n to the door-keeper, and rejected from the friendship of
that stern officer,--they strive, with ear at keyhole, to catch a word
or two which may give them a clue to the probable fate of "Jim," who
is in the dock there, on his trial for homicide or some such light
peccadillo; loitering round the dog-pit institutions, where
the quadrupeds look so amazingly like men and the men like
quadrupeds,--especially in that one where the eye of taste may be
gratified by the supernatural symmetry of the stuffed bull-terriers in
glass cases, the enormity of which specimens is accounted for by the
gentlemanly proprietor, who tells us that "the man as stuffed 'em never
stuffed anythink else afore, only howls."

I suppose it must have been the tacit acknowledgment of some superiority
by me inappreciable, that accorded to one individual of the small
assemblage of roughs under notice a decidedly influential position among
the congenial spirits hovering around. The superior blanchness of this
person's linen would seem to indicate that his association with mere
runners was but occasional and for commercial ends. Also might that
conclusion have been deduced from the immaculacy of his cream-white
Panama hat. That was a jaunty article, with upturned brim, the pride
of which was discernible in the very simplicity with which it sat,
unadulterated by band or trimmings, upon the closely cropped,
mole-colored head of the wearer. Thirty dollars, at least, must have
been its marketable value. Instead of being fitted with chain-tackle,
the watch of this superior person maintained its connection with the
open air by means of a broad watered ribbon plummeted straight down his
leg with a seal hardly inferior in size to a deep-sea lead. This daring
recurrence to first principles is much to be observed, of late, among
the choice spirits of the so-called "sporting" fraternity of New York.

This man, as I supposed, and as I subsequently heard from my friend
Locus, of the police, who came upon the pier, was not a runner now, but
had risen from that respectable rank by large exercise of the virtues so
intimately associated with it. In attributing an exalted position to him
I was right. He was the keeper of a house of entertainment for emigrants
in one of the down-town tributaries to Broadway, where tickets could
also be had for California and most other parts of the world, at an
advance of not more than one-third on the rates charged at the regular
steamboat-