The money thus obtained Mr. Pompilard forthwith cast upon the waters of that great financial maelstrom in Wall Street which swallows so many fortunes. This time he lost; and our story now finds him and his family established in the poorer half of a double house, wooden, and of very humble pretensions, situated in Harlem, some seven or eight miles from the heart of the great metropolis. Compared with the princely seat he once occupied on the Hudson, what a poor little den it was! A warm, almost sultry noon in May was brooding over the unpaved street. The peach-trees showed their pink blossoms, and the pear-trees their white, in the neighboring enclosures. All that Mr. Pompilard could look out upon in his poor, narrow little area was a clothes-line and a few tufts of grass with the bald soil interspersed. Yet there in his little back parlor he sat reading the last new novel. Suddenly he heard cries of murder in the other half of his domicil. Throwing down his book, he went out through the open window, and, stepping on a little plank walk dignified with the name of a piazza, put his legs over a low railing and passed into his neighbor’s house. That neighbor was an Irish tailor of the name of Pat Maloney, a little fellow with carroty whiskers and features intensely Hibernian. On inquiring into the cause of the outcry, Pompilard learned that Maloney was only “larruping the ould woman with a bit of a leather strap, yer honor.” Mrs. Maloney excused her husband, protesting that he was the best fellow in the world, except when he had been drinking, which was the case that day; “and not a bad excuse for it there was, your honor, for a band of Irish patriots had landed that blessed morning, and Pat had only helped wilcom them dacently, which was the cause of his taking a drap too much.” With an air of deference that he might have practised towards a grand-duchess, Pompilard begged pardon for his intrusion, and passed out, leaving poor Pat and his wife stunned by the imposing vision. No sooner had Pompilard resumed his romance, than the dulcet strains of a hand-organ under the opposite window solicited his ear. Pompilard was a patron of hand-organs; he had a theory that they encouraged a taste for music among the humbler classes. The present organ was rich-toned, and was giving forth the then popular and always charming melody of “Love Not.” Pompilard grew sentimental, and put his hand in his pocket for a quarter of a dollar; but no quarter responded to the touch of his fingers. He called his wife. Enter a small middle-aged lady, dressed in white muslin over a blue under-robe, with ribbons streaming in all directions. She was followed by Antoinette, or Netty, as she was generally called, a little elfish-looking maiden, six or seven years old, with her hands thrust jauntily into the pockets of her apron, and her bright beady eyes glancing about as if in search of mischief. “Lend me a quarter, my dear, for the organ-man,” said Pompilard.