rites and customs of our ancient ancestry' may be swept away; but he who looks forward to the individuality and perfectibility of our race, will, it is true, see much to cause lamentation in the contest now going on; in the collision of mind with mind, and mind with power and usage; but he will also see shadowed forth the final glorious destiny of man. And when he views the wreck of worldly pride, he will find consolation in the words of the Psalmist, when addressing his Creator: Thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the world, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But THOU art the same, and thy years shall have no end. The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee.' Yes, there is encouragement in the thought, that the names and deeds of the truly great and good shall remain, amid the general wreck of matter, and will have a bright existence with Him who is the Ancient of Days: that they shall rise,

THE QUOD CORRESPONDENCE.

The Attorney.

CHAPTER III.

ON leaving the house, Wilkins directed his steps down the Bowery to Chatham street, crossing which, he struck through that portion of the town lying between Chatham and Centre streets, and notorious as the abode of crime and infamy. Every thing about him bore the mark of corruption and decay. Houses with unglazed sashes, unhinged doors, roofless and crumbling away beneath the hand of time, were leaning against each other to support themselves amid the universal ruin. Unlike the rest of the city, there was no life, no bustle; all was stagnant: its inhabitants seemed buried in a living grave. Crowds of miserable objects, the wrecks of human beings, were loitering about the dismal holes which they called their homes; some shivering on the side-walks, nestling together to steal warmth from each other's carcasses; some, bloated and half stupified with hard drinking, went muttering along, or stopped to brawl with others like themselves. Young females, too, with hollow cheeks and hungry eyes, were loitering among the herd. Many of them had been born to nothing better; but there were those among them who once had friends who loved them, and had looked forward to a future without a shadow: but they had come to this; they had broken the hearts of those who would have cherished them, and had drunk of crime and wo to the dregs.

Hardened as Wilkins was, he shuddered and grasped his bludgeon more tightly, as he hurried through this gloomy spot. Stifled screams and groans, and sounds of anger and blasphemy, burst upon his ear, mingled with shouts of mirth; and he observed figures shrinking in the obscure corners of the buildings as he passed, and watching him with the cautious yet savage eye of mingled suspicion and fear; for he was in the very heart of the region where thieves and cut-throats were skulking, to avoid the vigilance of the police, and had common lot with the penniless and homeless who came there only to die. With a feeling of relief he emerged from this doomed spot, and came to a quiet street. It was growing late in the night, and it was nearly deserted, and so silent, that his footsteps echoed on the pavement as he walked along. As he turned a corner, a solitary female, squalid and in rags, endeavored to stop him, and spoke a few words, half in jest, half in supplication. Utter destitution had driven her forth, to seek in sin the means of satisfying her craving hunger. Wilkins shook her off with a curse, and walked steadily on. The girl uttered a faint laugh, and looked after him until he turned a corner. 'He does not know what hunger is,' muttered she. Drawing her scanty clothing more closely about her, and crouching on the stone step of a large house, she leaned her head against a door-post, and wept.

Traversing several narrow alleys, and turning at one time to the right and at another to the left, Wilkins at last came to a mean looking

house, having a small sign over the door, indicating that it was a tavern, and with a number of illuminated placards in the windows, intimating that lodgings were to be had, and that various liquors might be purchased at the moderate sum of three cents a glass. In addition to these, a number of more modest notices were placed in the same window, for the benefit of the smoking community as well as for the drinking.

Wilkins pushed roughly past two or three persons, and entered a dingy room, strongly impregnated with the fumes of tobacco and spirits, and enveloped in a cloud of smoke. It was filled with persons who looked as if they would not hesitate to ease a pocket, or if it were necessary, to extend their civility so far as cutting your throat. Some were savage, silent, and sullen; others, under the influence of what they had drank, were humorous and loquacious: some, steeped in intoxication, were lying at full length upon wooden benches, others were leaning back in their chairs against the wall, saying nothing, but blowing out clouds of tobacco smoke. The only one of the whole group who aspired to any thing like sobriety, was a small man in a shabby suit of black, who sat in a corner endeavoring to expound some knotty point of politics to a gentleman near him, who was blinking at him with an air of deep conviction, arising either from his being thoroughly impressed by the force of the argument, or profoundly involved in liquor.

In the midst of this disorderly throng, sat Mr. Rawley, keeping guard over a row of shelves, occupied by a small congregation of glass decanters, each one being decorated with a small medal, which silently hinted to the by-standers the kind of liquor to be found in the bowels of the vessel. Mr. Rawley looked gravely around on his set of 'reg'lars,' as he termed his steady customers, and smiled approvingly at each successive drain upon the vitals of his bottles. He showed in his own person that he approved of enjoying the blessings of life, for he was a stout man, with a face wide at the bottom, and tapering up like an extinguisher, and in the midst of it was a solemn bulbous nose, somewhat red at the end, owing to Mr. Rawley's being afflicted with a propensity of smelling at the stoppers of his own decanters. At his right hand stood a large white bull-dog, who seemed to have been squeezed into a skin which was too small for his body, by reason of which his eyes were forced out like those of a lobster. He had the square head and chest of a dog of the first magnitude; but probably to accommodate the rest of his body to the scanty dimensions of his skin, he suddenly tapered off from thence to the other extremity, which terminated in a tail not much thicker than a stout wire. He was, as Mr. Rawley observed, a 'reg'lar thorough-bred bull,' and acted as under bar-keeper to his master; and when Wilkins entered, was standing with his eyes fixed in the corner occupied by the argumentative gentlemen before mentioned, as if he felt that he could take a very effective part in the discussion, but had some doubt as to the propriety of the step.

As soon as Wilkins entered, the dog walked up to him, and very deliberately applying his nose to his knee, smelt from thence downward to the instep, around the ankle, and up the calf to the place of beginning.

'Come away, Wommut!' exclaimed Rawley; 'let the gentleman alone will you?'

Wommut looked up at Wilkins, to satisfy himself that there was no mistake as to his character, and then walked back as stiffly as an old gentleman in tight small-clothes but made no remark.

Wilkins took no notice either of the dog or his master, but looked around the room.

'I don't see Higgs. Is he there?' asked he, abruptly, nodding his head toward an inner chamber.

'No, he's up stairs,' said Mr. Rawley.

" Alone?'

'I believe so. He wanted paper, and took that and a candle, and

went off.'

'Does he stop here to-night?'

'If he forks first; but,' continued he, tapping his pocket, 'I think his disease here is of an aggravated natur'.'

Wilkins left the room, and ascending a narrow staircase, which creaked under his weight, came to a dark passage. A light shining from beneath a door at the farther end of it, guided him to the room he sought, which he entered without ceremony. Seated at a table, en

gaged in writing, was a man of about forty, dressed in a shabby suit, buttoned closely up to the throat, to conceal either the want of a shirt, or the want of cleanliness in that article of apparel; and a high stock encasing his neck, probably for the same purpose. He was rather below the middle height, with a full, broad forehead, sharp gray eyes, and features rather delicate than the reverse, with the exception of the jaw, which was closed and compressed with a force as if the bone of it were made of iron. The face altogether was sly and commonplace; but the jaw bespoke nerve, resolution, and energy, yet all concealed under a careless exterior, and an affectation of extreme levity. On the table near him stood his hat, in which was a dirty cotton handkerchief, a newspaper, two cigars, and part of a hard apple, with which last article he occasionally regaled himself, to fill up those intervals of time when his writing had got the start of his ideas.

As Wilkins entered, he looked up for an instant, then pushing back his chair, and dropping his pen, with some show of alacrity, came forward and extended his hand.

'How are you, my old 'un'?'

'Well,' replied Wilkins, laconically; 'what brings you here? What are you writing?'

A billy-dux,' said Higgs, gravely, 'to one as wirtuous as fair. But it's a secret which I can't reveal.'

'I don't want you to. I came to see you about a matter of business: one of importance to- to many persons, and one in which you must take a part.'

'Ah! what is it?'

Who's in the next room?'

'I don't know. It's empty, I believe.'

'Go and see; and look in all the rooms, and be quiet as you do so.' Higgs, taking the light, went out, and Wilkins took occasion to open a long closet and look in, to see that no listeners were there, and then seated himself at the table.

'All empty, except the farthest one. said Higgs, reëntering the room, and

Tipps is there, dead drunk,' closing and locking the door

after him. He then drew a chair directly in front of Wilkins, and placing a hand on each knee, looked up in his face.

'Can you keep a secret?' he asked, after a close scrutiny of his features, and looking full into two eyes that never blenched. 'Can't you tell? You ought to be able to.'

Will you swear?'

'What's the use? It don't bind any stronger than a promise. Out with it. I'll keep a close mouth.'

6

'Well, then,' continued Wilkins, watching him sharply, to see the effect produced by his communication, and at the same time drawing his chair closer, and speaking in a whisper, suppose you knew of a murder, and there was a reward of a thousand dollars offered, knew the man who did it, and could give him up, and could get the and you money, all without risk to yourself? Would you do it?'

'No. I'll have no man's blood on my head,' replied the other; and pushing back his chair, he took up the light and held it full in Wilkins' face. Is that so?'

'No,' returned Wilkins, apparently relieved.

'Well, what have you got to tell?'

'Suppose,' continued the other, 'the crime was a forgery, and the reward the same; what would you do?'

'That's only imprisonment. I'd give him up.'

'But what if you were paid not to do so?' said Wilkins, eagerly.
'Then I would n't,' said Higgs, quietly.

'What if you were paid to have a hand in it?

would you do it?'

'What is the pay?' demanded the other, instantly catching his mean

ing.

6

A thousand dollars.'

'I'll do it.'

'But suppose the person to be wronged is a girl, young, handsome, and unprotected?'

Mr. Wilkins,' said Higgs, assuming an air of decision, and thrusting one hand in his breeches pocket, while he extended the other toward him, 'I'd cheat her all the same. For a thousand dollars, I'd cheat my own mother!'

'Enough! that's settled, you are engaged. And now for another. Suppose you had a friend who is in trouble, and wants your assistance?' Well

own.

'And relies on you, and must go to hell without you?' Wilkins paused, and scrutinized the hard, stony face that almost touched his 'And suppose that friend,' continued he, slowly, and with apparent effort, had a wife who stood in his way, who prevented him from rising in the world, and who took advantage of his absence from home to welcome another; and suppose, if that could be proved, he could get a divorce, and marry a fortune, and make you a present of a thousand or two? do you think you could 'Lucy?' said Higgs, inquiringly. prove that first wife's crime?' Wilkins nodded.