Chapter XI. The Play - Page 2

exchange my seat and obtain one with you," he said. "We shall be early, but I am glad of it. Mr. Hallam and his fine company have been performing in Philadelphia, and as we now welcome them back to New York, nearly all the notable people of our city will be present. Unless Mr. Hardy wishes to do so, it will give me pleasure to point them out to you."

"No, no!" exclaimed Master Benjamin. "The task is yours, Edward, my lad. You can put more savor and unction into it than I can."

"Then let it be understood that I'm the guide and expounder," laughed Charteris.

"He has a great pride in his city, and it won't suffer from his telling," said Master Benjamin.

They were now in Nassau Street near the improvised theater, and many other link boys, holding aloft their torches, were preceding their masters and mistresses. Heavy coaches were rolling up, and men and women in gorgeous costumes were emerging from them. The display of wealth was amazing for a town in the New World, but Mr. Hardy and his company quickly went inside and obtained their seats, from which they watched the fashion of New York enter. Charteris knew them all, and to many of them he was related.

The number of De Lanceys was surprising and there was also a profusion of Livingstons, the two families between them seeming to dominate the city, although they lived in bitter rivalry, as Charteris whispered to Robert. There were also Wattses and Morrises and Crugers and Waltons and Van Rensselaers, Van Cortlandts and Kennedys and Barclays and Nicolls and Alexanders, and numerous others that endured for generations in New York. The diverse origin of these names, English, Scotch, Dutch and Huguenot French, showed even at such an early date the cosmopolitan nature of New York that it was destined to maintain.

Robert was intensely interested. Charteris' fund of information was wonderful, and he flavored it with a salt of his own. He not only knew the people, but he knew all about them, their personal idiosyncrasies, their rivalries and jealousies. Robert soon gathered that New York was not only a seething city commercially, but socially as well. Family was of extreme importance, and the great landed proprietors who had received extensive grants along the Hudson in the earlier days from the Dutch Government, still had and exercised feudal rights, and were as full of pride and haughtiness as ducal families in Europe. Class distinctions were preserved to the utmost possible extent, and, while the original basis of the town had been Dutch, the fashion was now distinctly English. London set the style for everything.

When they were all seated, the display of fine dress and jewels was extraordinary, just as the wealth and splendor shown in some of the New York houses had already attracted the astonished attention of many of the British officers, to whom the finest places in