation, not to mention the profane
oaths with which from time to time they saw fit to garnish it; and
from them I learned for the first time on my reproving their profanity,
that it was genteel to swear, and the sure sign of a man of spirit.

But after the adventures in the Watch-house, my brothers were careful
what they said in my presence that was offensive to my less genteel
ears; and as they were accustomed to no other conversation but such
as touched upon such subjects as I had little sympathy with, they were
mostly silent or talked very dully upon indifferent matters. In their
eyes I was, doubtless, most wretched company, and I freely confess that
in mine they were. Even Tom had once dared to hint to me the first
day of our meeting in Boston, among other recounts of his `life in
town,' that he had really seriously thought of keeping a mistress!
When he had explained to me what he meant, I was not slow in expressing
both my astonishment and contempt. Since then, especially
since the affair of the Watch-house, they had all been rather shy of
me, looking upon me as a goat among the sheep, or rather a sheep
among the goats.

At length the time arrived when Mr. Bedrick was to be in town, for
he was absent when I reached Boston, and I sallied forth to the counting-room
in India street, where I had been informed by Professor
Haley he was to be found. At this place I had not neglected to call
on my first arrival, and there having learned his absence till such a day,
I now once more proposed to present myself before the man to whom
I was to commit my future destinies.