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"Born on Van Rensselaer street, you say? Be sure and tell 'em that. That's the next best thing to having been born in Holland." "I know now," I said, "how it feels to refuse a throne." At tiffin that noon on the Negros I told the story to the others. "So you see," I concluded, "if I had been willing to take a chance, I might have been King of the Bugis."
A still better example of this American way of dealing with legend and mystery is the marvelous tale of the rival ghosts." "The rival ghosts?" queried the Duchess and Baby Van Rensselaer together. "Who were they?" "Didn't I ever tell you about them?" answered Uncle Larry, a gleam of approaching joy flashing from his eye.
"Since he is bound to tell us sooner or later, we'd better be resigned and hear it now," said Dear Jones. "If you are not more eager, I won't tell it at all." "Oh, do, Uncle Larry; you know I just dote on ghost stories," pleaded Baby Van Rensselaer.
"What did he do?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. "Well he couldn't do anything. He waited awhile, hoping they would get tired; but he got tired out first. You see, it comes natural to a spook to sleep in the daytime, but a man wants to sleep nights, and they wouldn't let him sleep nights.
But the patroons, through their agents, began buying up all the land that was worth having, and found it easy to evade the stipulation restricting them to sixteen miles apiece. It was superb; but it was as far as possible from being democracy; and the portly Van Rensselaer of Rennselaerwyck would have shuddered to his marrow, could he have cast a prophetic eye into the Nineteenth Century.
General Van Rensselaer, in command of the American forces at Lewiston, wrote to the President stating that by "keeping up a bold front he had succeeded in getting from General Sheaffe at Fort George the uninterrupted use of the lakes and rivers." The strategic advantage to the enemy of this cessation of hostilities and the privileges conceded was enormous. Prevost realized his error too late.
New York, meanwhile, had blossomed to her full. Houses had been renovated, and with all the elegance to be commanded. Many had been let, by the less ambitious, to the Members of Congress from other States, and all were entertaining. General Schuyler occupied a house close to Hamilton, and his daughters Cornelia and Peggy Mrs. Stephen Van Rensselaer were lively members of society.
"I don't think that is so marvelous a thing," said Dear Jones, glancing at Baby Van Rensselaer. "Who was she?" asked the Duchess, who had once lived in Philadelphia. "She was Miss Kitty Sutton, of San Francisco, and she was a daughter of old Judge Sutton, of the firm of Pixley & Sutton." "A very respectable family," assented the Duchess.
But the feeling that the air was full of suppressed profanity was very wearing and after standing it for a week, he gave up in disgust and went to the White Mountains." "Leaving them to fight it out, I suppose," interjected Baby Van Rensselaer. "Not at all," explained Uncle Larry. "They could not quarrel unless he was present.
He walked briskly to the hotel; he found Miss Sutton alone. He asked her the question, and got his answer." "She accepted him, of course," said Baby Van Rensselaer. "Of course," said Uncle Larry. "And while they were in the first flush of joy, swapping confidences and confessions, her brother came into the parlor with an expression of pain on his face and a telegram in his hand.
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