“The ancients divided time,” said the somewhat pertinacious commentator, “into years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and moments, as they divided numbers into units, tens, hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands; and both with an object.  If we commence at the bottom, and employ well the moments, Mr. Van Staats, we turn the minutes into tens, the hours into hundreds, and the weeks and months into thousands—­ay! and when there is a happy state of trade, into tens of thousands!  Missing an hour, therefore, is somewhat like dropping an important figure in a complex calculation, and the whole labor may be useless, for want of punctuality in one, as for want of accuracy in the other.  Your father, the late Patroon, was what may be called a minute-man.—­He was as certain to be seen in his pew, at church, at the stroke of the clock, as to pay a bill, when its items had been properly examined.  Ah! it was a blessing to hold one of his notes, though they were far scarcer than broad pieces, or bullion.  I have heard it said, Patroon, that the manor is backed by plenty of Johannes and Dutch ducats!”

“The descendant has no reason to reproach his ancestors with want of foresight.”

“Prudently answered;—­not a word too much, not too little—­a principle on which all honest men settle their accounts.  By proper management, such a foundation might be made to uphold an estate that should count thousands with the best of Holland or England.  Growth and majority!  Patroon; but we of the colonies must come to man’s estate in time, like our cousins on the dykes of the Low Countries, or our rulers among the smithies of England.—­Erasmus, look at that cloud over the Raritan, and tell me if it rises.”

The negro reported that the vapor was stationary; and, at the same time, by way of episode, he told his master that the boat which had been seen approaching the land had reached the wharf, and that some of its crew were ascending the hill towards the Lust in Rust.

“Let them come of all hospitality,” returned the Alderman, heartily; “I warrant me, they are honest farmers from the interior, a-hungered with the toil of the night.  Go tell the cook to feed them with the best, and bid them welcome.  And harkee, boy;—­if there be among them any comfortable yeoman, bid the man enter and sit at our table.  This is not a country, Patroon, to be nice about the quality of the cloth a man has on his back, or whether he wears a wig or only his own hair.—­What is the fellow gaping at?”

Erasmus rubbed his eyes, and then showing his teeth to the full extent of a double row, that glittered like pearls, he gave his master to understand, that the negro, introduced to the reader under the name of Euclid, and who was certainly his own brother of the half-blood, or by the mother’s side, was entering the villa.  The intelligence caused a sudden cessation of the masticating process in the Alderman, who had not, however, time to express his