It was not until the battle was more than half won, and Millard had
become a welcome guest in some of the most exclusive houses, that he was
outfitted with a pedigree. He knew little of his ancestors except that
his father's grandfather was a humble private soldier at the storming of
Stony Point. This great-grandfather's name was Miller. Dutch or German
neighbors had called him Millerd by some confusion with other names
having a similar termination, and as he was tolerably illiterate, and
rarely wrote his name, the change came to be accepted. A new
schoolmaster who spelled it Millerd in the copy-book of Charley's
grandfather fixed the orthography and pronunciation in the new form.
About the time that Millard Fillmore became President by succession, the
contemporary Millerds, who were Whigs, substituted _a_ for the _e_ in
the name. After he came to New York, Charley shifted the accent to the
last syllable to conform to a fashion by which a hundred old English
names have been treated to a Gallic accent in America. After this
acquisition of a new accent Charley was frequently asked whether he were
not of Huguenot descent; to which he was wont to reply prudently that he
had never taken much interest in genealogy. Just why it is thought more
creditable for a resident of New York to have descended from a Huguenot
peasant or artisan than from an English colonist, those may tell who
fancy that social pretenses have a rational basis.
Charley's mother's father was named Vandam. The family had been a little
ashamed of the old Dutch cognomen; it had such a wicked sound that they
tried to shift the accent to the first syllable. Among the fads that
Charley had taken up for a time after he came to New York was that of
collecting old prints. In looking over a lot of these one day in a
second-hand book-shop, he stumbled on a picture of the colonial period
in which was represented one of the ancient Dutch churches of New York.
There was a single stately carriage passing in front of the church, and
the artist had taken the pains to show the footman running before the
coach. The picture was dedicated to "Rip Van Dam, Esq.," president of
the council of the colony of New York. As a Christian name "Rip" did not
tend to take the curse off the Van Dam. But this picture made Charley
aware that at least one of the Van Dams had been a great man in his day.
He reflected that this must be the old Rip's own carriage delineated in
the foreground of the picture of which he was the patron; and this must
be his footman charging along at breakneck pace to warn all vulgar carts
to get out of the great gentleman's road. Millard bought the print and
hung it in his sitting-room; for since he had been promoted in the bank
and had been admitted to a fashionable club, he had moved into bachelor
apartments suitable to his improving fortunes and social position. He
had also committed himself to the keeping of an English man-servant--he
did not like to call him his valet, lest the appearance of ostentation
and Anglomania should prejudice him with his business associates. But
somehow the new dignity of his own surroundings seemed to lend something
bordering on probability to the conjecture that this once
acting-governor of New York, Rip Van Dam, might have been one of
Charley's ancestors.
Millard hung this print on one side of the chimney in his apartment, a
chimney that had a pair of andirons and three logs of wood in it. But
whether this or any other chimney in the Graydon Building was fitted to
contain a fire nobody knew; for the building was heated by steam, and no
one had been foolhardy enough to discover experimentally just what would
happen if fire were actually lighted in fireplaces so unrealistic as
these. On the other side of his chimney Charley hung a print of the
storming of Stony Point. One evening, Philip Gouverneur, one of
Millard's new cronies, who was calling on him, asked "Millard, what have
you got that old meeting-house on your wall for?"
"Well, you see," said Millard, with the air of a man but languidly
interested,--your real gentleman always affects to be bored by what he
cares for,--"you see I put it there because it is dedicated to old Rip
Van Dam."
"What do you care for that old cuss?" went on Gouverneur, who, being of
the true blue blood himself, had a fad of making game of the whole race
of ancient worthies.
"I don't really care," said Charley; "but as my mother was a Vandam, she
may have descended from this Rip. I have no documents to prove it."
"Oh, I see. Excuse me for making fun of your forefathers. I say every
mean thing I can think of about mine, but another man's grandfather is
sacred. You see I couldn't help smiling at the meeting-house on one side
and that old-fashioned, bloody bayonet-charge on the other."
"Oh, that's only another case of ancestor," said Millard; "my
great-grandfather was at Stony Point."
"The more fool he," said Gouverneur. "My forefathers, now, contrived to
keep out of bayonet-charges, and shed for their country mostly ink and
oratory, speeches and documents."
Though Philip Gouverneur did not care for ancestors, his mother did. The
one thing that enabled Mrs. Gouverneur to look down on the whole brood
of railway magnates, silver-mine kings, and Standard Oil operators, who,
as she phrased it, "had intruded into New York," was the fact that her
own family had taken an historic part in the Revolutionary struggle. At
this very moment she was concocting a ball in memory of the evacuation
of New York, and she was firmly resolved that on this occasion no
upstart of an Astor or a Vanderbilt, much less any later comer, should
assist--nobody but those whose families were distinctly of Revolutionary
or colonial dignity. In truth, Mrs. Gouverneur had some feeling of
resentment that the capitalist families were of late disposed to take
themselves for leaders in society, and to treat the merely old families
as dispensable if necessary. This assembly to be made up exclusively of
antiques was her countermove.
It cost her something of a struggle. There were amiable people,
otherwise conspicuously eligible, whom she must omit if she adhered to
her plan, and there were some whom she despised that must be asked on
account of the illustriousness of their pedigree. But Mrs. Gouverneur
had set out to check the deterioration of society in New York, and she
was not the woman to draw back when principle demanded the sacrifice of
her feelings. She had taken the liveliest fancy to young Millard, who by
a charming address, obliging manners, and an endless stock of useful
information had made himself an intimate in the Gouverneur household. He
had come to dine with them informally almost every alternate Sunday
evening. To leave him out would be a dreadful cut; but what else could
she do? What would be said of her set of old china if she inserted such
a piece of new porcelain? What would Miss Lavinia Vandeleur, special
oracle on the genealogy of the exclusive families, think, if Mrs.
Gouverneur should be so recreant to right principles as to invite a
young man without a single grandfather to his back, only because he had
virtues of his own?
"I say, mother," said Philip, her son, when he came to look over the
list, "you haven't got Charley Millard down."
"Well, how can I invite Mr. Millard? He has no family."
"No family! Why, he is a descendant of old Governor Van Dam, and one of
his ancestors was an officer under Wayne at Stony Point."
"Are you sure, Philip?"
"Certainly: he has pictures of Stony Point and of Rip Van Dam hanging in
his room. No Revolutionary party would be complete without him."
Mrs. Gouverneur looked at Philip suspiciously; he had a way of quizzing
her; but his face did not flinch, and she was greatly relieved to think
she had missed making the mistake of omitting a friend with so eligible
a backing. Millard was invited, rather to his own surprise, and taken
into preliminary councils as a matter of course. When the introductory
minuet had been danced, and the ball was at its height, Philip
Gouverneur, with a smile of innocence, led his friend straight to Miss
Vandeleur, who proudly wore the very dress in which, according to a
rather shaky tradition, her great-great aunt had poured tea for General
Washington.
"Miss Vandeleur," said Philip, "let me present Mr. Millard."
Miss Vandeleur gave Millard one of the bows she kept ready for people of
no particular consequence.
"Mr. Millard is real old crockery," said Philip in a half-confidential
tone. "Some of us think it enough to be Revolutionary, but he is a
descendant of Rip Van Dam, the old governor of New York in the
seventeenth century."
Miss Vandeleur's face relaxed, and she remarked that judging from his
name, as well as from something in his appearance, Mr. Millard must
have come, like herself, from one of the old Huguenot families.
"Revolutionary, too, Charley?" said Philip, looking at Millard. Then to
Miss Vandeleur, "One of his ancestors was second in command in the
charge on Stony Point."
"Ah, Philip, you put it too strongly, I--"
"There's Governor Cadwallader waiting to speak to you, Miss Vandeleur,"
interrupted Philip, bowing and drawing Millard away. "Don't say a word,
Charley. The most of Miss Vandeleur's information is less sound than
what I told her about you. Nine-tenths of all such a genealogy huckster
takes for gospel is just rot. I knew that Rip Van Dam would impress her
if I put it strongly and said seventeenth century. You see the further
away your forefather is, the more the virtue. Ancestry is like
homeopathic medicine, the oftener it is diluted the greater the
potency."
"Yes," said Millard; "and a remote ancestor has the advantage that
pretty much everything to his discredit has been forgotten."
Charley knew that this faking of a Millard pedigree by his friend would
prove as valuable to him as a decoration in the eyes of certain
exclusive people. His conscience did not escape without some qualms; he
did not like to be labeled what he was not. But he had learned by this
time that society of every grade is in great part a game of Mild Humbug,
and that this game, like all others, must be played according to rule.
Each player has a right to make the most of his hand, whatever it may
be. He had begun without a single strong card. Neither great wealth,
personal distinction, nor noted family had fallen to him. But in the
game of Mild Humbug as in almost all other games, luck and good play go
for much; with skill and fortune a weak card may take the trick, and
Millard was in a fair way to win against odds.