"None of whom I ever saw before," he states, "but all pleasant fellows....

I, the only American, the rest of every different nation in Europe and no one the same, and all of us talking bad French together!" It was soon after this that the city began cutting up old lots into new, and turning what had been solitary country estates into gregarious suburbs and, soon, metropolitan sections.

Among other strange performances, they levelled the hills of New York--is it not odd to remember that there once were hills, many hills, in New York?
And right and left they did their commissioner-like best to cut the town all to one pattern.

Of course they couldn't, quite, but the effort was of lasting and painfully efficacious effect.

They could not find it in their hearts, I suppose, to raze Richmond Hill House completely,--it was a noble landmark, and a home of memories which ought to have given even commissioners pause,--and maybe did.