THE preceding tale is given almost in the precise words in which I heard
it related at a Corporation meeting of the ancient city of Manhattoes,
at which were present many of its sagest and most illustrious burghers.
The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow in
pepper-and-salt clothes, with a sadly humorous face, and one whom
I strongly suspected of being poor, he made such efforts to be
entertaining. When his story was concluded there was much laughter and
approbation, particularly from two or three deputy aldermen who had
been asleep the greater part of the time. There was, however, one tall,
dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling eyebrows, who maintained a
grave and rather severe face throughout, now and then folding his arms,
inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor, as if turning a
doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men, who never laugh but
upon good grounds--when they have reason and the law on their side.
When the mirth of the rest of the company had subsided and silence was
restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and sticking the
other akimbo, demanded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion of the
head and contraction of the brow, what was the moral of the story and
what it went to prove.
The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips as a
refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at his inquirer
with an air of infinite deference, and, lowering the glass slowly to the
table, observed that the story was intended most logically to prove--
“That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and
pleasures--provided we will but take a joke as we find it;
“That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is likely to
have rough riding of it.
“Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutch
heiress is a certain step to high preferment in the state.”
The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this
explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination of the syllogism,
while methought the one in pepper-and-salt eyed him with something of a
triumphant leer. At length he observed that all this was very well, but
still he thought the story a little on the extravagant--there were one
or two points on which he had his doubts.
“Faith, sir,” replied the story-teller, “as to that matter, I don’t
believe one-half of it myself.”