“A gin-sling, waiter! Strong, hot, and quick; none of your temperance
mixtures for me; AND waiter, here, a beef-steak smothered in onions; AND
waiter, some crackers and cheese, and be deuced quick about it, too. I’m
not a man to be trifled with, as somebody besides you will find out, I
fancy,” said Mr. Scraggs, hitching his heels to the mantel, as the
waiter closed the door.
Mr. Scraggs was a plethoric, pursy, barrel-looking individual, with a
peony complexion, pink, piggy eyes, and a nose sky-wardly inclined. His
neck-cloth was flashy and greasy; his scarlet vest festooned with a mock
chain; his shirt bosom fastened with green studs, and his nether limbs
encased in a pair of snake-skin pantaloons. As the waiter closed the
door to execute his order, he delivered himself of the following
soliloquy, between the whiffs of his cigar:
“Ha-ha! pardoned out, was he? turned peddler, did he? fathered the
little gal, and sold tape to pay her board, hey? put her to
boarding-school, and went to New Orleans to seek his fortin’? got
shipwrecked and robbed, and the Lord knows what, and then started for
Californy for better luck, did he? Stuck to gold-digging like a
mole--made his fortin’, and then came back to marry the little gal, hey?
That’ll be as _I_ say. She’s a pretty gal--may I be shot, if she ain’t;
a deuced pretty gal--but she don’t come between me and my revenge. Not
’xactly! That blow you struck in the prison, my fine fellow, is not
forgotten _quite_ yet. John Scraggs has a way of putting them little
things on file. Hang me if it don’t burn on my cheek yet. Your fine
broadcloth suit don’t look much like your red and blue prison uniform,
Mr. Percy Lee. Your crop of curly black hair is _rather_ more becoming
than your shaven crown; wonder what your pretty love would say if she
knew all that? if she knew she was going to marry the man who killed her
own mother? and, pretty as she is, by the eternal, she shall know it.
But, patience--John Scraggs; a little more billing and cooing first; a
little more sugar before the drop of gall brims over the cup. Furnish
the fine house you have taken, Mr. Percy Lee, pile up the satin and
damask, and picters, and statters, and them things--chuckle over the
happiness you are _not_ a going to have--for by the eternal, the gal may
go the way the mother did, but my hand shall crush _you_; and yet, I
ain’t got nothing agin the gal, neither: she’s as pretty a piece of
flesh and blood as I’ve seen this many a day. A delicate mate for a
jail-bird, ha--ha.”
“Waiter! waiter another gin-sling; hotter and stronger than the last;
’gad--fire itself wouldn’t be too strong for me to swallow to-day. Percy
Lee’s wedding-day, is it? We shall see!
“He will curl his fine hair, don his broad-cloth suit, satin vest and
white gloves; look at his watch, and be in a devil of a hurry, won’t he?
ha--ha. He will get into a carriage with his dainty bride, and love her
all the better for her blushing and quivering; he will look into her
pretty face till he would sell his very soul for her; he will lead her
by the tips of her little white gloved fingers into church; then they’ll
kneel before the parson, and he will promise all sorts of infernal lies.
Then the minister will say, ‘if any one present knows any reason why
these two shouldn’t be joined in the holy state of matrimony, let him
speak, or forever after hold his peace.’
“Then is your time, John Scraggs--leap to his side like ten thousand
devils; hiss in the gal’s ear that her lover is a jail-bird--that he’s
her mother’s murderer--laugh when she shrinks from his side in horror,
and falls like one stone dead; for by the eternal, John Scraggs is the
man to do all that--and yet I ain’t got nothing agin the gal either.
“But, stay a bit; that will be dispatching the rascal too quick. I’ll
make slower work of it. I’ll prolong his misery. I’ll watch him writhe
and twist like a lion in a net. I’ll let the marriage go on--I’ll not
interrupt it; and then I’ll make it the hottest hell! The draught shall
be ever within reach of his parched lips, and yet, he shall never taste
it; for his little wife shall curse him. She shall be ever before him,
in her tempting, dainty beauty, and yet a great gulf shall separate
them. That’s it--_slow_ torture; patience--I won’t dispatch him all at
once. I’ll lop off first a hand, then a foot, pluck out an eye, touch up
a quivering nerve, maim him--mangle him--let him die a thousand deaths
in one. Good! I’ll teach the aristocrat to fell me to the earth like a
hound. A jail-bird--ha, ha; salt pork and mush, instead of trout cooked
in claret; water in a rusty tin cup, instead of old Madeira, and Hock,
and Sherry, and Champagne. Mush and salt pork--ha, ha. Too cursed good,
though, for the dainty dog. I wish I’d been warden of the Bluff Hill
prison. I’d have lapped up his aristocratic blood, drop by drop.”