iety. Indeed, for
him more spacious quarters were hardly needed, as he was seldom at home
except to dress and to sleep. By day he hurried about Wall Street,
buying and selling bonds. On the winter evenings he stepped forth from
his cell a splendid figure, realizing, as nearly as possible, those
spotless and creaseless young men whom the illustrators draw with so
much unction. Then we might have imagined that he would step on, into
his brougham, to be whirled away to some smart dinner. Alas! his
equipage was not even a cab. His pair of prancing blacks were only his
galoches, and his protection against the weather a long ulster, a
chest-protector of thickly padded satin, and an opera-hat. The great
trouble which Marshall had on these nightly expeditions was getting
home. I do not mean to insinuate that it was to find Miss Minion's
door. It was to pass Miss Minion's door. There were several
absent-minded old gentlemen living in the house who had a way of
forgetting that they were not its sole occupants. Coming in from their
weekly or monthly trip to the theatre, the hour would to them seem
horribly late and they would catch the chain. Occasionally I was
myself their victim, and had to stand shivering outside, ringing the
bell with one hand and with the other playing a tattoo on the panels.
More generally it was Marshall, for, though I was frequently held very
late at my work downtown, he was abroad at his pleasures even later.
The lateness with which he pursued these pleasures was no evidence
against their innocence. Tom Marshall was one of the most innocent men
that I have ever known. He was not a New Yorker. He came, as he told
me, of the Marshalls of Pogatuck, in Maine. The way that he said it
made me understand that there was no bluer blood in the land than that
running in the veins of the Pogatuck Marshalls, and it explained why
the Knickerbockers were so willing to meet him as an equal. He had
come from Pogatuck by way of Harvard, and one advantage which his
education had given him was an acquaintance that he could turn to use,
inasmuch as his great ambition was to "go out." To him a card to the
Ruyters would have been an olive-wreath of victory. It was a trophy
that he hoped to win, and to that end he worked patiently, selling
bonds all day, and at night as patiently setting forth in his galoches,
his ulster, and his opera-hat to storm the outer works of society. He
belonged to innumerable dancing