HE BY ACCIDENT ENCOUNTERS HIS OLD FRIEND, WITH WHOM HE HOLDS A
CONFERENCE, AND RENEWS A TREATY.
Our hero, having thus provided himself with a proper subject for his
hours of dalliance, thought it was now high time to study the ground
which he had pitched upon for the scene of his exploits, and with that
view made several excursions to different parts of the town, where there
was aught of entertainment or instruction to be found. Yet he always, on
these occasions, appeared in an obscure ordinary dress, in order to avoid
singularity, and never went twice to the same coffee-house, that his
person might not be afterwards known, in case he should shine forth to
the public in a superior sphere. On his return from one of those
expeditions, while he was passing through Ludgate, his eyes were suddenly
encountered by the apparition of his old friend the Tyrolese, who,
perceiving himself fairly caught in the toil, made a virtue of necessity,
and, running up to our adventurer with an aspect of eagerness and joy,
clasped him in his arms, as some dear friend, whom he had casually found
after a most tedious and disagreeable separation.
Fathom, whose genius never failed him in such emergencies, far from
receiving these advances with the threats and reproaches which the other
had deserved at his hands, returned the salute with equal warmth, and was
really overjoyed at meeting with a person who might one way or other make
amends for the perfidy of his former conduct. The Tyrolese, whose name
was Ratchcali, pleased with his reception, proposed they should adjourn
to the next tavern, in which they had no sooner taken possession of an
apartment, than he addressed himself to his old companion in these
words:--
"Mr. Fathom, by your frank and obliging manner of treating a man who hath
done you wrong, I am more and more confirmed in my opinion of your
sagacity, which I have often considered with admiration; I will not
therefore attempt to make an apology for my conduct at our last parting;
but only assure you that this meeting may turn out to our mutual
advantage, if we now re-enter into an unreserved union, the ties of which
we will soon find it our interest and inclination to preserve. For my
own part, as my judgment is ripened by experience, so are my sentiments
changed since our last association. I have seen many a rich harvest
lost, for want of a fellow-labourer in the vineyard; and I have more than
once fallen a sacrifice to a combination, which I could have resisted
with the help of one able auxiliary. Indeed, I might prove what I allege
by mathematical demonstration; and I believe nobody will pretend to deny,
that two heads are better than one, in all cases that require discernment
and deliberation."
Ferdinand could not help owning the sanity of his observations, and
forthwith acquiesced in his proposal of the new alliance; desiring to
know the character in which he acted on the English stage, and the scheme
he would offer for their mutual emolument. At the same time he resolved
within himself to keep such a strict eye over his future actions, as
would frustrate any design he might hereafter harbour, of repeating the
prank he had so successfully played upon him, in their journey from the
banks of the Rhine.
"Having quitted you at Bar-le-duc," resumed the Tyrolese, "I travelled
without ceasing, until I arrived at Frankfort upon the Maine, where I
assumed the character of a French chevalier, and struck some masterly
strokes, which you yourself would not have deemed unworthy of your
invention; and my success was the more agreeable, as my operations were
chiefly carried on against the enemies of our religion. But my
prosperity was not of long duration. Seeing they could not foil me at my
own weapons, they formed a damned conspiracy, by which I not only lost
all the fruits of my industry, but likewise ran the most imminent hazard
of my life. I had ordered some of those jewels which I had borrowed of
my good friend Fathom to be new set in a fashionable taste, and soon
after had an opportunity to sell one of these, at a great advantage, to
one of the fraternity, who offered an extraordinary price for the stone,
on purpose to effect my ruin. In less than four-and-twenty hours after
this bargain, I was arrested by the officers of justice upon the oath of
the purchaser, who undertook to prove me guilty of a fraud, in selling a
Saxon pebble for a real diamond; and this accusation was actually true;
for the change had been artfully put upon me by the jeweller, who was
himself engaged in the conspiracy.
"Had my conscience been clear of any other impeachment, perhaps I should
have rested my cause upon the equity and protection of the law; but I
foresaw that the trial would introduce an inquiry, to which I was not at
all ambitious of submitting, and therefore was fain to compromise the
affair, at the price of almost my whole fortune. Yet this accommodation
was not made so secretly, but that my character was blasted, and my
credit overthrown; so that I was fain to relinquish my occasional
equipage, and hire myself as journeyman to a lapidary, an employment
which I had exercised in my youth. In this obscure station, I laboured
with great assiduity, until I made myself perfect in the knowledge of
stones, as well as in the different methods of setting them off to the
best advantage; and having, by dint of industry and address, got
possession of a small parcel, set out for this kingdom, in which I
happily arrived about four months ago; and surely England is the paradise
of artists of our profession.
"One would imagine that nature had created the inhabitants for the
support and enjoyment of adventurers like you and me. Not that these
islanders open the arms of hospitality to all foreigners without
distinction. On the contrary, they inherit from their fathers an
unreasonable prejudice against all nations under the sun; and when an
Englishman happens to quarrel with a stranger, the first term of reproach
he uses is the name of his antagonist's country, characterised by some
opprobrious epithet, such as a chattering Frenchman, an Italian ape, a
German hog, and a beastly Dutchman; nay, their national prepossession is
maintained even against those people with whom they are united under the
same laws and government; for nothing is more common than to hear them
exclaim against their fellow-subjects, in the expressions of a beggarly
Scot, and an impudent Irish bog-trotter. Yet this very prejudice will
never fail to turn to the account of every stranger possessed of ordinary
talents; for he will always find opportunities of conversing with them in
coffee-houses and places of public resort, in spite of their professed
reserve, which, by the bye, is so extraordinary, that I know some people
who have lived twenty years in the same house without exchanging one word
with their next-door neighbours; yet, provided he can talk sensibly, and
preserve the deportment of a sober gentleman, in those occasional
conversations, his behaviour will be the more remarkably pleasing, as it
will agreeably disappoint the expectation of the person who had
entertained notions to his prejudice. When a foreigner has once crossed
this bar, which perpetually occurs, he sails without further difficulty
into the harbour of an Englishman's goodwill; for the pique is neither
personal nor rancorous, but rather contemptuous and national; so that,
while he despises a people in the lump, an individual of that very
community may be one of his chief favourites.
"The English are in general upright and honest, therefore unsuspecting
and credulous. They are too much engrossed with their own business to
pry into the conduct of their neighbours, and too indifferent, in point
of disposition, to interest themselves in what they conceive to be
foreign to their own concerns. They are wealthy and mercantile, of
consequence liberal and adventurous, and so well disposed to take a man's
own word for his importance, that they suffer themselves to be preyed
upon by such a bungling set of impostors, as would starve for lack of
address in any other country under the sun. This being a true sketch of
the British character, so far as I have been able to observe and learn,
you will easily comprehend the profits that may be extracted from it, by
virtue of those arts by which you so eminently excel;--the great, the
unbounded prospect lies before me! Indeed, I look upon this opulent
kingdom as a wide and fertile common, on which we adventurers may range
for prey, without let or molestation. For so jealous are the natives of
their liberties, that they will not bear the restraint of necessary
police, and an able artist may enrich himself with their spoils, without
running any risk of attracting the magistrate, or incurring the least
penalty of the law.
"In a word, this metropolis is a vast masquerade, in which a man of
stratagem may wear a thousand different disguises, without danger of
detection. There is a variety of shapes in which we the knights of
industry make our appearance in London. One glides into a nobleman's
house in the capacity of a valet-de-chambre, and in a few months leads
the whole family by the nose. Another exhibits himself to the public, as
an empiric or operator for the teeth; and by dint of assurance and
affidavits, bearing testimony to wonderful cures that never were
performed, whirls himself into his chariot, and lays the town under
contribution. A third professes the composition of music, as well as the
performance, and by means of a few capriciosos on the violin, properly
introduced, wriggles himself into the management of private and public
concerts. And a fourth breaks forth at once in all the splendour of a
gay equipage, under the title and denomination of a foreign count. Not
to mention those inferior projectors, who assume the characters of
dancers, fencing-masters, and French ushers, or, by renouncing their
religion, seek to obtain a provision for life.
"Either of these parts will turn to the account of an able actor; and, as
you are equally qualified for all, you may choose that which is most
suitable to your own inclination. Though, in my opinion, you was
designed by nature to shine in the great world, which, after all, is the
most ample field for men of genius; because the game is deeper, and
people of fashion being, for the most part, more ignorant, indolent,
vain, and capricious, than their inferiors, are of consequence more
easily deceived; besides, their morals sit generally so loose about them,
that, when a gentleman of our fraternity is discovered in the exercise of
his profession, their contempt of his skill is the only disgrace he
incurs."
Our hero was so well pleased with this picture, that he longed to peruse
the original, and, before these two friends parted, they settled all the
operations of the campaign. Ratchcali, that same evening, hired
magnificent lodgings for Count Fathom, in the court end of the town, and
furnished his wardrobe and liveries from the spoils of Monmouth Street;
he likewise enlisted another footman and valet-de-chambre into his
service, and sent to the apartments divers large trunks, supposed to be
filled with the baggage of this foreign nobleman, though, in reality,
they contained little else than common lumber.
Next day, our adventurer took possession of his new habitation, after
having left to his friend and associate the task of dismissing the
unfortunate Elenor, who was so shocked at the unexpected message, that
she fainted away; and when she recovered the use of her senses so well as
to reflect upon her forlorn condition, she was seized with the most
violent transports of grief and dismay, by which her brain was disordered
to such a degree, that she grew furious and distracted, and was, by the
advice and assistance of the Tyrolese, conveyed into the hospital of
Bethlem; where we shall leave her for the present, happily bereft of her
reason.