his nephew at last; “there is something more, and it is only justice that you should hear it. I have had two adventures tonight; one quite apart from my conversation with Mr. Stuyvesant. Heaven that watches above us, has seen fit to accumulate difficulties in my path, and this last, perhaps, is the least explainable and the hardest to encounter.”
“What do you allude to?” cried his uncle, imperatively; “I have had an evening of too much agitation to endure suspense with equanimity. Explain yourself.”
“It will not take long,” said the other; “a few words will reveal to you the position in which I stand. Let me relate it in the form of a narrative. You know what a dark portion of the block that is in which Mr. Stuyvesant’s house is situated. A man might hide in any of the areas along there, without being observed by you unless he made some sound to attract your attention. I was, therefore, more alarmed than surprised when, shortly after leaving Mr. Stuyvesant’s dwelling, I felt a hand laid on my shoulder, and turning, beheld a dark figure at my side, of an appearance calculated to arouse any man’s apprehension. He was tall, unkempt, with profuse beard, and eyes that glared even in the darkness of his surroundings, with a feverish intensity. ‘You are Mr. Sylvester,’ said he, with a look of a wild animal ready to pounce upon his prey. ‘Yes,’ said I, involuntarily stepping back, ‘I am Mr. Sylvester.’ ‘I want to speak to you,’ exclaimed he, with a rush of words as though a stream had broken loose; ‘now, at once, on business that concerns you. Will you listen?’
“I thought of the only business that seemed to concern me then, and starting still farther back, surveyed him with surprise. ‘I don’t know you,’ said I; ‘what business can you have with me?’ ‘Will you step into some place where it is warm and find out?’ he asked, shivering in his thin cloak, but not abating a jot of his eagerness. ‘Go on before me,’ said I, ‘and we will see.’ He complied at once, and in this way we reached Beale’s Coffee-Room, where we went in. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘out with what you have to say