ADVENTURES OF A FALL RIVER WANDERER--HIS VALUABLE EXPERIENCE
IN NEW YORK--THE BOND OPERATOR.
A part of Officer McWatters' duty, when connected with the Railroad and
Steamboat Squad, was to advise and protect strangers in the city. He,
of course, encountered many a curious country chap, making his _debut_
in the great Metropolis. One of the most comical, if not the most
valuable things Officer McWatters could possibly do for the delectation
of readers in general, would be to write out his multifold experiences
with strangers in the city, and put the whole into book form, entitled,
for example, "Afloat in the Sea of Iniquity, Waifs Gathered There." The
following is taken from the New York Mercury of some years ago.
Officer McWatters, whose urbanity and politeness is proverbial, was
accosted yesterday forenoon, by a young man who had just stepped off of
the Fall River boat, who inquired of him to know the way to the Park.
"What park?" politely queried the officer.
"O, I don't know,--any park where I can sit down a while, and see
something of New York!"
"Better take a stage and go to Union Park. Everything clean, quiet, and
orderly."
The officer assisted the young man into the stage, which soon sat him
down in Union Park. The Park never looked lovelier. Children and drums,
nurses and baby-wagons, small boys and fire-crackers, lovely maidens
with books of poesy, the water-basin and the flowing fountain, the
green trees and the luxuriant shade, all were but parts of a perfect
whole, which Mr. Jasper Gray, the young man in question, enjoyed hugely.
Mr. Gray is a native of that enterprising village known as Fall River,
and he had come to New York to see the sights. The senior Gray had
warned him to look out for the "sharks;" and with a promise that he
would do so, and about one hundred and sixty dollars in his pocket, the
young man left his home, to sojourn several weeks in and about the
Metropolis. Mr. Gray's idea of "sharks" was, that of some huge
braggadocio, who would fiercely assault him late at night, demand his
money or his life, or assume some other equally disagreeable mode of
placing him in a dilemma. He had no idea that under the bright sun of
midday, and in the grateful shade of the trees of a public square, the
shark was looking and watching for a victim; but so it was.
As he cast his eye towards the fountain, his gaze rested upon a little
child playing on the greensward, now rolling on the grass, and again
approaching dangerously near the water's edge. Once thinking that the
child might fall in, he sprang from his seat, and caught the little
fellow by the arm, and delivered him into the hands of his nurse. A few
moments after this occurrence an elegantly-dressed young lady came up
to the seat upon which he was sitting, and begged leave to thank him
for having so kindly cared for her little brother, whom, she declared,
he had saved from falling into the water.
"Nurse has gone home with the darling, now; but I could not feel to
leave you without expressing my gratitude for your kindness," said the
lady, whose eyes shone with brilliancy through the thin gauze veil,
filling Mr. Jasper Gray with the most undefinable feelings.
He replied awkwardly to her many complimentary expressions, but finally
became animated, and began, as all slightly verdant people are apt to
do, to speak of himself, his connections, the town he came from, how he
came to leave, what his father told him, how much money he had, and a
hundred other equally as interesting matters. The lady was interested.
She grew animated as Mr. Jasper Gray proceeded; and as he alluded to
the one hundred and sixty dollars with which he had been provided on
leaving home, her interest seemed to have reached its height. She
declared he must accompany her home to see pa and ma, and receive their
thanks for having saved little Charlie's life.
Really, this was too much; but the young lady insisted, and Mr. Gray at
length yielded to her solicitations, happy in the thought that he had
not only escaped the "sharks," but had fallen into the most pleasant of
experiences with the most respectable of people. The mansion into which
our hero was inveigled was one of the first class. The furniture was of
rosewood and brocatelle, and the lace curtains swept the floor with
their magnificent dimensions. Elaborately carved chandeliers were
suspended from the ceiling, costly mirrors and valuable paintings
decorated the walls, and marble-top tables and a splendid piano lent
their attractions to the room. Bouquets of choice flowers shed a rich
fragrance about the place, giving it an air of elegance and
enchantment. Here Mr. Gray spent the afternoon. An elderly-looking
personage played mother, and thanked him a thousand times for saving
Charlie. Pa would soon be home, and he would be equally grateful. Cake
and wine were served. The youth was in a perfect sea of delights. The
wine raised his spirits, and evil thoughts entered his heart. He cast
longing and loving glances upon the fair Florine of the mansion, and
the elderly matron adroitly withdrew. More wine was served, and the
young man was in a fit condition to sing with Burns,
"Inspiring bold John Barleycorn,"
so bravely did the ruddy fluid lift him up.
What followed must be left to the imagination of the reader. Suffice it
to say, that the Fall River wanderer, when in the full flush of the
Paradise of which the wine had led him to believe he was the sole
master, was suddenly confronted by an enraged father, who desired
simply to know who he was before he killed him on the spot, and by a
sobbing mother, who declared he had betrayed the confidence she had
reposed in him; and last, but not the least important, the beautiful
being, whose dishevelled hair and disarranged toilet told a woful
story, standing before him, a mute upbraider of his crime. Such a
combination of revenge, despair, and injured innocence, as the trio
presented, very nearly, but not effectually, sobered Mr. Gray, and left
him in a peculiarly muddled condition, in which, with true Yankee
simplicity, he felt for his pocket-book, as the most available and only
method of settling the accumulated difficulties under which he found
himself laboring.
It is a credit to his instinct, that the production of the pocket-book
aforesaid produced the desired result. The mother was compromised by
the payment of one hundred dollars, and Mr. Gray was allowed to depart.
He of course sought for his new-made friend, Officer McWatters, for
consolation and advice in his emergency, and seventy dollars of the
amount was recovered last evening, and Mr. Gray was admonished to
expect the "sharks" in any and every possible garb, from the rollicking
gutter-man of the Five Points to the extensively got-up denizens of the
Fifth Avenue or the Astor.
But we ought, perhaps, to add here an incident of Mr. Gray's experience
among the "sharks" of another kind than that alluded to in the
foregoing portion of his history. Not willing to trust himself further
alone in the city, and wishing to make his visit to New York as
profitable as possible to himself in the sight-seeing way, he begged
Officer McWatters to permit him to go around with him on his business
tours. The complacent McWatters, who was never known to deny any one
anything proper to be asked, and which he could give, permitted the
bore to accompany him for a day or two. Among the early sights
thereafter seen by the young man, was one, which frightened him so
thoroughly, that the wonder is his hair did not turn white on the spot.
He declared, after he recovered his self-possession, that he "wouldn't
be hired to live a week in New York for all Old Vanderbilt's pile."
[Illustration: THE BOND OPERATOR.]
Officer McWatters had occasion to cross Wall Street, on a hasty errand
of business down into Beaver Street, accompanied by his _attaché_, Mr.
Gray, when they came suddenly into the midst of a great excitement. A
dandily-dressed, rakish-looking young man was just breaking out of a
crowd, and running with hands full of papers and a bag. Officer
McWatters instantly "twigged" the nature of the trouble, and put chase
after the fellow, unceremoniously leaving Mr. Gray in the midst of the
turbulent and excited crowd. The fleeing young scamp, who had just
snatched a package of United States bonds and a money bag from an old
messenger of some house, who was on his way to make a deposit, was a
little too fleet for Officer McWatters, and gained on him a little;
but, turning a corner, was fortunately impeded in his flight by another
policeman, who chanced to have his pistol about him, and brought it to
bear on him. The bold "Bond Operator" (as such villains, who were quite
plenty in those days, were called) thought discretion the better part
of valor, surrendered, and got his dues, we believe, at last.
Mr. Gray was in fearful plight over losing Officer McWatters, and it
was some time before he found him again, meanwhile getting jostled
about among the large and fierce crowd of excited Wall Streeters, whom
the interesting occasion hurriedly brought together. He quite lost
heart for sight-seeing in that adventure, and was, at last, only too
glad to "get out of the infernal city," and went home a wiser man, we
presume, than when he first landed in the city from the Fall River boat.
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