"With darkness circled, and an ambient cloud." Nearly a year elapsed after his release from the old _don-jon_, before I was enabled again to rejoice in a meeting with my friend Wheelwright; and our interview happened on this wise: Passing by, or rather crossing, the foot of Courtland-street, one bright morning in May, I observed a group of laborers occupied in placing some articles of heavy iron-machinery on board of an Albany sloop--the General Trotter, I believe, commanded by Capt. Keeler--a veteran navigator of the Hudson. And whom should I discover among these men, giving directions with an authoritative air, and actually bending his own back to the work, but the veritable Doctor Daniel Wheelwright! It was indeed no less a personage. From the previous character and habits of my friend, the reader may judge of my surprise at beholding him thus engaged--laboring, too, as though his work was made easy by the good will with which he was performing it. Having exchanged salutations, mingled with expressions of surprise at finding him thus employed, and inquired upon what new enterprise he was bent-- "Why havn't you hearn?" was his response. "No," was the laconic reply. "What? not of the launch of the 'Lady-of-the-Lake,' on Lake George?" "Ah--let me see--yes: I think I have seen a paragraph respecting it, in the Sandy Hill newspaper. But pray what have _you_ to do with that?" "To do with it? Why every thing. I am the agent of the concern. I have made up the company, and built the boat. The engine has gone up the river, and I am now shipping the last of the machinery.--[Come, bear a hand there, boys--what are you about?] Have you ever been to Lake George? If you want to see a touch of the grand and glorious, I guess you'll find it there. The hills is sublime; and the lake so clear that you can see the stars in it when it's cloudy." "Indeed! And you then are to be wedded to the Lady-of-the-Lake?" "And a beautiful thing she is, too. We shall have all the travel of the grand tower through the lake to Montreal, and mean to have the boat ready to take the first travellers from the Springs after the fourth of July." "And you are really looking up in the world again?" "To be sure I be. I always told you that the world owed me a living, and I believe I have at last struck upon the right track to find it. [Come, bear a hand there, boys--Why don't you take hold of that shackle-bar, Tom?"] Saying which he applied his own shoulder to a huge cog-wheel, with the alacrity, if not the power, of another Hercules.