members of the Empire Club, a very disorderly body of men, of whom
it is said that no man can be elected President of the United States
without first consulting their approbation.'

"They held their peace, and drank with great apparent experience. I
did not dispute my companion's assertion, that they had rendered
noble service during many a campaign, and were capable of rendering
much more; still, my opinion of politicians in general was in no way
heightened by their appearance. Being disappointed in their ends and
aims at the last election, they now stood much in need of a trifle,
with which to pay Bishop Hughes for praying a recently-deceased
brother through purgatory, a service he never performed without
feeling the money safe in his palm. All at once they set up a howl
like midnight wolves, which so alarmed me that I hastened into the
street, where my companion soon joined me, saying it was a way they
had of expressing a joke. Not being accustomed to the ways of
working politicians of the New York school, I made my way as fast as
possible into Broadway, when, to my surprise, I discovered that my
watch had parted company with me. My companion was equally
surprised, offered me any number of regrets, and said he would go
back and have every political vagabond arrested and locked up in the
Tombs, where, if his acquaintance with the judge was not of too
intimate a nature, the thief would be detected and punished in the
morning.

"Pausing for a moment, a second thought, he said, satisfied him that
to seek redress by so bold a course would not be good policy. The
thief would have gone off with his booty, hence it would be better
to remain quiet until morning, when, having come back to hold
consultation with his fellows on some question of politics, as was