friend and most intimate acquaintance.  He is always rollicking, frisking, and insinuating himself into something, affects to be the most liberal sort of a companion, never refuses to drink when invited, but never invites any one unless he has a motive beyond friendship.  Mr. Keepum, the wealthy lottery broker, who lives over the way, in Broad street, in the house with the mysterious signs, is his money-man.  This Keepum, the man with the sharp visage and guilty countenance, has an excellent standing in society, having got it as the reward of killing two men.  Neither of these deeds of heroism, however, were the result of a duel.  Between these worthies there exists relations mutually profitable, if not the most honorable.  And notwithstanding Mr. Soloman is forever sounding Mr. Keepum’s generosity, the said Keepum has a singular faculty for holding with a firm grasp all he gets, the extent of his charities being a small mite now and then to Mr. Hadger, the very pious agent for the New York Presbyterian Tract Society.  Mr. Hadger, who by trading in things called negroes, and such like wares, has become a man of great means, twice every year badgers the community in behalf of this society, and chuckles over what he gets of Keepum, as if a knave’s money was a sure panacea for the cure of souls saved through the medium of those highly respectable tracts the society publishes to suit the tastes of the god slavery.  Mr. Keepum, too, has a very high opinion of this excellent society, as he calls it, and never fails to boast of his contributions.

It is night.  The serene and bright sky is hung with brighter stars.  Our little fashionable world has got itself arrayed in its best satin-and is in a flutter.  Carriages, with servants in snobby coats, beset the doors of the theatre.  A flashing of silks, satins, brocades, tulle and jewelry, distinguished the throng pressing eagerly into the lobbies, and seeking with more confusion than grace seats in the dress circle.  The orchestra has played an overture, and the house presents a lively picture of bright-colored robes.  Mr. Snivel’s handsome figure is seen looming out of a private box in the left-hand procenium, behind the curtain of which, and on the opposite side, a mysterious hand every now and then frisks, makes a small but prudent opening, and disappears.  Again it appears, with delicate and chastely-jeweled fingers.  Cautiously the red curtain moves aside apace, and the dark languishing eyes of a female, scanning over the dress-circle, are revealed.  She recognizes the venerable figure of Judge Sleepyhorn, who has made a companion of George Mullholland, and sits at his side in the parquette.  Timidly she closes the curtain.