I have beheld her in her glory on her throne--her two thrones, for she had two--one on the south side of the river, the other at the east end--not to mention the race course--surrounded by a retinue of the disreputable.

She did not awaken in me the least curiosity, and I declined many opportunities to meet her.
Marcus Cicero Stanley was sprung from an aristocratic, even a distinguished, North Carolina family.

He came to New York and set up for a swell.

How he lived I never cared to find out, though he was believed to be what the police call a "fence." He seemed a cross between a "con" and a "beat." Yet for a while he flourished at Delmonico's, which he made his headquarters, and cut a kind of dash with the unknowing.

He was a handsome, mannerly brute who knew how to dress and carry himself like a gentleman.
Later there came to New York another Southerner--a Far Southerner of a very different quality--who attracted no little attention.