As the carriage stopped the major cast a glance upward, as if viewing the curiously wrought lintels of the massive marble front, and exclaimed:  “Upon my soul, gentlemen, it is so grand I begin to fear I shall not be comfortable in it.”  He had scarcely concluded this sentence, when a distinguished politician, habited in soiled drab trousers and a shabby brown dress coat, and a badly collapsed hat, which he wore well down over his eyes, rushed eagerly out, and was followed by a mellow faced policeman, with a green patch over his left eye and a club in his right hand.  Constituting in themselves a committee of reception, the distinguished politician, who was a delegate from the custom house, now made himself right busy in getting the major and the high functionaries safely out of the carriage.  And this being done without delay, the policeman ordered the swell mobsmen to stand back until the distinguished politician had presented his congratulations, which he did, adding that he had long been familiar with the potency of the major’s greatness, which the city, unlike other cities, was always ready to honor.

The strange figure cut by the major, in his stranger uniform, attracted the attention of sundry enthusiastic chambermaids, who appeared upon the balconies, and recognizing in the character of the team the arrival of an important personage, commenced waving napkins, and giving such other visible signs of their admiration, that he was with difficulty restrained from making them a speech on the spot.

He now moved quietly into the house, the jaded policeman on his right, and the distinguished politician on his left, and followed by the three high officials and a score of reporters.  Turning neither to the right nor the left, he proceeded straight on into the great bar room, where the queerness of his walk and raiment attracted no little attention among the well dressed gentry who nightly meet there to discuss over well compounded punches all affairs appertaining to the welfare of the state.  And here, having quenched their thirst in mixtures of whiskey and water, which is the favorite drink with all really great politicians, the party quietly retired up stairs to a splendidly furnished parlor and bedroom, provided at the expense of the city, against which a score of six shillings now stood at the bar.

A sudden commotion in the street, accompanied by shouts and huzzas that made the very air echo, discovered the fact that Alderman Dan Dooley had arrived.  Indeed, the scene that at that moment was being enacted in Broadway beggared description, and caused a great scampering among the reporters, who hastened to the spot in order not to lose a single occurrence.  There stood old Battle, bespattered with mud, and in a condition so pitiable, that no truly philanthropic gentleman could have withheld his tears.  Near him stood Mr. Alderman Dan Dooley, excited, distracted, infuriated, and swearing by all the saints in the