"There's no one within hearing," said Betty, as she finished her twelfth
wreath and laid it carefully on the floor beside her cricket. "Get the
other big branch outside the door, and sit down here close by me while
you pull the twigs off; then you can tell me safely, for Clarissa is
sleeping, and she will call me when she wakes. Of course I never heard
of the man you mention."

Peter threw back his howl in a prolonged chuckle, as he followed Betty's
instructions and edged his cricket close to her elbow.

"Man!--well, he's more like a monkey than anything. He only comes to my
shoulder, and yet he's old enough to be my father."

"A dwarf, do you mean?"

"No, not precisely; the boys call him a manikin, for he's not deformed;
only very, very small; not above four feet high. He is Dutch and has
been a drummer, it's whispered, in General Washington's army. They say
he was in the battle of Harlem Lane, and beat the rally for our troops
when Knowlton fell. The Vly boys are great friends with him."

"But, I thought you were at daggers drawn with the boys of the Vly
Market, Peter? Surely, you told me blood-curdling tales of the fights
between them and you Broadway boys?"

"Oh, aye, but that's for right of way" and don't mean much except when
we are actually punching each other's heads. Billy can tell great yarns;
how his eyes flash when he speaks of the prison ships, though I only
heard him once, when Jan Steen was talking foolish Tory stuff."