“Have I not told you, that the horse will run faster without a rider, than with a pack-saddle on his back?  Give your own jockey as little, and your adversary’s as much weight as you can, if you wish to win.  I complain of the borough-men, because they make laws for us, and not for themselves.  As I often tell my worthy friend, Alderman Gulp, eating is good for life, but a surfeit makes a will necessary.”

“From all which I infer, that the opinions of your Leyden correspondent are not those of Mr. Van Beverout.”

The Alderman laid a finger on his nose, and looked at his companions, for a moment, without answering.

“Those Leydeners are a sagacious breed!  If the United Provinces had but ground to stand on, they would, like the philosopher who boasted of his lever, move the world!  The sly rogues think that the Amsterdammers have naturally an easy seat, and they wish to persuade all others to ride bare-back.  I shall send the pamphlet up into the Indian country, and pay some scholar to have it translated into the Mohawk tongue, in order that the famous chief Schendoh, when the missionaries shall have taught him to read, may entertain right views of equivalents!  I am not certain that I may not make the worthy divines a present, to help the good fruits to ripen.”

The Alderman leered round upon his auditors, and, folding his hands meekly on his breast, he appeared to leave his eloquence to work its own effects.

“These opinions favor but little the occupation of the—­the gentleman—­who now honors us with his company,” said Ludlow, regarding the gay-looking smuggler with an eye that showed how much he was embarrassed to find a suitable appellation for one whose appearance was so much at variance with his pursuits.  “If restrictions are necessary to commerce, the lawless trader is surely left without an excuse for his calling.”

“I as much admire your discretion in practice, as the justice of your sentiments in theory, Captain Ludlow;” returned the Alderman.  “In a rencontre on the high seas, it would be your duty to render captive the brigantine of this person; but, in what may be called the privacy of domestic retirement, you are content to ease your mind in moralities!  I feel it my duty, too, to speak on this point, and shall take so favorable an occasion, when all is pacific, to disburthen myself of some sentiments that suggest themselves, very naturally, under the circumstances.”  Myndert then turned himself towards the dealer in contraband, and continued, much in the manner of a city magistrate, reading a lesson of propriety to some disturber of the peace of society.  “You appear here, Master Seadrift,” he said, “under what, to borrow a figure from your profession, may be called false colors.  You bear the countenance of one who might be a useful subject, and yet are you suspected of being addicted to certain practices which—­I will not say they are dishonest, or even discreditable—­for on that head