Such indeed were the dimensions of the crypt that some little time might elapse before your eye could fully gauge them:  but on accustoming yourself to the enlarged mensuration occasioned by the unearthly light, you saw that the cavity in question could not be less than six feet high at the top of the arch, three feet wide, and at least forty-eight inches deep.  It was musty, cobwebbed, and encrusted with stalactic nitre, but the spirit of rare old vintages exhaled from its depths, and visionary clusters of purplest grapes dangled in every direction.  And first your eye lighted upon a half dozen real old India Port, picked up by golden chance at an assignee’s sale in Rivington Street.  The chalk-mark on the bottles was intended to be cabalistically private, but an acquaintance with the occult dialect of Spanish Zingari convinced you that 1/2, meant nothing else than that the bottles represented twelve and a half cents each, with three years interest,—­a fabulous sum, but lavished in a direction where the pledge of a dukedom had not been irrational, if the object could not have been otherwise accomplished.  Next a row of Medoc claimed the enraptured attention; delicately overspread with the dust of years, but flashing through the filmy covering the undeniable blood of the Honduras forest.  Here might one well pause and indulge in Clautian memories:  the violent remonstrances of Nature against, and her subsequent acquiescence in, the primal draughts of vin ordinaire, whether expertly served by a Delmonico, or carelessly decanted by the Hibernian attendant in the gorgeous saloon of a Taylor; next the ascent to St. Julien, Number 2, when haply a friend from the country lingers at the office, and you see no way of escape but an exodus in quest of chicken and green peas; a blushing crimson at the surface and unknown clouds below; then the De Grave in delicate flagons, a fit sacrifice to the exquisite tastes of the editor who is to notice your forthcoming volume, or to the epicurean palate of some surcharged capitalist, into whose custody you are about to negotiate some land-grant bonds.  Recovering from these delicious souvenirs, your attention was drawn to the Sauternes, indisputably titled at a Wall Street sale, and priceless.  This wine had never yet been tasted, for Roseton was wont to say, ’I only care for vitriol when it is a hundred years old,’ and this had only seen the summer of twenty.  But a precious odor breathed from the casks, and the corroding capsules confessed the mighty powers that lurked within.  Inhaling this odor, you seemed to see the Original White Hermit himself, brooding over his tiny principality of barren rock, and performing miracles with the aid of the imported carboy and the indigenous rill.  As the evening gloomed, and twilight fell among the crags, a faint snicker spread upon the air, and in the dim light of the rising moon one might fancy a finger laid to the side of the nose of the holy man.  From these reveries, a smart blow on the back, neatly