“As we mean to go to Williamsburg ourselves,” said Willet, “we’ll see what fortune General Braddock may have.  But now, for the sake of the good lads, we’ll speak of lighter subjects.  Where is the play of Richard III to be given, Benjamin?”

“Mr. Hallam has obtained a great room in a house that is the property of Rip Van Dam in Nassau Street.  He has fitted it up in the fashion of a stage, and his plays are always attended by a great concourse of ladies and gentlemen.  Boston and Philadelphia say New York is light and frivolous, but I suspect that something of jealousy lies at the core of the charge.  We of New Amsterdam—­again the name leaps to my lips—­have a certain freedom in our outlook upon life, a freedom which I think produces strength and not weakness.  Manners are not morals, but I grow heavy and it does not become a seafaring man to be didactic.  What is it, Piet?”

The door of the dining-room opened, admitting a serving man who produced a letter.

“It comes by the Boston post,” he said, handing it to Master Hardy.

“Then it must have an importance which will not admit delay in the reading,” said Master Hardy.  “Your pardon, friends, while I peruse it.”

He read it carefully, read it again with the same care, and then his resonant laughter boomed forth with such volume and in such continuity that he was compelled to take a huge red handkerchief and wipe the tears from his eyes.

“What is it, Benjamin, that amuses you so vastly?” asked Willet.

“A brave epistle from one of my captains, James Dunbar, a valiant man and a great mariner.  In command of the schooner, Good Hope, he was sailing from the Barbados with a cargo of rum and sugar for Boston, which furnishes a most excellent market for both, when he was overhauled by the French privateer, Rocroi.”

“What do you find to laugh at in the loss of a good ship and a fine cargo?”

“Did I say they were lost?  Nay, David, I said nothing of the kind.  You don’t know Dunbar, and you don’t know the Good Hope, which carries a brass twelve-pounder and fifteen men as valiant as Dunbar himself.  He returned the attack of the Rocroi with such amazing skill and fierceness that he was able to board her and take her, with only three of his men wounded and they not badly.  Moreover, they found on board the privateer a large store of gold, which becomes our prize of war.  And Dunbar and his men shall have a fair share of it, too.  How surprised the Frenchies must have been when Dunbar and his sailors swarmed aboard.”

“’Tis almost our only victory,” said Willet, “and I’m right glad, Benjamin, it has fallen to the lot of one of your ships to win it.”

The long supper which was in truth a dinner was finished at last.  Hardy made good his boast, proving that he was a mighty trencherman.  Pillsbury pressed him closest, and the others, although they did well, lingered at some distance in the rear.  Afterward they walked in the town, observing its varied life, and at a late hour returned to Hardy’s house which he called a mansion.