instrument in the hands of Topman and Gusher, of whose designs she had
heard others speak.




CHAPTER XXII.

THE CHAPMANS MOVE INTO THE CITY


Chapman had developed Nyack pretty thoroughly, had made money enough to
feel independent, and attributed it all to his own virtues. He had got
up no end of quarrels, invented new religions, established a hotel on
principles of high moral economy, advocated broad and advanced ideas in
everything, and kept the settlement in a state of excitement generally.
Chapman was indeed a great human accident. There was no confining him to
any one thing, either in religion, politics, or finance. He had a
morality of his own, which he said belonged to the world's advanced
ideas, and it was not his fault if there were so few persons enlightened
enough to understand and appreciate it in its true sense.

Chapman was indeed not one of those men who carry blessings into a
community with them, but rather one of those who seem to delight in
planting curses wherever they go, and leaving their victims to reap the
bitter fruit in poverty and ruin. Himself a mental deformity, none of
his enterprises had been of any real benefit to the community, while his
last and most reprehensible one had resulted in emptying the pockets of
the old Dutch settlers, and leaving them bits of worthless paper to
remember him by.