had lost his parents at an early age, and been left to the care of his half-brother George, or rather to his half-brother's wife. It would have been difficult to find more dissimilar beings than these two brothers. George was the true son of Eben Gildersleeve, the tough old smith who could forge the best horse-shoe in the county; while Mark inherited the character and tastes of his mother, Eben Gildersleeve's second wife, a woman of beauty and delicacy, a rustic Venus mated to a village Vulcan. George was boisterous, given to bully and boast, and hid his purse-pride in an affected contempt for the world's opinion. Mark, on the contrary, was reserved, and rendered morbidly sensitive by a slight lameness resulting from an injury received in childhood—a mere blemish, though, in an otherwise well-knit and graceful form. For all his reserve the lad had a resolute and ambitious spirit. Gifted with quick perception, and a natural aptitude for mathematics, he had become, although almost self-taught, proficient as a mechanical engineer. After a common-school education, his brother, in accordance with the theory that the only road to success was through a diligent use of the flexors and extensors, set him to work in the shops, but it was not long before he was found to be more useful in the draughting room. Young as he was, Mark had introduced some valuable improvements in his brother's works, although that independent fellow was not over-ready to acknowledge it. On the contrary, he rather berated the young man behind his back, for a fop who cared for nothing but dress, or a fool who was occupied with dreams and poetry instead of devoting himself to his business. Mark, it must be admitted, sinned a little in that way, although not to an extent to justify his brother's railings. Full of enthusiasm and high aspirations, he scorned mere money-making, and as he earned enough to satisfy his wants he bestowed no further thought in that direction. This was a source of displeasure to George. "Confound the fellow," he would exclaim in the barber-shop, perhaps, or at Bird's livery stable, "Confound the fellow! he's no slouch, but as smart as they make 'em, and if he'd only stick to his work he'd be a rich man in time. I never had much of a head for figures, but it comes nat'ral to him. If he's a mind to, he can do more work than any other two men you can scare up, and if he aint a-mind, you can't coax or drive him. He'll go off and jingle away by the hour on a piano, like a girl, or play chess or read novels half the night. Why, he's even got a banjo up in his room that he strums away on like a nigger minstrel" (alluding to a Spanish guitar that Mark had bought, probably with the romantic intention of practising seguidillas). "Look at me," George would add as a clincher; "the only music ever I made was with a riveting hammer on a boiler, or a sledge on an anvil, and am I any the worse for it? Not much, I think, and here I am, as independent as a hog on ice! Don't owe a man a dollar in the world, and though I don't roost in as big a house as Rufe Heath or Pop Mumbie up on the hill yonder, they'll take my note at the bank as quick as either of theirs if I should ask it, which I don't, as I pays as I goes; and what's more, I can dust any of 'em on the plank-road any day of the week, with as pretty a pair o' flyers as there is in the State, and if you don't believe it here's the soap to back it for any amount from fifty to five thousand!"

And he would conclude customarily by drawing out a well-stuffed wallet, and slapping it energetically, with a defiant look at the by-standers. That wallet was George's ultimo ratio, and when pushed in an argument, or at loss for a reply, he would flourish it at his opponent, with an offer to wager any sum on the moot-point; a rebutter which, if it did not carry conviction, enabled George to close the issue in a triumphant manner. There was a story current to the effect that he had once startled a tableful of Methodist clergymen, assembled to take tea at Mrs. Gildersleeve's during a conference, by proffering to the decorous men a bet on the correct interpretation of a disputed passage in St. John; but this lacked confirmation, for George, if he had but little respect for any one else, had a great deal for his wife, and as such an act would have shocked her exceedingly, it is not at all likely that it took place.

The sagacious reader has doubtless come to the conclusion that the Gildersleeve family was composed of rather incongruous members, and yet, for one comprising such opposite characters, its harmony was remarkable. They occupied a small two-story dwelling with a flower-garden attached, in a side street, not far from the Archimedes Works. A large, bright brass door-plate bore in very loud letters the name: GILDERSLEEVE—as if there were none other of that name in the universe, or as if this was the Gildersleeve par excellence of all who were fortunate enough to bear that honest patronymic. Aside from this, the residence presented a very quiet and modest appearance. The interior was plainly furnished, but neat as wax. In the little parlor were old-fashioned mahogany chairs and sofas dark with age, but polished, and protected with snowy tidies. In one corner was Mark's piano, and on either side of the chimney-breast hung portraits in oil of Mr. and Mrs. Gildersleeve, taken when they were first married, and looking wooden in port and flat as to perspective, faced on the opposite side by photographic likenesses of the same at a mature age. Then between the windows was a colored photograph of Mr. Gildersleeve in his costume of foreman of a fire company, with red shirt, leathern cap, and trumpet; and still another representing him in his regalia as a Sir Knight of the Sancho Panza Commandery of the Knights of the Golden Fleece. George had a passion for counterfeit presentments of himself, and in the album on the centre-table might have been found a number of others, taken in various attitudes and in various expressions of obstinacy, by that distinguished artist, Alonzo Snopple, Esq., who kept duplicates in his "studio" and never failed to call visitors' attention to them as remarkable pictures of a remarkable self-made man. "Fine head," he would say, "very fine head—rare combination of intellect and force—especially force. Strongly marked lineaments, well adapted for Rembrandt effects. Observe the lights and shadows, that well-defined nose, etc.;" and George seemingly was not indisposed to allow the public every opportunity to familiarize itself with the representation of such a masterpiece of nature in the way of a head. Besides his love of portraiture, he was given to keeping fast trotters and game-cocks, and in the stables at the Works were stalls devoted to a span of the speediest Morgans for the owner's private use, and in the stable yard strutted a certain breed of "orange-piles," whose pugnacious qualities were almost as well known as those of the celebrated fowls of the Derby walk; the dauntless game-cocks, that: