ole all his friends and be written down an
incorrigible bore; and who doubts that the Wandering Jew, with the
weight of twenty centuries of experience and observation upon his head,
finds a deeper pang than the tropic heat or the Arctic snow could give,
in the want of an occasional quiet and patient listener to the story of
his wanderings?

On the present occasion it may be noted, at once to complete the picture
and give additional insight of a character which did very independent
and _outre_ things, that Tom Leslie had gone to Niblo's with his
carefully-dressed and precise friend Harding, and sat conspicuously in
an orchestra chair, in a gray business sack, no vest and no pretence at
a collar. In other men, Harding would have noticed the dress with
disapprobation: in Leslie it seemed to be legitimately a part of the man
to dress as he liked; and neither Harding, or any one else who knew him,
paid any more attention to his outward appearance than they would have
bestowed upon a harmless lunatic under the same circumstances. Wherever
Leslie boarded, (and his places of boarding were very numerous, taking
the whole year together,) it was always noted that he filled up the
hat-rack with a collection of hats of all odd and rapid styles, with a
_few_ of the more sedate and respectable; and on this evening's visit to
Niblo's, when there was not a shadow of occasion for a hat with any brim
whatever, he had completed his personal appearance by a fine gray beaver
California soft hat, of not less than eighteen or twenty inches in the
whole circumference, which gave him somewhat the appearance of being
under a collapsed umbrella, and yet became him as well as any thing
else could have done, and left him unmistakably a handsome fellow.

An oddly mixed compound, certainly--even odder than Harding; and yet
what a dull, dead world this would prove to be, if there were no odd and
_outre_ characters to startle the grave people from their propriety, and
throw an occasional pebble splashing into the pool of quiet and
irreproachable mediocrity!

The two companions, whose description has occupied a much longer time
than it needed to walk from the door of Niblo's to the Houston Street
corner, were just passing the corner of that street on their way up to
Bleecker, when they were momentarily stopped by a very ordinary
incident. A girl, evidently of the _demi-monde_ from her bold eyes,
lavish display of charms and general demeanor, was turnin