"I comprehend," replied the Alderman, standing up and rubbing his palms pleasantly together. "This is very kind of you, very kind, indeed. I shall not forget it." "I think your friend may be sure of his situation," was the amiable reply; "you know it is our duty to watch these people well. I think your friend may deem himself secure." "No doubt of it, now that we have a friend at court." "Oh, not a word of that," said the Mayor, lifting his hand reprovingly, "everything must be in order, according to rule, you know." The Mayor smiled, while his friend laughed outright, repeating to himself between each chuckle--"Oh, yes, according to rule, according to rule;" and eager to undertake his new enterprise, the elated Alderman took his leave, walking through the outer room with an exaggeration of his previous blustering importance, that quite astonished the clerks. The Mayor looked after him with a bland smile, but when the worthy official was out of sight, the smile glided into a contemptuous sneer, and he muttered to himself--"The pompous blockhead, he is so easily cajoled that one scarcely feels a pleasure in using him." With these characteristic words the noble-hearted magistrate betook himself to the manuscript again, certain that the wire he had pulled, would never cease to vibrate till poor Chester was ruined. CHAPTER VI. THE DRAM SHOP PLOT The stars hang burning in the skies, The earth gives back their diamond light, Where like a radiant bride it lies Reposing in that glorious night. Again the night was intensely cold. There had been a storm of sleet and rain during two whole days, and now came on a keen frost, sheeting the pavements, the trees and the housetops with ice. Chester was pacing his rounds, as on the first night when we presented him to the reader. Sometimes he paused to remark the delicate tracery of ice that hung in fretted masses over the gutters, or was frozen in waves along the curb-stones, or looked upwards to the tall trees that seemed absolutely dripping with light, as the moonbeams streamed over them, while the gas from the street lanterns sent up golden gleams through the lower branches and along the glittering trunks. Intensely cold as the night was, Chester could not resist that exquisite sense of the beautiful, which objects so novel and picturesque were sure to excite in his imaginative mind. There was something so purely ideal in those massive branches, stripped of leaves and laden down with crystalline spray, while the wind swayed them heavily about, and the moonlight flooded them through and through, that even a duller man than Chester must have paused to admire.