CHAPTER LXXXVII.

A LONG JOURNEY.

Abel Newt ran to the ferry and crossed. Then he gained Broadway, and sauntered into one of the hells in Park Row. It was bright and full, and he saw many an old friend. They nodded to him, and said, "Ah! back again!" and he smiled, and said a man must not be too virtuous all at once.

So he ventured a little, and won; ventured a little more, and lost.

Ventured a little more, and won again; and lost again.

Then came supper, and wine flowed freely. Old friends must pledge in bumpers.

To work again, and the bells striking midnight. Win, lose; lose, win; win, win, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose.

Abel Newt smiled: his face was red, his eyes glaring.

"I've played enough," he said; "the luck's against me!"

He passed his hands rapidly through his hair.

"Cash I can not pay," he said; "but here is my I O U, and a check of my Uncle Lawrence's in the morning; for I have no account, you know."

His voice was rough. It was two o'clock in the morning; and the lonely woman he had left sat waiting and wondering: stealing to the front door and straining her eyes into the night: stealing softly back again to press her forehead against the window: and the quiet hopelessness of her face began to be pricked with terror.

"Good-night, gentlemen," said Abel, huskily and savagely.

There was a laugh around the table at which he had been playing.

"Takes it hardly, now that he's got money," said one of his old cronies.

"He's made up with Uncle Lawrence, I hear. Hope he'll come often, hey?"

he said to the bank.

The bank smiled vaguely, but did not reply.

It was after two, and Abel burst into the street. He had been drinking brandy, and the fires were lighted within him. Pulling his hat heavily upon his head, he moved unsteadily along the street toward the ferry. The night was starry and still. There were few passers in the street; and no light but that which shone at some of the corners,-the bad, red eye that lures to death. The night air struck cool upon his face and into his lungs. His head was light.--He reeled.

"Mus ha' some drink," he said, thickly.

He stumbled, and staggered into the nearest shop. There was a counter, with large yellow barrels behind it; and a high blind, behind which two or three rough-looking men were drinking. In the window there was a sign, "Liquors, pure as imported."

The place was dingy and cold. The floor was sanded. The two or three guests were huddled about a stove--one asleep upon a bench, the others smoking short pipes; and their hard, cadaverous faces and sullen eyes turned no welcome upon Abel when he entered, but they looked at him quickly, as if they suspected him to be a policeman or magistrate, and as if they had reason not to wish to see either. But in a moment they saw it was not a sober man, whoever he was. Abel tried to stand erect, to look dignified, to smooth himself into apparent sobriety. He vaguely hoped to give the impression that he was a gentleman belated upon his way home, and taking a simple glass for comfort.

"Why, Dick, don't yer know him?" said one, in a low voice, to his neighbor.

"No, d---- him! and don't want to."

"I do, though," replied the first man, still watching the new-comer curiously.

"Why, Jim, who in h---- is it?" asked Dick.

"That air man's our representative. That ain't nobody else but Abel Newt."

"Well," muttered Jim, sullenly, as he surveyed the general appearance of Abel while he stood drinking a glass of brandy--"pure as imported"--at the counter--"well, we've done lots for him: what's he going to do for us? We've put that man up tremendious high; d'ye think he's going to kick away the ladder?"

He half grumbled to himself, half asked his neighbor Dick. They were both a little drunk, and very surly.

"I dunno. But he's vastly high and mighty--that I know; and, by ----, I'll tell him so!" said Dick, energetically clasping his hands, bringing one of them down upon the bench on which he sat, and clenching every word with an oath.

"Hallo, Jim! let's make him give us somethin' to drink!"

The two constituents approached the representative whose election they had so ardently supported.

"Well, Newt, how air ye?"

Abel Newt was confounded at being accosted in such a place at such an hour. He raised his heavy eyes as he leaned unsteadily against the counter, and saw two beetle-browed, square-faced, disagreeable-looking men looking at him with half-drunken, sullen insolence.

"Hallo, Newt! how air ye?" repeated Jim, as he confronted the representative.

Abel looked at him with shaking head, indignant and scornful.

"Who the devil are you?" he asked, at length, blurring the words as he spoke, and endeavoring to express supreme contempt.

"We're the men that made yer!" retorted Dick, in a shrill, tipsy voice.

The liquor-seller, who was leaning upon his counter, was instantly alarmed. He knew the signs of impending danger. He hurried round, and said,

"Come, come; I'm going to shut up! Time to go home; time to go home!"

The three men at the counter did not move. As they stood facing each other the brute fury kindled more and more fiercely in each one of them.

"We're Jim and Dick, and Ned's asleep yonder on the bench; and we're come to drink a glass with yer, Honorable Abel Newt!" said Dick, in a sneering tone. "It's we what did your business for ye. What yer going to do for us?"

There was a menacing air in his eye as he glanced at Abel, who felt himself quiver with impotent, blind rage.

"I dun--dun--no ye!" he said, with maudlin dignity.

The men pressed nearer.

"Time to go home! Time to go home!" quavered the liquor-seller; and Ned opened his eyes, and slowly raised his huge frame from the bench.

"What's the row?" asked he of his comrades.

"The Honorable Abel Newt's the row," said Jim, pointing at him.

There was something peculiarly irritating to Abel in the pointing finger.

Holding by the counter, he raised his hand and struck at it.

Ned rolled his body off the bench in a moment.