Mr.Newt, Jun., was one of a small but influential set of young men about town who did all they could to repair the misfortune of being born Americans, by imitating the habits of foreign life.
It was presently clear to him that residence under the parental roof was incompatible with the habits of a strictly fashionable man.
"There are hours, you know, mother, and habits, which make a separate lodging much more agreeable to all parties.

I have friends to smoke, or to drink a glass of punch, or to play a game of whist; and we must sing, and laugh, and make a noise, as young men will, which is not seemly for the paternal mansion, mother mine." With which he took his admiring mother airily under the chin and kissed her--not having mentioned every reason which made a separate residence desirable.
So Abel Newt hired a pleasant set of rooms in Grand Street, near Broadway, in the neighborhood of other youth of the right set.

He furnished them sumptuously, with the softest carpets, the most luxurious easy-chairs, the most costly curtains, and pretty, bizarre little tables, and bureaus, and shelves.

Various engravings hung upon the walls; a profile-head of Bulwer, with a large Roman nose and bushy whiskers, and one of his Majesty George IV., in that famous cloak which Lord Chesterfield bought at the sale of his Majesty's wardrobe for eleven hundred dollars, and of which the sable lining alone originally cost four thousand dollars.

Then there were little vases, and boxes, and caskets standing upon all possible places, with a rare flower in some one of them often, sent by some kind dowager who wished to make sure of Abel at a dinner or a select soiree.