The next day, when they came to settle with the tavern-keeper, and Ben
with his usual alacrity had paraded his dollars for payment, poor
Collins hung back, pale and dumb-founded, as a truant school-boy at
the call to recitation. The truth is, the fumes of his brandy having
driven all the wit out of his noddle, had puffed it up with such
infinite vanity, that he must needs turn in, red faced and silly as he
was, to gamble with the cool-headed water-drinking sharpers of
New-York. The reader hardly need be informed, that poor Collins'
pistareens, which he had scraped together for this expedition, were to
these light-fingered gentlemen as a fry of young herrings to the
hungry dog-fish.
Ben was now placed in a most awkward predicament. To pay off Collins'
scores at New-York, and also his expenses on the road to Philadelphia,
would drain him to the last farthing. But how could he leave in
distress a young friend with whom he had passed so many happy days and
nights in the elegant pleasure of literature, and for whom he had
contracted such an attachment! Ben could not bear the idea, especially
as his young friend, if left in this sad condition, might be driven to
despair; so drawing his purse he paid off Collins' bill, which, from
the quantity of liquor he had drank, was swelled to a serious amount;
and taking him by the arm, set out with a heart much heavier than his
purse, which indeed was now so empty that had it not been replenished
at Bristol by the thirty pounds for which, as we have seen, Vernon
gave him an order on a gentleman living there, who readily paid it,
would never have carried him and his drunken companion to
Philadelphia. On their arrival Collins endeavoured to procure
employment as a merchant's clerk, and paraded with great confidence
his letters of recommendation. But his breath betrayed him. And the
merchants would have nothing to say to him notwithstanding all his
letters; he continued, therefore, to lodge and board with Ben at his
expense. Nor was this all; for knowing that Ben had Vernon's money, he
was continually craving loans of it, promising to pay as soon as he
should get into business. By thus imposing on Ben's friendship,
getting a little of him at one time, and a little at another, he had
at last got so much of it, that when Ben, who had gone on _lending_
without taking note, came to count Vernon's money, he could hardly
find a dollar to count!
It is not easy to describe the agitation of Ben's mind on making this
discovery; nor the alternate chill and fever, that discoloured his
cheeks, as he reflected on his own egregious folly in this affair.
"What demon," said he to himself, as he bit his lip, "could have put
it into my head to tell Collins that I had Vernon's money! Didn't I
know that a drunkard has no more reason in him than a hog; and can no
better be satisfied, unless like him he is eternally pulling at his
filthy swill? And have I indeed been all this time throwing away
Vernon's money for brandy to addle the brain of this poor _self-made_
brute? Well then, I am served exactly as I deserve, for thus making
myself a pander to his vices. But now that the money is all gone, and
I without a shilling to replace it, what's to be done? Vernon will, no
doubt, soon learn that I have collected his money; and will of course
be daily expecting to hear from me. But what can I write? To tell him
that I have collected his money, but lent it to a poor, pennyless sot,
will sound like a pretty story, to a man of business! And if I don't
write to him, what will he think of me, and what will become of that
high opinion he had formed of me, on which it appeared he would have
trusted me with thousands? So you see, I have got myself into a pretty
hobble. And worse than all yet, how shall I ever again lift up my
booby face to my affectionate brother John, after having thus basely
stabbed him, through his friend, as also through the honour of our
family! O my dear, dear old father; now I see your wisdom and my own
folly! A thousand times did you tell me I was too young; too
inexperienced yet, to undertake by myself.--But no. It would not all
do. For the life of you, you could not lead or drive such divine
counsel into this conceited noddle of mine. I despised it as the
_weakness of old age_, and much too _slow_ for me. I wanted to save
time, and get three or four years ahead of other young men; and that
tempted me to disobedience. Well, I am justly punished for it! My
bubble is broke. And now I see I shall be thrown back as long as if I
had continued the apprentice of my brother James!!"
O young men! young men! you that with segars in your mouths, and faces
flushed with libations of whiskey, can fancy yourselves _clever
fellows_, and boast the long list of your _dear friends_, O think of
the curses that Ben bestowed on his dear friend Collins, for bringing
him in such a scrape; and learn that an idle, drinking rascal has no
friends. If you think otherwise, it is only a proof that you don't
even yet understand the meaning of the word. FRIENDS indeed! you talk
of friends! What, _you_, who instead of nobly pressing on for VIRTUE
and KNOWLEDGE and WEALTH, to make yourselves an honour and blessing to
your connexions, are constantly, by your drunken and gambling courses,
making yourselves a disgrace and curse to them. And when, like that
fool in the parable, your all is gone, then, instead of modestly going
with him into the fields, to feed the swine, you have the impudence to
quarter your rags and red noses on your _dear friends_, spunging and
borrowing of them as long as they'll lend. And if at last, they should
get wise enough to refuse such unconscionable leechers, as would suck
every drop of their blood, instantly you can turn tail and abuse your
_dear friends_ as though they were pick-pockets.--Witness now master
Collins.
Just as Ben was in the midst of his fever and pet, on discovering as
aforesaid, the great injury which Collins had done him, who but that
promising youth should come in, red faced and blowzy, and with extreme
confidence, demand of him a couple of dollars. Ben, rather tartly,
replied that he had no more to spare. "Pshaw," answered Collins, "'tis
only a brace of dollars I want, just to treat an old Boston
acquaintance I fell in with at the tavern, and you know Vernon tipt
you 'the shiners' t'other day to the tune of a round hundred." "Yes,"
replied Ben, "but what with two dollars at one time, and two at
another, you have taken nearly the whole." "Well, man, and what of
that," rejoined Collins, swaggeringly; "suppose I had taken the
_whole_; yes, and twice as much, sha'nt I get into fine business
presently, some head clerk's place, or governor's secretary? And then
you'll see how I'll tumble you in the _yellow boys_ hand over hand,
and pay you off these little beggarly items all at a dash."
"_Fair words, Mr. Collins_," answered Ben, "_butter no parsnips_. And
you have been so long talking at this rate, and yet doing nothing,
that I really am afraid----"
"Afraid, the d----l," interrupted Collins, insultingly, "afraid of
what? But see here, Mr. Franklin, I came to you, not to preach to me,
but to lend me a couple of dollars. And now all that you have to do is
just to tell me, at a word, whether you can lend them or not."
"Well then, at a word, I cannot," said Ben.
"Well then, you are an ungrateful fellow," retorted Collins.
"Ungrateful?" asked Ben, utterly astonished.
"Yes, an ungrateful fellow," replied Collins. "You dare not deny, sir,
that it was I who first took you out of the tallow pots and grease of
your old father's candle shop in Boston, and made a man of you. And
now after all, when I only ask you to lend me a couple of shabby
dollars to treat a friend, you can refuse me! Well, keep your dollars
to yourself and be d----d for an ungrateful fellow as you are!" then
wheeling on his heel he went off, blustering and swollen with passion,
as though he had been most outrageously ill-treated. Soon as Ben had
recovered himself a little from the stupefaction into which this
tornado of Collins had thrown him, he clapped his hands, and rolling
up his eyes like one devoutly given, exclaimed, "O Ulysses, well
called wise! You, though a heathen, could lash your sailors to the
mast to keep them from going ashore to be made hogs of at the _grog
shops of Circe_, while I, the son of an old presbyterian christian,
the son of his old age, and heir elect of all his wisdom, have been
here now for weeks together, lending money to brutalize my own friend!
Would to heaven, I had been but half as wise as you, I should not have
been so shamefully fleeced, and now so grossly insulted by this young
swine, Collins. But what brain of man could have suspected this of
him? After taking him out of the stye of a jug tavern in New-York,
where he was up to the back in dirt and debt--after paying all his
expenses to Philadelphia, and here supporting him cheerfully, out of
my hard and scanty earnings;--after submitting, for cheapness sake, to
sleep in the same bed with him every night, scorched with his
rum-fevered flesh, drenched in his nocturnal sweats, and poisoned with
his filthy breath; and still worse, after lending him nearly the whole
of Vernon's money, and thereby brought my own silly nose to the
grindstone, perhaps for many a doleful year, I should now at last be
requited with all this abuse: d--n--d for an _ungrateful fellow_!!
Well, I don't know where all this is to end; but I will still hope for
the best. I hope it will teach me this important lesson, never to have
any thing to do with a _sot_ again, as long as I live. But stop,
though I refused him money to get drunk with, I still feel a
friendship for this wretched young man, this Collins; and will still
work to support him, while he stays with me. It is likely that now,
that he can get no more money from me, he will take his departure; and
then, if my senses remain, I think I will for ever hereafter shun, as
I would a beast, the young man who drinks _drams and grog_."
From his going off in such a pet, Ben had supposed at first, that
Collins would not return again. But having no money nor friends in
Philadelphia, the poor fellow came back at night, to his old roosting
place with Ben, by whom he was received with the same good humour as
if nothing had happened. But though the injured may forgive, the
injurer seldom does. Collins never looked straight at Ben after this.
The recollection of the past kept him sore. And to be dependent on one
whom, in the pride of former days, he had thought his inferior,
rendered his condition so uneasy, that he longed for an opportunity to
get out of it. Fortunately an opportunity soon offered. The captain of
a trader to the West Indies, falling in with him one day at a tavern,
where he was spouting away at a most elegant rate, was so charmed with
his vivacity and wit, which most young fools, half shaved, are apt to
figure in, that he offered him the place of a private tutor in a rich
family in Jamaica. Dame fortune, in her best humour, with all her
cogged dice in the bargain, could not, as Collins himself thought,
have thrown him a luckier hit. Young black eyed creoles, with fourth
proof spirit, in all its delicious modifications, of _slings, bumbo
and punch_, dancing before his delighted fancy, in such mazes of
pleasurable promise, that 'tis likely he would hardly have exchanged
places with the grand Turk. With a countenance glowing with joy, he
hastened to Ben to tell him the glorious news, and to take leave.
After heartily congratulating him on his good fortune, Ben asked, if
he would not want a little money to _fit him out_. Collins thanked
him, but said that the captain, who had engaged him, was such a
noble-hearted fellow, that he had, of his own accord, advanced him
_three half joes_ to put him into what he called "_complete sailing
trim_." Though Ben had of late been so scurvily treated by Collins, as
to think it very desirable to be quit of him; yet, when the time came,
he found it no such easy matter for the heart to dissolve the ties of
a long and once pleasant friendship. He had passed with Collins many
of his happiest hours, and these too, in the sweetest season of life,
and amidst pleasures which best lift the soul from earth, and spring
those unutterable hopes she delights in. How then, without tears,
could he for the last time, feel the strong pressure of his hand, and
catch the parting glance? On the other side, through watery eyes and
broken accents, poor Collins sobbed out his last adieu, not without
hearty thanks, for the many favors which Ben had done him, and solemn
promises of speedily _writing to him, and remitting all his money_.
Charity would fain believe, that he fully so intended; but alas! nor
money, nor friend did Ben ever hear of afterwards. This elegant victim
of rum, was no doubt presented by the captain to the wealthy family in
Jamaica. And being introduced, under the genial influence perhaps of a
cheerful glass, 'tis likely that with his advantages of education and
eloquence, he made such a figure in the eyes of those wealthy and
hospitable islanders, that they were in raptures with him, and fondly
counted that they had got an elegant young schoolmaster who was to
make scholars and wits of the whole family. Perhaps too, their darling
hope, a blooming daughter, was seen to heave the tender sigh, as
blushing she darted the side-long glance upon him. But alas! the next
day sees the elegant young schoolmaster _dead drunk!_ and the amiable
family all in the dumps again. 'Tis more than probable, that after
having been alternately received and dismissed from a dozen wealthy
families, he sunk at length, into tattered garments, and a
grog-blossomed face; the mournful victim of intemperance. And now
perhaps, after all the fair prospects of his youth, and all the fond
hopes of his parents, poor Collins, untimely buried in a foreign
church-yard, only serves for the pious to point their children to his
early tomb and remind them how vain are talents and education without
the restraints of religion.