* * * * *
If it ain't right, I'll make it all right in the Morning!
A keen, genteely dressed, gentlemanly man "put up" at Beltzhoover's
Hotel, in Baltimore, one day some years ago, and after dining very
sumptuously every day, drinking his Otard, Margieux and Heidsic, and
smoking his "Tras," "Byrons," and "Cassadoras," until the landlord began
to surmise the "bill" getting voluminous, he made the clerk foot it up
and present it to our modern Don Cæsar De Bazan, who, casting his eye
over the long lines of perpendicularly arranged figures, discovered
that--which in no wise alarmed him, however--he was in for a matter of a
cool C!
"Ah! yes, I see; _well_, I presume it's all right, all correct, sir, no
doubt about it," says Don Cæsar.
"No doubt at all, sir," says the polite clerk,--"we seldom present a
bill, sir, until the gentlemen are about to leave, sir; but when the
bills are unusually large, sir--"
"Large, sir? Large, my dear fellow"--says the Don--"bless your soul, you
don't call _that_ large? Why, sir, a--a--that is, when I was in
Washington, at Gadsby's, sir, bless you, I frequently had my friends
of the Senate and the Ministers to dine at my rooms, and what do you
suppose my bills averaged a week, there, sir?"
"I can't possibly say, sir--must have counted up very _heavy_, sir, I
think," responds the clerk.
"Heavy! ha! ha! you may well say they were _heavy_, my dear
fellow--_five and eight hundred dollars a week!_" says the Don, with a
nonchalance that would win the admiration of a flash prince of the
realm.
"O, no doubt of it, sir; it is very expensive to keep company, and
entertain the government officers, at Washington, sir," the clerk
replies.
"You're right, my dear fellow; you're right. But let me see," and here
the Don stuck a little glass in the corner of his eye, and glanced at
the bill; "ah, yes, I see, $102.51--a--a--something--all right, I
presume; if it ain't right, _we'll make it all right in the morning_."
"Very good, sir; that will answer, sir," says the clerk, about to bow
himself out of the room.
"One moment, if you please, my dear fellow; that Marteux of yours is
really superb. A friend dined here yesterday with me--he is a--a
gentleman who imports a--a great deal of wine; he a--a--pronounces your
Schreider an elegant article. I shall entertain some friends to-night,
here, and do you see that we have sufficient of that 'Marteux' and
'Schreider' cooling for us; my friends are judges of a pure article, and
a--a I wish them to have a--a good opinion of your house. Understand?"
"Ah, yes, sir; that'll be all right," says the clerk.
"Of course; if it ain't, I'll make it all right in the morning!" says
the Don Cæsar, as the official vanished.
"Well, Charles, did you present that gentleman's bill?" asks the host of
the clerk, as they met at "the office."
"Yes, sir; he says it's all right, or he'll make it all right in the
morning, sir," replies the clerk.
"Very well," says the anxious host; "_see that he does it_."
That evening a Captain Jones called on Don Cæsar--a servant carried up
the card--Captain Jones was requested to walk up. Lieutenant Smith, U.
S. N., next called--"walk up." Dr. Brown called--"walk up." Col. Green,
his card--"walk up;" and so on, until some six or eight distinguished
persons were walked up to Don Cæsar's private parlor; and pretty soon
the silver necks were brought up, corks were popping, glasses were
clinking, jests and laughter rose above the wine and cigars, and Don
Cæsar was putting his friends through in the most approved style!
Time flew, as it always does. Capt. Jones gave the party a bit of a
salt-water song, Dr. Brown pitched in a sentiment, while Colonel Green
and Lieutenant Smith talked largely of the "last session," what _their_
friend Benton said to Webster, and Webster to Benton, and what Bill
Allen said to 'em both. And Miss Corsica, the French Minister's
daughter, what she had privately intimated to Lieutenant Smith in regard
to American ladies, and what the Hon. so and so offered to do and say
for Colonel Green, and so and so and so and so. Still the corks
"popped," and the glasses jingled, and the merry jest, and the laugh
jocund, and the rich sentiment, and richer fumes of the cigars filled
the room.
Don Cæsar kept on hurrying up the wine, and as each bottle was uncorked,
he assured the servants--"All right; if it ain't all right, _we'll make
it all right in the morning!_"
And so Don Cæsar and his _bon vivant_ friends went it, until some two
dozen bottles of Schreider, Hock, and Sherry had decanted, and the whole
entire party were getting as merry as grigs, and so noisy and
rip-roarious, that the clerk of the institution came up, and standing
outside of the door, sent a servant to Don Cæsar, to politely request
that gentleman to step out into the hall one moment.
"What's that?" says the Don; "speak loud, I've got a buzzing in my ears,
and can't hear whispers."
"Mr. Tompkins, sir, the clerk of the house, sir," replies the servant,
in a sharp key.
"Well, what the deuce of Tompkins--hic--what does he--hic--does he want?
Tell--hic--tell him it's--hic--all right, or we'll make it all
right--hic--_in the morning_."
Mr. Tompkins then took the liberty of stepping inside, and slipping up
to Don Cæsar, assured him that himself and friends were _a little too
merry_, but Don Cæsar assured Tompkins--
"It's all--hic--right, mi boy, all--hic--right; these
gentlemen--hic--are all _gentlemen_, my--hic--personal friends--hic--and
it's all right--hic--all perfectly--hic--right, or we'll make it all
right in the morning."
"That we do not question, sir," says the clerk, "but there are many
persons in the adjoining rooms whom you'll disturb, sir; I speak for the
credit of the house."
"O--hic--certainly, certainly, mi boy; I'll--hic--I'll speak to the
gentlemen," says the Don, rising in his chair, and assuming a very
solemn graveness, peculiar to men in the fifth stage of libation deep;
"Gentlemen--hic--_gentle_men, I'm requested to state--hic--that--hic--a
very _serious_ piece of intelligence--hic--has met my ear. This
_gentle_man--hic--says somebody's dead in the next--hic--room."
"Not at all, sir; I did not say that, sir," says the clerk.
"Beg--hic--your pardon, sir--hic--it's all right; if it ain't all right,
I'll make it--hic--_all right in the morning!_ Gentlemen, let's--hic--us
all adjourn; let's change the see--hic--scene, call a
coach--hic--somebody, let's take a ride--hic--and return and go
to--hic--our pious--hic--rest."
Having delivered this order and exhortation, Don Cæsar arose on his
pins, and marshalling his party, after a general swap of hats all
around, in which trade big heads got smallest hats, and small heads got
largest hats, by aid of the staircase and the servants, they all got to
the street, and lumbering into a large hack, they started off on a
midnight airing, noisy and rip-roarious as so many sailors on a land
cruise. The last words uttered by Don Cæsar, there, as the coach drove
off, were:
"All right--hic--mi boy, if it ain't, _we'll make it all right in the
morning!_"
"Yes, that we will," says the landlord, "and if I don't stick you into a
bill of costs '_in the morning_,' rot me. You'll have a nice time," he
continued, "out carousing till daylight; lucky I've got his wallet in
the fire-proof, the jackass would be robbed before he got back, _and I'd
lose my bill!_"
Don Cæsar did not return to make good his promise _in the morning_, and
so the landlord took the liberty of investigating the wallet, deposited
for safe keeping in the fire-proof of the office, by the Don; and lo!
and behold! it contained old checks, unreceipted bills, and a few
samples of Brandon bank notes, with this emphatic remark:--"All right,
if it ain't all right, WE'LL MAKE IT ALL RIGHT IN THE MORNING!"
Don't you believe in 'em?
We are astounded at the incredulity of some people. Every now and then
you run afoul of somebody who does not believe in spiritual knockers.
Enter any of our drinking saloons, take a seat, or stand up, and look on
for an hour or two, especially about the time "churchyards yawn!" and if
you are any longer skeptical upon the _spirit_-ual manifestations as
exhibited in the knee pans, shoulder joints, and thickness of the tongue
of the _mediums_,--education would be thrown away on you.