executed by the butler, recalled your active attention to a demi-john of warranted French brandy, and a can of Bourbon certified by the hand-writing of Louis Capet himself.  Upon the sawdust in the lower niches of the vault lay packages of the finest Hollands, wicker casements of Curacoa, and the apple-jack of Jersey in gleaming glass.  But the eye dwelt finally, and with a crowning wonder and approval, upon an entire basket of the celebrated eleven-dollar Heidsieck champagne, blue label, that lay upon the floor of the crypt.

The acquisition of this treasure was one of those rare good-fortunes by which the life of here and there an individual is illustrated.  About a year previous to this, in the dead of night, a mysterious stranger solicited audience of the master of Pont-Noir.  Attended by the entire force of the house in complete armor, Roseton granted the interview.  The stranger advanced within easy gun-shot, and said:—­’The great house of Boscobello, Bolaro and Company is in imminent peril.  Unless a certain sum can be raised by two o’clock to-morrow, their acceptances will lie over.  These acceptances constitute the entire loan and discount line of thirty-eight of the Banks of this city, for they have latterly made it a rule to take nothing else.’  A meaning glance shot from the stranger’s eye as he delivered this fearful announcement, but Roseton remained firm, though a cold shiver passed through the frames of his domestics, who were aware how vitally he was interested.  ’The pledge of their stock of wine alone,’ continued the mysterious visitant, ’will relieve them from their difficulties, and the capitalists then stand ready to carry them forward if they will retire from the Southern trade.  Ten hundred nickels is the sum required, and I stand prepared to deliver the security by ten o’clock, A.M.  The discount is immense, but the exigencies of the case are weighty.’

A consultation ensued.  The bill for the kitchen crockery had just come in, and a set of three-tined forks were badly needed; but Roseton’s intellect grasped the necessities of the operation, and the necessary funds were ordered to be advanced; and the pledge, now forever forfeited by the loan clause of the Revised Statutes, lay upon the floor of the vault.

The aged butler delicately lifted a flask from its encampment of straw, and bore it to that section of the apartment where the light was clearest.  ’I wonder if the boss would miss it, if we should just smell of this here bottle,’ said the faithful servitor.  Turning it his hand, it flashed brilliant rays on every side.  Entangled among these played vivid and beautiful pictures, changeable as auroras, yet perfect, during their brief instant of existence, as the imaginations of Raphael, or the transcripts of Claude.