Little quirk there in my particular branch of judgedom, he said.

I've been waiting to hear it for the last seven years, this echo of another night of long knives in another time, another place. Things happen slower in this world, not quite so condensed. But they still happen.

When Peter Stuyvesant became director-general of New Netherlands in 1647 by appointment of the Dutch West India Company, he resided on his farm, or bowery, which name the place retains to this day, though the scent of roses has long since left it. Later this same bowerland was the center of fashion, the Bowery Street a popular driveway, wealth and gaiety crowding its borders while yet the Broadway was a country road winding among humble farms and odorous stockyards.

You see, sir, quite hand in glove with Dashing Jerry; met in the same inn last night--preconcerted, you may be quite shure.