On its whole extent there is now but a single passenger , advancing from the upper end , and he , unless distance and the medium of a pocket spyglass do him more than justice , is a fine young man of twenty . He saunters slowly forward , slapping his left hand with his folded gloves , bending his eyes upon the pavement , and sometimes raising them to throw a glance before him . Certainly he has a pensive air . Is he in doubt or in debt ? Is he -- if the question be allowable -- in love ? Does he strive to be melancholy and gentlemanlike , or is he merely overcome by the heat ? But I bid him farewell for the present . The door of one of the houses -- an aristocratic edifice with curtains of purple and gold waving from the windows -- is now opened , and down the steps come two ladies swinging their parasols and lightly arrayed for a summer ramble . Both are young , both are pretty ; but methinks the left-hand lass is the fairer of the twain , and , though she be so serious at this moment , I could swear that there is a treasure of gentle fun within her . They stand talking a little while upon the steps , and finally proceed up the street . Meantime , as their faces are now turned from me , I may look elsewhere . Upon that wharf and down the corresponding street is a busy contrast to the quiet scene which I have just noticed . Business evidently has its centre there , and many a man is wasting the summer afternoon in labor and anxiety , in losing riches or in gaining them , when he would be wiser to flee away to some pleasant country village or shaded lake in the forest or wild and cool sea-beach . I see vessels unlading at the wharf and precious merchandise strown upon the ground abundantly as at the bottom of the sea -- that market whence no goods return , and where there is no captain nor supercargo to render an account of sales . Here the clerks are diligent with their paper and pencils and sailors ply the block and tackle that hang over the hold , accompanying their toil with cries long-drawn and roughly melodious till the bales and puncheons ascend to upper air . At a little distance a group of gentlemen are assembled round the door of a warehouse . Grave seniors be they , and I would wager -- if it were safe , in these times , to be responsible for any one -- that the least eminent among them might vie with old Vincentio , that incomparable trafficker of Pisa . I can even select the wealthiest of the company . It is the elderly personage in somewhat rusty black , with powdered hair the superfluous whiteness of which is visible upon the cape of his coat . His twenty ships are wafted on some of their many courses by every breeze that blows , and his name , I will venture to say , though I know it not , is a familiar sound among the far-separated merchants of Europe and the Indies .
But I bestow too much of my attention XXXXX this quarter .
At On among down in over than though till within