The misfortunes of the Chapman family, my reader must know, had been furnishing Nyack something to talk about for several months. But it was only with their return to town, which important event took place one morning during the last week, that the quiet of Nyack was disturbed and the gossips sent into a state of excitement. The family, indeed, returned as quietly as a family in misfortune could be expected to do, and put up at Bright's Inn, where, it was given out, they would live on the wreck of their fortune until Chapman could see his way clear for a new start in the world. But little was seen of Mrs. Chapman, of whom it was reported that she desired to live in retirement, and did not see visitors. The lady, however, had resolved that Nyack should not turn up its nose without being kept in mind of the high social position the family had held in the city. And as a means of making the desired impression, and also of finding relief for her injured feelings, she had brought Napoleon Bowles into "retirement" with the family. And that faithful domestic accommodated his pride of a Sunday by dressing in his livery and top-boots, and walking out, to the astonishment and amusement of a crowd of curious urchins, who were sure to gather about him. As for Chapman, he went about the town as if nothing had happened, renewing acquaintances, and declaring there was no honester man in the settlement than Hanz Toodleburg; that the charges against his honesty, and his connection with the Kidd Discovery Company, were all scandals, got up by bad men; and that he had been deceived by them himself. During the few days Chapman had been in Nyack, he had made himself appear so good a friend of Hanz that the honest settlers not only began to express sympathy for him in his misfortunes, but to enquire what they could do to put him on his feet again. When, however, he told them it was not their sympathy he wanted, but their money to assist him in building a steamboat two hundred feet long, and that he had matured a plan for a railroad, so that they might ride from Nyack to New York in an hour, they became alarmed, put their heads together wisely, and declared the man mad beyond cure. Here I must leave Chapman waiting to see his way clear. He came of that old round-head stock which, wanting its way always, ready to meddle with everything, never contented, ready to play the sycophant to gain power, selfish and arrogant in the use of it, is, nevertheless, found giving shape, action, and momentum to all our great enterprises. Out of all the trouble Chapman had caused Nyack, there had come some good that would be turned to account in the future. Misfortune had bowed, not broken his spirit. He was again prepared to invent a new religion, to build a church, to keep a boarding-house, to start a bank or run a steamboat--and all with modern improvements.