The house was one of those ugly comfortable-looking four-story and basement brick structures, with generous doors and wide and abundant windows, which the wealthy New Yorker of three generations ago, be he merchant prince or landed proprietor, built for himself and intended for his descendants, but which have been crowded out of notice by towering factories, storehouses and tenement buildings. Its wide granite steps and curiously-wrought iron railings, its great doorway, upheld by pairs of fluted pillars enclosing narrow lights at each side of the silver-handled single door, and capped by a semi-circular transom, whispered of the quiet dignified early days of the century; while the puffing of the exhaust steam across the way, and the snarling and buzzing of the machinery in the piano factory next door, spoke of its noisy and commonplace close. Musk-rose and woodbine formerly luxuriated in its garden; star-proof elms once threw blue-tinted moonlight shadows on its now-mellowing walls; and high-bred dames once trod with dainty feet its smooth and polished floors. The glory of the neighborhood, like that of Ichabod, had departed--but the scrupulous neatness of the old mansion stood out among the dirt and squalor of its surroundings. In response to my ring, the door was opened by a grave and quiet maid-servant of the olden school; capped, aproned and slippered, with gray hairs thickly sprinkling the brown. On learning my name she directed me to ascend to the study in the fourth story, where I would have no difficulty in finding the master of the house. As I passed up the wide staircase trod by so many feet now motionless, I could see through the open doors, as well as in all the halls, shelves upon shelves of closely-packed books, and long tables and racks in great numbers, laden with what seemed maps and charts of nothing in particular, or things in general. It was evident, however, that whatever archives these were, they were numerous, well arranged, and of great diversity of age and subject. The fourth story reached, I found myself in a great loft-like apartment, covering nearly the entire floor, and filled, like those below it, with book-laden cases, and tables thickly strewn with charts and great portfolios. My host received me with the grave sweet courtesy which sat so well upon him, and begged me to permit him for a few moments to put the finishing touches upon a piece of work, before entering upon the matter concerning which he had, as he put it, done himself the honor to ask me to confer with him.