The Perils of Wealth

Money is admitted to be--there is no earthly use of dodging the

fact--the lever of the whole world, by which it and its multifarious

cargo of men and matters, mountains and mole hills, wit, wisdom, weal,

woe, warfare and women, are kept in motion, in season and out of season.

It is the arbiter of our fates, our health, happiness, life and death.

Where it makes one man a happy _Christian_, it makes ten thousand

miserable _devils_. It is no use to argufy the matter, for money is the

"root of all evil," more or less, and--as Patricus Hibernicus is

supposed to have said of a single feather he reposed on--if a dollar

gives some men so much uneasiness, what must a million do? Money has

formed the basis of many a long and short story, and we only wish that

they were all imbued, as our present story is, with--more irresistible

mirth than misery. Lend us your ears.

Not long ago, one of our present well-known--or ought to be, for he is a

man of parts--business men of Boston, resided and carried on a small

"trade and dicker" in the city of Portland. By frugal care and small

profits, he had managed to save up some six hundred dollars, all in

_halves_, finding himself in possession of this vast sum of hard cash,

he began to conceive a rather insignificant notion of _small cities_;

and he concluded that Portland was hardly big enough for a man of his

pecuniary heft! In short, he began to feel the importance of his

position in the world of finance, and conceived the idea that it would

be a sheer waste of time and energy to stay in Portland, while with

_his_ capital, he could go to Boston, and spread himself among the

millionaires and hundred thousand dollar men!

"Yes," said B----, "I'll go to Boston; I'd be a fool to stay here any

longer; I'll leave for bigger timber. But what will I do with my money?

How will I invest it? Hadn't I better go and take a look around, before

I conclude to move? My wife don't know I've got this money," he

continued, as he mused over matters one evening, in his sanctum; "I'll

not tell her of it yet, but say I'm just going to Boston to see how

business is there in my line; and my money I'll put in an old cigar box,

and--"

* * * * *

B---- was all ready with his valise and umbrella in his hand. His

"good-bye" and all that, to his wife, was uttered, and for the tenth

time he charged his better half to be careful of the fire, (he occupied

a frame house,) see that the doors were all locked at night, and "be

sure and fasten the cellar doors."

B---- had got out on to the pavement, with no time to spare to reach the

cars in season; yet he halted--ran back--opened the door, and in evident

concern, bawled out to his wife--

"Caddie!"

"Well?" she answered.

"Be sure to fasten the alley gate!"

"Ye-e-e-e-s!" responded the wife, from the interior of the house.

"And whatever you do, _don't forget them cellar doors_, Caddie!"

"Ye-e-e-e-s!" she repeated, and away went B----, lickety split, for the

Boston train.

After a general and miscellaneous survey of modern Athens, B---- found

an opening--a good one--to go into business, as he desired, upon a

liberal scale; but he found vent for the explosion of one very

hallucinating idea--his six hundred dollars, as a cash capital, was a

most infinitesimal _circumstance_, a mere "flea bite;" would do very

well for an amateur in the cake and candy, pea-nut or vegetable

business, but was hardly sufficient to create a sensation among the

monied folks of Milk street, or "bulls" and "bears" on 'change. However,

this realization was more than counter-balanced by another

fact--"confidence" was a largely developed _bump_ on the business head

of Boston, and if a man merely lacked "means," yet possessed an

abundance of good business qualifications--spirit, energy, talent and

tact--they were bound to see him through! In short, B----, the great

Portland capitalist, found things about right, and in good time, and in

the best of spirits, started for home, determining, in his own mind, to

give his wife a most pleasant surprise, in apprizing her of the fact

that she was not only the wife of a man with six hundred silver dollars,

and about to move his _institution_--but the better half of a gentleman

on the verge of a new campaign as a Boston business man.

"Lord! how Caroline's eyes will snap!" said B----; "how she'll go in;

for she's had a great desire to live in Boston these five years, but

thinks I'm in debt, and don't begin to believe I've got them six hundred

all hid away down----. But I'll surprise her!"

B---- had hardly turned his corner and got sight of his house, with his

mind fairly sizzling with the pent-up joyful tidings and grand surprise

in store for Mrs. B., when a sudden change came over the spirit of his

dream! As he gazed over the fence, by the now dim twilight of fading

day, he thought--yes, he did see fresh earthy loose stones, barrels of

lime, mortar, and an ominous display of other building and repairing

materials, strewn in the rear of his domicil! The cellar doors--those

wings of the subterranean recesses of his house--which he had cautioned,

earnestly cautioned, the "wife of his bussim" to close, carefully and

securely, were sprawling open, and indeed, the outside of his abode

looked quite dreary and haunted.

"My dear Caroline!" exclaimed B----, rushing into the rear door of his

domestic establishment, to the no small surprise of Mrs. B., who gave a

premature--

"Oh dear! how you frightened me, Fred! Got home?"

"Home? yes! don't you see I have. But, Carrie, didn't I earnestly beg of

you to keep those doors--cellar doors--shut? fastened?"

"Why, how you talk! Bless me! Keep the cellar shut? Why, there's nothing

in the cellar."

"Nothing in the cellar?" fairly howls B----.

"Nothing? Of course there is not," quietly responded the wife; "there is

nothing in the cellar; day before yesterday, our drain and Mrs. A.'s

drain got choked up; she went to the landlord about it; he sent some

men, they examined the drain, and came back to-day with their tools and

things, and went down the cellar."

"_Down the cellar?_" gasped B----, quite tragically.

"Down _the_ cellar!" slowly repeated Mrs. B.

"Give me a light--quick, give me a light, Caroline!"

"Why, don't be a fool. I brought up all the things, the potatoes, the

meat, the squashes."

"P-o-o-h! blow the meat and squashes! Give me a light!" and with a

genuine melo-drama rush, B---- seized the lamp from his wife's hand, and

down the cellar stairs he went, four steps at a lick. In a moment was

heard--

"O-o-o-h! I'm ruined!"

With a full-fledged scream, Mrs. B. dashed pell-mell down the stairs, to

her husband. He had dropped the lamp--all was dark as a coal mine.

"Fred--Frederick! oh! where are you? What have you done?" cried his

wife, in intense agony and doubt.

"Done? Oh! I'm done! yes, done now!" he heavily sighed.

"Done what? how? Tell me, Fred, are you hurt?"

"What on airth's the matter, thar? Are you committing murder on one

another?" came a voice from above stairs.

"Is that you, Mrs. A.?" asked Mrs. B. to the last speaker.

"Yes, my dear; here's a dozen neighbors; don't get skeert. Is thare

robbers in yer house? What on airth is going on?"

This brought B---- to his proper reckoning. He ordered his wife to "go

up," and he followed, and upon reaching the room, he found quite a

gathering of the neighbors. He was as white as a white-washed wall, and

the neighbors staring at him as though he was a wild Indian, or a

chained mad dog. Importuned from all sides to unravel the mystery, B----

informed them that he had merely gone down cellar to see what the

masons, &c., had been doing--dropped his lamp--his wife screamed--and

that was all about it! The wife said nothing, and the neighbors shook

their incredulous heads, and went home; which, no sooner had they gone,

than B---- seized his hat and cut stick for the office of a cunning,

far-seeing limb of the law, leaving Mrs. B. in a state of mental

agitation better imagined than described. B---- stated his case--he had

buried six hundred dollars in a box under the _lee_ of the cellar-wall,

and gone to Boston on business, and as if no other time would suit, a

parcel of drain-cleaners, and masons, and laborers, must come and go

right there and then to dig--get the six hundred dollars and clear.

After a long chase, law and bother, B---- recovered half his

money--packed up and came to Boston.--There's a case for you! Beware of

money!

Nursing a Legacy.

Waiting for dead men's shoes is a slow and not very sure business;

sometimes it pays and sometimes it don't. I know a genius who lost by

it, and his case will bear repeating, for there is both morality and fun

in it.

Lev Smith, a native of "the Eastern shore" of Maryland, and a resident

of a small town in the lower part of Delaware, began life on a very

limited capital, and because of a natural disposition indigenous to the

climate and customs of his native place--general apathy and unmitigated

_patience_ peculiar to people raised on fish and Johnny-cake, amid the

stunted pine swamps and sand-hills of that Lord-forsaken country--Lev

never increased it. Lev had an uncle, an old bachelor, without "chick or

child," and was reported to be pretty well off. Old man Gunter was

proverbially mean, and as usual, heartily despised by one half of the

people who knew him. He had a small estate, had lived long, and by his

close-fisted manner of life, it was believed that Gunter had laid by a

pretty considerable pile of the root of all evil, for something or

somebody; and one day Lev Smith, the nephew, came to the conclusion that

as the old man was getting quite shaky and must soon resign his

interests in all worldly gear, _he_ would volunteer to console the

declining years of his dear old uncle, by his own pleasant company and

encouragement, and the old man very gladly accepted the proposals of

Lev, to cut wood, dig, scratch and putter around his worn out and

dilapidated farm. Uncle Gunter had but two negroes; through starvation

and long service he had worn them about out; he had little or no

"stock" upon his _farm_, quite as scant an assortment of utensils, few

fences, and in fact, to any actively disposed individual, the general

appearance and state of affairs about old Gunter's _place_ would have

given the double-breasted blues. But Lev Smith had come to loaf and

lounge, and not to display any very active or patriotic evolutions, so

he was not so much disheartened by his uncle's dilapidated farm, as he

was annoyed by the beggarly way the old man lived, and the assiduous

desire he seemed to manifest for Lev to be stirring around, gathering

chips, patching fences, cutting brush; from morn till night, he and the

two superannuated cuffies; and the old man barely raising enough to keep

soul and body of the party together.

At first, the job he had undertaken proved almost too much for Lev

Smith's constitution, but the great object in view consoled him, and the

more he saw of the old man's meanness, the more and more he took it for

granted that his uncle had necessarily hoarded up treasure; but, after

three years' drudgery, Lev's courage was on the point of breaking down;

the only stay left seemed the fact that now he had served so long a

time, so patiently and lovingly, and the old man apparently upon his

very last legs--it seemed a ruthless waste of his golden dreams to give

out, so he made up his mind to--wait a little longer. Another year

rolled on; Uncle Gunter got indeed low, and the lower he got the more

assiduous got nephew Smith, and even the neighbors wondered how a young

man _could_ stick on, and put up with such a miserly, mean, selfish and

penurious old curmudgeon as old Joe Gunter. Gunter himself was apprized

of the great indulgence and wonderful patience of his nephew, and not

unfrequently said, in a groaning voice:

"Ah, my dear Levi, you're a good boy; I wish to the Lord it was in your

poor, miserable, wretched old uncle's distressed power to--"

"Never mind, never mind, Uncle Joe," Lev would most deceitfully respond;

"I ask nothing for myself; what I do, I _do_ willingly!"

"I know, I know you do, poor boy, but your poor, old, miserable,

wretched uncle don't deserve it."

"Don't mind that, dear uncle," says Lev. "It's my duty, and I'll do it."

"Good boy, good boy; your poor, old, miserable uncle will be

grateful--we'll see."

"I know that--I feel sure he will, dear Uncle Joe--and that's enough,

_all_ I ask."

"And if he don't--poor, miserable old creature,--if he don't pay you,

the Lord will, Levi!"

"And that will be all that's needed, Uncle Joe," says the humbugging

nephew. And so they went, Lev not only waiting on the old man with the

tender and faithful care of a good Samaritan, but out of his own slender

resources ministering to the old man's especial comfort in many ways and

matters which Uncle Joe would have seen him hanged and quartered before

he would in a like manner done likewise. But the end came--the old

fellow held on toughly; he never died until Lev's patience, hope and

slender income were quite threadbare; so he at last went off the

handle--Lev buried him and mourned the dispensation in true Kilkenny

fashion.

Lev Smith now awaited the settlement of Uncle Gunter's affairs in grief

and solicitude. Another party also awaited the upshot of the matter,

with due solemnity and expectation, and that party was Polly Williams,

Lev's "intended," and her poor and miserly dad and marm, who knew Lev

Smith, as they said, was a lazy, lolloping sort of a feller, but sure to

get all that his poor, miserable uncle was worth in the world, and

therefore, with more craft and diligence, if possible, than Lev

practised, the Williamses set Polly's cap for Lev, and who, in turn, was

not unmindful of the fact that Williams "had something" too, as well as

his two children, Polly and Peter. Things seemed indeed bright and

propitious on all sides. The day came; Lev was on hand at Squire

Cornelius's, to hear the will read, and the estate of the deceased

settled.

As usual in such cases in the country, quite a number of the neighbors

were on hand--old Williams, of course.

"He was a queer old mortal," began the Squire.

"But a good man," sobbed Lev Smith, drawing out his bandanna, and

smothering his sharp nose in it. "A good man, 'Squire."

"God's his judge," responded the Squire, and a number of the neighbors

shook their head and stroked their beards, as if to say amen.

"Joseph Gunter mout have been a good man and he mout not," continued the

Squire; "some thinks he was not; I only say he was a queer old mortal,

and here's his will. Last will and testament of Joseph Gunter, &c.,

&c.," continued the Squire.

"Poor, dear old man," sobbed Lev. "Poor _dear_ old man!"

"Being without wife or children," continued the 'Squire.

"O, dear! poor, dear old man, how _I_ shall miss him in this world of

sorrow and sin," sobs Lev, while old Williams bit his skinny lips, and

the neighbors again stroked their beards.

"To comfort my declining years--"

"Poor, _dear_ old man, he was to be pitied; I did all I could do,"

groaned the disconsolate Lev, "but I didn't do half enough."

"Passing coldly and cheerless through the world--" continued the

'Squire.

"Yes, he did, poor old man; O, dear!" says Lev.

"Cared for by none, hated and shunned by all (Lev looked vacantly over

his handkerchief, at the Squire), I have made up my mind (Lev all

attention) that no mortal shall benefit by me; I have therefore

mortgaged and sold (Lev's eyes spreading) everything I had of a dollar's

value in the world, and buried the money in the earth where none but the

devil himself can find it!"

There was a general snicker and stare--all eyes on Lev, his face as

blank as a sham cartridge, while old Williams's countenance fell into a

concatenation of grimaces and wrinkles--language fails to describe!

"But here's a codicil," says the 'Squire, re-adjusting his glasses.

"Knowing my nephew, Levi Smith, expects something (Lev brightens up, old

Williams grins!)--he has hung around me for a long time, expecting it

(Lev's jaw falls), I do hereby freely forgive him his six years boarding

and lodging, and, furthermore, make him a present of my two old negroes,

Ben and Dinah."

"The--the--the--cussed old screw," bawls old Williams.

"The infernal, double and twisted, mean, contemptible, miserable old

scoundrel!" cries poor Lev, foaming with virtuous indignation, and

swinging his doubled up fists.

"And you--you--you cussed, do-less, good for nothing, hypocritical

skunk, you," yells old Williams, shaking his bony fingers in poor Lev's

face, the neighbors grinning from ear to ear, "to humbug me, my wife, my

Polly, in this yer way. Now clear yourself--take them old niggers, don't

leave 'em here for the crows to eat--clear yourself!"

Lev Smith sneaks off like a kill-sheep dog, leaving old Ben and Dinah to

the tender mercies of a quite miserable and equally wretched

neighborhood. Polly Williams didn't "take on" much about the matter, but

in the course of a few weeks took another venture in love's lottery,

and--was married. Poor Lev Smith returned to the scenes of his

childhood, a wiser and a poorer man.

The Troubles of a Mover.

"Mr. Flash in?"

"Mr. Flash? Don't know any such person, my son."

"Why, he lives here!" continued the boy.

"Guess not, my son; I live here."

"Well, this is the house, for I brought the things here."

"What things?" says our friend, Flannigan.

"Why, the door mat, the brooms, buckets and brushes," says little

breeches.

Flannigan looks vacantly at his own door mat, for a minute, then says

he--

"Come in my man, I'll see if any such articles have come here, for us."

The boy walks into the hall, amid the barricades of yet unplaced

household effects--for Flannigan had just moved in--and Flannigan calls

for Mrs. F. The lady appears and denies all knowledge of any such

purchases, or reception of buckets, brooms, and little breeches clears

out.

In the course of an hour, a violent jerk at the bell announces another

customer. Flannigan being at work in the parlor, answers the call; he

opens the door, and there stands "a greasy citizen."

"Goo' mornin'. Mr. Flash in?"

"Mr. Flash? I don't know him, sir."

"You don't?" says the "greasy citizen." "He lives here, got this bill

agin him, thirty-four dollars, ten cents, per-visions."

"I live here, sir; my name's Flannigan, I don't know you, or owe you, of

course!"

"Well, that's a pooty spot o' work, _any how_;" growls our greasy

citizen, crumpling up his bill. "Where's Flash?"

"I can't possibly say," says Flannigan.

"You can't?"

"Certainly not."

"Don't know where he's gone to?" growls the butcher.

"No more than the man in the moon!"

"Well, he ain't goin' to dodge _me_, in no sich a way," says the

butcher. "I'll find him, if it costs me a bullock, you may tell him

so!--for _me!_" growls the butcher.

"Tell him yourself, sir; I've nothing to do with the fellow, don't know

him from Adam, as I've already told _you_," says Flannigan, closing the

door--the "greasy citizen" walking down the steps muttering thoughts

that breathe and words that burn!

Flannigan had just elevated himself upon the top of the centre table, to

hang up Mrs. F.'s portrait upon the parlor wall, when another ring was

heard of the bell. He called to his little daughter to open the door and

see what was wanted.

"Is your fadder in, ah?"

"Yes, sir, I'll call him," says the child, but before she could reach

the parlor, a burly Dutch baker marches in.

"Goot mornin', I bro't de _pills_ in."

"Pills?" says Flannigan.

"Yaw, for de prets," continues the baker; "nine tollars foof'ey cents. I

vos heert you was movin', so I tink maybees you was run away."

"Mistake, sir, I don't owe you a cent; never bought bread of you!"

"_Vaw's!_ Tonner a' blitzen!--don't owes me!"

"Not a cent!" says Flannigan, standing--hammer in hand, upon the top of

the table.

"_Vaw's!_ you goin' thrun away and sheet me, _ah_?"

"Look here, my friend, you are under a mistake. I've just moved in

here, my name's Flannigan, you never saw me before, and of course I

never dealt with you!--don't you see?"

"Tonner a' blitzen!" cries the enraged baker, "I see vat you vant, to

sheet me out mine preet, you raskills--I go fetch the con-stabl's, de

shudge, de sher'ffs, and I have mine mon-ney in mine hands!" and off

rushes the enraged man of dough, upsetting the various small articles

piled up on the bureau in the hall--by _wanging_ to the door.

Poor Flannigan felt quite "put out;" he came very near dashing his

hammer at the Dutchman's head, but hoping there was an end to the

annoyances he kept at work, until another ring of the bell announced

another call. The Irish girl went to the door; Flannigan listens--

"Mr. Flash in?"

"Yees!" says Biddy, supposing Flash and Flannigan was the same in Dutch.

"Would yees come in, sir," and in comes the young man.

"Good morning, sir," quoth he; "I've called as you requested sir, with

the bill of that china set, &c."

"Mistake, sir--I've bought no china set, lately," says Flannigan.

"Isn't your name Flash, sir!"

"No, sir, my name's _Flannigan_. I've just moved here."

"Indeed," says the clerk. "Well, sir, where has Flash gone to, do you

know."

"Gone to be hanged! I trust, for I've been bothered all this morning by

persons that scoundrel appears to owe. He moved out of here, day before

yesterday; I took his unexpired term of the lease of this dwelling,

having noticed it advertised, gave the fellow a bonus for his lease, and

he cleared for California, I believe."

This concise statement appeared to satisfy the clerk that his "firm" was

_done_, and the young man and _his_ bill stepped out. Another _ring_,

and Flannigan opens the door; two men wanted to see Mr. Flash; he had

been buying some tin-ware of one, and the other he owed for putting up a

fire range in the building, and which range and accoutrements poor

Flannigan had bought for twenty-five dollars, cash down! These gentlemen

felt very vindictive, of course, and hinted awful strong that Flannigan

was privy to Flash's movements; and a great deal more, until Flannigan

losing his patience, and then his temper, ordered the men to

vamose!--they did, giving poor Flannigan a "good blessing" as they

walked away!

The family was about to sit down to a "made-up dinner" in the back

parlor, when the bell rang; the Irish girl answered the call, and

returned with a bill of sundry groceries, handed in by a man at the

door.

"Tell him Mr. Flash has gone--left--don't know him, and don't want to

know him, or have any thing to do with him or his bill!"

The girl carried back the bill; presently Flannigan hears a _muss_ in

the hall, he gets up and goes out; there was Biddy and the grocer's man

in a high dispute. Biddy--"true to her instinct," had made a bull of her

message by telling the man her master didn't know him; go to the divil

wid his bill! Flannigan managed to pacify the man, and give him to

understand that Mr. Flash was gone to parts unknown, and--the grocer, in

common with bakers, butchers, tinners and china dealers--were _done!_

But now came the tug of war; two "colored ladies" made their appearance,

for a small bill of seven dollars, for washing and ironing the dickeys

and fine linen of the Flashes.

"An' de fac _am_," says the one, "we's bound to hab de money, _shuah!_"

It did not seem to _take_ when Flannigan informed his colored friends

that they were surely _done_, as their debtor had "cut his lucky" and

gone!

The darkies felt inclined to be _sassy_, and Flannigan closed the door,

ordering them to create a vacancy by clearing out, and just as he closed

the door, ring goes the bell!

"Be gor," says a brawny "adopted citizen," planting his brogan upon the

sill, as Flannigan opened the door--"I've come wid me _coz_-zin to git

her wages, ye's owin' her!"

"Me? Owe you?" cries poor Flannigan.

"_Igh!_" says Paddy, trying to push his way into the hall.

"Stand back, you scoundrel!" cries Flannigan.

"_Scoun-thril!_" roars the outraged "adopted citizen."

"Stand back, you infernal ruffian!" exclaims Flannigan, as Paddy makes a

rush to grab him.

"Give me me coz-zin's wages, ye--ye--" but here his oration drew towards

a close, for Flannigan, no longer able to recognise virtue in

forbearance, opened the door and planting his own huge fist between the

_ogle-factories_ of Paddy, knocked him as stiff as a bull beef! Falling,

Paddy carried away his red-faced burly coz-zin, and the twain tumbling

upon the two negro women who were still at the bottom of the steps,

dilating, to any number of lookers-on, upon the rascality of poor

Flannigan in gouging them out of their washing bill, down went the white

spirits and black, all in a lump.

Here was a row! A mob gathered; "the people in that house" were

denounced in all manner of ways, the negroes screamed, the Irish roared,

the Dutch baker came up with a police-man to arrest Flannigan for

stealing his bread! And soon the butcher arrived with another officer to

seize the goods of Flash, supposed to be in the house--ready to be taken

away!

Such a double and twisted uproar in Dutch, Irish, Ethiopian and natural

Yankee, was terrific!

Mrs. F. fainted, the children screamed, and poor Flannigan was carried

to the police office to answer half a cord of "charges," and reached

home near sundown, quite exhausted, and his wallet bled for "costs,"

fines, &c., some $20. Poor Flannigan moved again; the house had such a

"bad name," he couldn't stay in it.

The Question Settled.

"Doctor" Gumbo, who "does business" somewhere along shore, met "Prof."

_White_,--a gemman, whose complexion is four shades darker than the

famed ace of spades,--a few evenings since, in front of the _Blade_

office, and after the usual formalities of greeting, says the doctor--

"What you tink, sah, oh dat Lobes question, what dey's makin' sich a

debbil ob a talk about in de papers?"

"Well," dignifiedly answered the professor of polish-on boots, "it's my

'ticular opinion, sah, dat dat Lopes got into de wrong pew, brudder

Gumbo, when he went down to Cuber for his healf!"

"Pshaw! sah, I'se talkin' about de gwynna (guano) question, I is."

"Well, doctor," said the professor, "I'se not posted up on de goanna

question, no how; but, when you comes to de Cuber, or de best mode ob

applyin' de principle ob liquid blackin' to de rale fuss-rate calfskin,

_I'se dar!_"

"O! oh!" grunts Gumbo; "professor, you'se great on de natural principles

ob de chemical skyence, I see; but lord honey, I doos pity your

ignorance on jography questions. So, take care ob yourself, ole

nigger--yaw! yaw!" and they parted with the formality of two Websters,

and half a dozen common-sized dignitaries of the nation thrown in.

How it's Done at the Astor House.

People often wonder how a man can manage to drink up his salary in

liquor, provided it is sufficient to buy a gallon of the very best

ardent every day in the year. How a fortune can be drank up, or drank

down, by the possessor, is still a greater poser to the unsophisticated.

Now, to be sure, a man who confines himself, in his potations, to

fourpenny drinks of small beer, Columbian whiskey, or even that

detestable stuff, by courtesy or custom called _French brandy_,--which,

in fact, is generally aquafortis, corrosive sublimate, cochineal,

logwood, and whiskey,--and don't happen to know too many drouthy

cronies, may make a very long lane of it; but it's the easiest thing in

the world to swallow a snug salary, income, mortgages, live stock, and

real estate, when you know how it's done.

Managing a theatre, publishing a newspaper, or keeping trained dogs or

trotting horses, don't hardly begin to phlebotomize purse and

reputation, like drinking.

"Doctor," said a gay Southern blood, to a famed "tooth doctor," "look

into my mouth."

"I can't see any thing there, sir," says the tooth puller.

"Can't? Well, that's deuced strange. Why, sir, look again; you see

nothing!"

"Nothing, sir!"

"Why, sir," says the young planter, "it's most astonishing, for I've

just finished swallowing--_three hundred negroes and two cotton

plantations!_"

Four young bucks met, some years ago, in a fashionable drinking saloon

in Cincinnati. It was one of the most elegant drinking establishments in

that part of the country. The young chaps belonged over in

Kentucky--daddies rich, and they didn't care a snap! says they, let's

have a spree! The "sham" came in, and they went at it; giving that a

fair trial, they took a turn at sherry, hock, and a sample of all the

most expensive stuffs the proprietors had on hand. Getting fuddled, they

got uproarious; they kicked over the tables and knocked down the

waiters. The landlord, not exactly appreciating that sort of "going on,"

remonstrated, and was met by an array of pistols and knives. Mad and

furious, the young chaps made a general onslaught on the people present,

who "dug out" very quick, leaving the bacchanalians to their glory;

whereupon, they fell to and fired their pistols into the mirrors,

paintings, chandeliers, &c. Of course the watchmen came in, about the

time the young gentlemen finished their youthful indiscretions, and

after the usual battering and banging of the now almost inanimate bodies

of the quartette, landed them in the calaboose. Next day they settled

their bills, and it cost them about $2200! It was rather an expensive

lesson, but it's altogether probable that they haven't forgotten a

letter of it yet.

A small party of country merchants, traders, &c., were cruising around

New York, one evening, seeing the lions, and their cicerone,--by the

way, a "native" who knew what _was_ what,--took them up Broadway, and as

they passed the Astor House, says one of the strangers:

"Smith, what's this thunderin' big house?"

"O, ah, yes, this," says the cicerone, Smith, "_this_, boys, is a great

tavern, fine place to get a drink."

"Well, be hooky, let's all go in."

In they all went; taking a private room or small side parlor, the

country gents requested Smith to do the talking and order in the liquor.

Smith called for a bill of fare, upon which are "invoiced" more "sorts"

and harder named wines and _liquors_ than could be committed to memory

in a week.

"That's it," says Smith, marking a bill of fare, and handing it to the

servant, "that's it--two bottles, bring 'em up."

Up came the wine; it was, of course, elegant. The country gents froze to

it. They had never tasted such stuff before, in all their born days!

"Look a here, mister," says one of the "business men," "got eny more uv

that wine?"

"O, yes, sir!" says the servant.

"Well, fetch it in."

"Two bottles, sir?"

"Two ganders! No, bring in six bottles!--I can go two on 'em myself,"

says the country gent.

The servant delivered his message at the bar, and after a few grimaces

and whispering, the servant and one of the bar-keepers, or clerks,

carried up the wine. Says the clerk, whispering to Smith, whom he

slightly knew:

"Smith, do you know the price of this wine?"

"Certainly I do," says Smith; "here it's invoiced on the catalogue,

ain't it?"

"O, very well," says the clerk, about to withdraw.

"Hold on!" says one of the merry country gents, "don't snake your

handsome countenance off so quick; do yer want us to fork rite up fur

these drinks?" hauling out his wallet.

"No, yer don't," says another, hauling out his change.

"My treat, if you please, boys," says the third, pulling out a handful

of small change. "I asked the party in, an' I pay for what licker we

drink--be thunder!"

In the midst of their enthusiasm, the clerk observed it was of no

importance just then--the bill would be presented when they got through.

This was satisfactory, and the party went on finishing their wine,

smoking, &c.

"S'pose we have some rale sham-paigne, boys?" says one of the gents,

beginning to feel his oats, some!

"Agreed!" says the rest. Two bottles of the best "_sham_" in "the

tavern" were called for, and which the party drank with great gusto.

"Now," says one of them, "let's go to the the-ater, or some other place

where there's a show goin' on. Here, you, mister,"--to the servant,--"go

fetch in the landlord."

"The landlord, sur?" says Pat, the servant, in some doubts as to the

meaning of the phrase.

"Ay, landlord--or that chap that was in here just now; tell him to fetch

in the bill. Ah, here you are, old feller; well, what's the damages?"

asks the gent, so ambitious of putting the party through, and hauling

out a handful of keys, silver and coppers, to do it with.

"Eight bottles of that old flim-flam-di-rip-rap," pronouncing one of

those fancy gamboge titles found upon an Astor House catalogue,

"_ninety-six dollars--_"

"What?" gasped the country gent, gathering up his small change, that he

had began to sort out on the table.

"And two bottles of 'Shreider,' and cigars--seven dollars," coolly

continued the bar-clerk; "one hundred and three dollars."

"_A hundred and three thunder--_"

"A HUNDRED AND THREE DOLLARS!" cried the country gents, in one breath,

all starting to their feet, and putting on their hats.

The clerk explained it, clear as mud; the trio "spudged up" the amount,

looked very sober, and walked out.

"Come, boys," said Smith, "let's go to the theatre."

"Guess not," says "the boys." "B'lieve we'll go home for to-night, Mr.

Smith." And they made for their lodgings.

If those country gents were asked, when they got home, any particulars

about the "elephant," they'd probably hint something about getting a

glimpse of him at the Astor House.

The Advertisement.

Sit down for a moment, we will not detain you long, our story will

interest you, we are sure, for it is most commendable, brief,

and--singularly true.

A poor widow, in the city of Philadelphia, was the mother of three

pretty children, orphans of a ship-builder, who lost his life in the

corvette Kensington, a naval vessel, built in Kensington for one of the

South American republics, and launched in 1826. The South Americans

being short of funds, the Kensington, after years of delay, was sold to

the emperor of all the Russias, and sailed for Constradt in 1830. Some

forty of the carpenters, who had built the vessel, went out in her; she

had immense, but symmetrical spars--carried vast clouds of canvass--was

caught off Cape Henlopen in a squall--her spars came thundering to the

deck, and poor Glenn, the ship builder, was among the slain.

The widow was allowed but a brief time to mourn for the departed;

pinching poverty was at her door; upon her own exertions now devolved

the care and toil of rearing her three children. Cynthia, the eldest,

was a pretty brunette, of thirteen; the neighbors thought Cynthia could

"go out to work;" the next eldest, Martin, a fine, sturdy and

intelligent boy, could go to a trade; and the youngest, Rosa, one of the

most beautiful, blue-eyed, blonde little girls of seven years, poetical

fancy ever realized, "the neighbors thought," ought to be _given_ to

somebody, to raise. The mother was but a feeble woman; it would be a

task for her to obtain her own living, they thought; and so, kind,

generous souls, with that peculiar readiness with which disinterested

friends console or advise the unfortunate, "the neighbors" became very

eloquent and argumentative. But though the mother's hands were weak, her

heart was strong, and her love for her children still stronger.

It is rather a singular trait in the human character, it appears to us,

that people possessing the ordinary attributes of sane Christians,

should so readily advise others to attempt, or do, that from which

_they_ would instinctively recoil; the mass of Widow Glenn's advisers

might have been far more serviceable to her, by contributing their mites

towards preserving the unity of her little and precious family, than

thus savagely advising its disbanding.

Newspapers, at this day, were far less numerous very expensive, and

circulated to a very limited degree, indeed. But the widow took a paper,

a family, weekly journal; and while casting her vacant eye over the

columns, at the close of a Saturday eve, after a severe week's toil for

the bread her little and precious ones had eaten, the widow's attention

was called to an advertisement, as follows:

"A Housekeeper Wanted.--An elderly gentleman desires a middle-aged,

pleasantly-disposed, tidy and industrious American woman, to take

charge and conduct the domestic affairs of his household. A

reasonable compensation allowed. Good reference required, _the

applicant to have no incumbrances_. Apply at this office, for the

address, &c."

The eager smile, that seemed to warm the wan features of the widow, as

she glanced over the advertisement, was dimmed and darkened, as the

shining river of summer is shadowed by the heavy passing cloud, when she

came to the chilling words--_the applicant to have no incumbrances_.

"No incumbrances," moaned the widow, "shall none but God deign to smile

or have mercy on the helpless orphans; are they to be feared, shunned,

hated, because helpless? Must they perish--die with me

alone--struggling against our woes, poverty, wretchedness? No! I know

there is a God, he is good, powerful, merciful; he will turn the hearts

of some towards the widow and the orphan; and though basilisk-like words

warn me to hope not, I will apply--I will attempt to win attention,

work, slave, toil, toil, toil, until my poor hands shall wear to the

bone, and my eyes no longer do their office--if he will only have mercy,

pity for my poor, poor orphans--God bless them!" and in melting

tenderness and emotion, the poor woman dropped her face upon her lap and

wept--her tears were the showers of hope, to the almost parched soil of

her heart, and as the gentle dews of heaven fall to the earth, so fell

the widow's tears in balmy freshness upon her visions of a brighter

something--in the future.

It was yet early in the evening; her children slept; the poor woman put

on her bonnet and shawl, and started at once for the office of the

_news_paper. The publisher was just closing his sanctum, but he gave the

information the widow required, and favorably impressed with Mrs.

Glenn's appearance and manner, the publisher, a quaker, interrogated her

on various points of her present condition, prospects, &c.; and

observed, that but for her children, he had no doubt of the widow's

suiting the old man exactly.

"But thee must not be neglected, or discarded from honest industry,

because of thy responsibilities, which God hath given thee," said the

quaker. "If thy lad is stout of his age, and a good boy, I will provide

for him; he may learn our business, and be off thy charge, and thee may

be enabled to keep thy two female children about thee."

On the following Monday, the widow signified her intention of writing a

few lines as an applicant for the situation of housekeeper, and

afterwards to consult with the publisher in regard to her boy, Martin,

and then bidding the courteous quaker farewell, she sought her humble

domicil, with a much lighter heart than she had lately carried from her

distressed and lonely home.

In an ancient part of the Quaker city, facing the broad and beautiful

Delaware river, stood a venerable mansion; but few of this class now

remain in Philadelphia, and the one of which we now speak, but recently

passed away, in the great conflagration that visited the city in 1850.

In this substantial and stately brick edifice, lived one of the wealthy

and retired ship brokers of Quakerdom. He was very wealthy, very

eccentric, very good-hearted, but passionate, plethoric, gouty, and

seventy years of age. Mr. Job Carson had lived long and seen much; he

had been so engrossed in clearing his fortune, that from twenty-five to

forty, he had not bethought him of that almost indispensable appendage

to a man's comfort in this world--a wife. He was the next ten years

considering the matter over, and then, having built and furnished

himself a costly mansion, which he peopled with servants, headed by a

maiden sister as housekeeper, Job thought, upon the whole--to which his

sister added her strong consent--that matrimony would greatly increase

his cares, and perhaps add more _noise_ and confusion to his household,

than it might counterbalance or offset by probable comfort in "wedded

happiness," so temptingly set forth to old bachelors.

"No," said Job, at fifty, "I'll not marry, not trade off my single

blessedness yet; at least, there's time enough, there's women enough;

I'm young, hale, hearty, in the prime of life; no, I'll not give up the

ship to woman yet."

Another ten years rolled along, and the thing turned up in the retired

merchant's mind again--he was now sixty, and one, at least, of the

objections to his entering the wedded state, removed--for a man at sixty

is scarcely too young to marry, surely.

"Ah, it's all up," quoth Job Carson. "I'm spoiled now. I've had my own

way so long, I could not think of surrendering to petticoats, turning

my house into a nursery, and turning my back on the joys, quiet and

comforts of bachelorhood. No, no, Job Carson--matrimony be hanged.

You'll none of it." And so ten years more passed--now age and luxury do

their work.

"O, that infernal twinge in my toe. _O_, there it is again--hang the

goat, it can't be gout. Dr. Bleedem swears I'm getting the gout.

Blockhead--none of my kith or kin ever had such an infernal complaint.

O, ah-h-h, that infernal window must be sand-bagged, given me this pain

in the back, and--Banquo! Where the deuce is that nigger--Banquo-o-o!"

"Yis, massa, here I is," said a good-natured, fat, black and

sleek-looking old darkey, poking his shining, grinning face into the old

gentleman's study, sitting, playing or smoking room.

"Here you are? Where? You black sarpint, come here; go to Jackplane, the

carpenter, and tell him to come here and make my sashes tight, d'ye

hear?"

"Yis, massa, dem's 'em; I'se off."

"No, you ain't--come here, Banquo, you woolly son of Congo, you; go open

my liquor case, bring the brandy and some cool water. There, now clear

yourself."

"Yis, massa, I'se gone, dis time--"

"No, you ain't, come back; go to old Joe Winepipes, and tell him I send

my compliments to him, and if he wants to continue that game of chess,

let him come over this afternoon, d'ye hear?"

"Yis, massa, dem's 'em, I'se gone dis time--_shuah!_"

"Well, away with you."

Old Job Carson was yet a rugged looking old gentleman. He had survived

nearly all his "blood, kith and kin;" his sister had paid the last debt

of nature some months before, and in hopes of finding some one to fill

her station, in his domestic concerns, his advertisement had appeared

in the _Weekly Bulletin_.

"Ah, me, it's no use crying about spilt milk," sighed the old gent over

his glass. "I suppose I've been a fool; out-lived everybody, everything

useful to me. Made a fortune _first_, nobody to spend it _last_. Yes,

yes," continued the old man, in a thoughtful strain, "old Job Carson

will soon slip off the handle; 'poor old devil,' some bloodsucker may

say, as he grabs Job's worldly effects, 'he's gone, had a hard scrabble

to get together these things, and now, we'll pick his bones.' Well, let

'em, let 'em; serves me right; ought to have known it before, but blast

and rot 'em, if they only enjoy the pillage as much as I did the

struggles to keep it together, why, a--it will be about an even thing

with us, after all."

"Yis, massa, here I is," chuckled Banquo, again putting his black bullet

pate in at the door.

"You are, eh? Well, clear yourself--no, come back; go down to Oatmeal's

store, and tell him to let old Mrs. Dougherty, and the old blind man,

and the sailor's wife, and--and--the rest of them, have their groceries,

again, this week--only another week, mind, for I'm not going to support

the whole neighborhood any longer--tell him so."

"Yis, massa, I'se gone."

"Wait, come here, Banquo; well, never mind--clear out."

But Banquo returned in a moment, saying:

"Dar's a lady at the doo-ah, sah; says she wants to see you, sah, 'bout

'ticlar business, sah."

"Is, eh? Well, call her into the parlor, I'll be down--ah-h, that

infernal _twinge_ again, ah-h-h-h, ah-h! What a stupid ass a man is to

hang around in this world until he's a nuisance to himself and every

body else!" grunted old Job, as he groped his way down stairs, and into

the parlor.

"Good morning, ma'am," said he, as he confronted the widow, who, in

the utmost taste of simple neatness, had arranged her spare dress, to

meet the umpire of her future fate.

Mrs. Glenn respectfully acknowledged the salutation, and at once opened

her business to the bluff old man.

"Yes, yes; I'm a poor, unfortunate creature, ma'am; I'm nothing, nobody,

any more. I want somebody to see that I'm not robbed, or poisoned, and

that I may have a bed to lie upon, and a clean piece of linen to my back

occasionally, and a--that's all I want, ma'am."

The widow feigned to hope she knew the duties of a housekeeper, and

situated as she was, it was a labor of love to work--toil, for those

misfortune had placed in her charge.

"Eh? what's that--haven't got _incumbrances_, have you, ma'am?"

"I have three children, sir," meekly said the widow.

"Three children?" gruffly responded the old gentleman; "ah, umph, what

business have you, ma'am, with three children?"

[Illustration: "Three children?" gruffly responded the old gentleman.

"Ah, umph, what business have you, ma'am, with three

children?"--_Page_ 393.]

The widow, not apparently able to answer such a poser, the old gentleman

continued:

"Poor widows, poor people of any kind, have no business with

_incumbrances_, ma'am; no excuse at all, ma'am, for 'em."

"So, alas!" said Mrs. Glenn, "I find the world too--too much inclined to

reason; but I shall trust to the mercy and providence of the Lord, if

denied the kind feelings of mortals."

"Ah, yes, yes, that's it, ma'am; it's all very fine, ma'am; but too many

poor, foolish creatures get themselves in a scrape, then depend upon the

Lord to help 'em out. This shifting the responsibility to the shoulders

of the Lord isn't right. I don't wonder the Lord shuts his ears to half

he's asked to do, ma'am."

"Well, sir, I thought I would _call_, though I feared my children would

be an objection to--"

"Yes, yes,--I don't want incumbrances, ma'am."

"But I--I a--"--the widow's heart was too full for utterance; she moved

towards the door. "Good morning, sir."

"Stop, come back, ma'am, sit down; it's a pity--you've no business,

ma'am, as I said before, to have incumbrances, when you haven't got any

visible means of support. Now, if you only had one, one incumbrance--and

that you'd no business to have"--said the old gent, doggedly, tapping an

antique tortoise-shell snuff box, and applying "the pungent grains of

titillating dust," as Pope observes, to his proboscis, "if you had only

_one_ incumbrance--but you've got a house full, ma'am."

"No, sir, only three!" answered widow Glenn.

"Three, only three? God bless me, ma'am, I wouldn't be a poor woman with

two--no, with one incumbrance at my petticoat tails--for the biggest

ship and cargo old Steve Girard ever owned, ma'am."

"I might," meekly said the widow, "put my son with the printer, sir; he

has offered to take my poor boy."

"Two girls and a boy?" inquiringly asked the old gent, applying the

dust, and manipulating his box. "How old? Eldest thirteen, eh?--boy

eleven, and the youngest seven, eh?" and working a traverse, or solving

some problematic point, Job Carson stuck his hands under his morning

gown, and strode over the floor; after a few evolutions of the kind, he

stopped--fumbled in a drawer of a secretary, and placing a ten dollar

note in the widow's hand, he said:

"There, ma'am; I don't know that I shall want you, but to-morrow

morning, if you have time, from other and more important business, call

in, bring your children with you; good morning, ma'am--Banquo!"

"Yis, sah; I'se heah."

"Show the lady out--good morning, ma'am, good morning."

"I like that woman's looks," said old Job, continuing his walk; "she's

plain and tidy; she's industrious, I'll warrant; if she only hadn't that

raft of _incumbrances_; what do these people have incumbrances for,

anyway?--"

"Lady at the doo-ah, sah," said Banquo.

"Show her in. Good morning, ma'am; Banquo, a seat for the lady; yes,

ma'am, I did; I want a housekeeper. I advertised for one. How many

servants do I keep? Well, ma'am, I keep as many as I want. Have

visitors? Of course I have. What and where are _my rooms_? Why, madam, I

own the house, every brick and lath in it. I go to bed, and get up, and

go round; come in and out, when I feel like it. What church do I worship

in? I've assisted in _building_ a number, own a half of one, and a third

of several; but, ma'am, between you and I--I don't want to be rude to a

lady, ma'am, but I _do_ think, this examination ain't to my liking--you

don't think the place would suit you, eh? Well, I think _your ladyship_

wouldn't suit _me_, ma'am, so I'll bid your ladyship good morning," said

old Job, bowing very obsequiously to the stiff-starched and acrimonious

dame, who, returning the old gentleman's _bow_ with the same "high

pressure" order, seized her skirts in one hand, and agitating her fan

with the other, she stepped out, or _finikined_ along to the hall door,

and as Banquo flew around, and put on the _extras_ to let her ladyship

out, she gave the darkey a pat on the head with her fan, and looking

crab-apples at the poor negro, she rushed down the steps and

disappeared.

"Tank you, ma'am; come again, eb you please--of'n!" said the pouting

negro.

"Yes, sah; here's nudder lady, sah," says Banquo, ushering in a rather

ruddy, jolly-looking and perfectly-at-home daughter of the "gim o' the

sae." The old gentleman eyed her liberal proportions; consulting his

snuff-box, he answered "yes" to the woman's inquiry, if _he_ was the

gintleman wanting the housekeeper.

"Did you read my advertisement, ma'am?"

"Me rade it? Not I, faix. Mr. Mullony, our landlord, was saying till

us--"

"Are you married, too?"

"Married _two_? Do I look like a woman as would marry two? No, _sur_;

I'm a dacent woman, sur; my name is Hannah Geaughey, Jimmy Geaughey's my

husband, sur; he, poor man, wrought in the board-yard till he was _sun

sthruck_, by manes of falling from a cuart, sur."

"Well, ma'am, that will do, I'm sorry for your husband--one dollar,

there it is; you wouldn't suit me at all; good morning, ma'am. Banquo,

show the good woman to the door."

"But, sur, I want the place!"

"I don't want _you_--good morning."

"Dis way, ma'am," said Banquo, marshalling the woman to the hall.

"Stand away, ye nager; it's your masther I'm spakin' wid."

"Go along, go along, woman, go, go, _go!_" roared the old gent.

"But, as I was saying, Mr. Mullony said--says he--who the divil you

push'n, you black nager?" said the woman, grabbing Banquo's woolly

top-knot.

"Dis way, ma'am," persevered Banquo, quartering towards the door.

"Mr. Mullony was sayin', sur--"

"Dis way, ma'am," continued the darkey, crowding Mrs. Geaughey, while

his master was gesticulating furiously to keep on _crowding_ her.

Finally, Banquo vanquished the Irish woman, and received orders from his

master to admit no more applicants--the place was filled.

That afternoon, old Captain Winepipes--a retired merchant and

ship-master, an old bachelor, too, who was in the habit of exchanging

visits with Job Carson, sipping brandy and water, talking over old times

and playing chess--came to finish a litigated game, and Job and he

discussed the matter of taking care of the widow and children of the

dead ship-builder. At length, it was settled that, if the second

interview with the widow, and an exhibition of her children, proved

satisfactory to Job Carson, he should take them in; if found more than

Job could attend to--

"Why a--I'll go you halves, Job," said Captain Winepipes.

Next day, Widow Glenn and her pretty children appeared at the door of

Carson's mansion; and Banquo, full of pleasant anticipations, ushered

them into the retired merchant's presence.

It was evident, at the first glance the old gentleman gave the group,

that the battle was more than half won.

"Fine boy, that; come here, sir--eleven years of age, eh? Your name's

Martin--Martin Glenn, eh? Well, Martin, my lad, you've got a big world

before you--a fussing, fuming world, not worth finding out, not worth

the powder that would blow it up. You've got to take your position in

the ranks, too, mean and contemptible as they are; but you may make a

good man; if the world don't benefit you, why a--you can benefit it;

that's the way I've done--been obliged to do it, ain't sorry for it,

neither," said the old man, with evident emotion.

"Your name is Cynthia, eh? And you are a fine grown girl for your age,

surely. Cynthia, you'll soon be capable of 'keeping house,' too; you've

got a world before you, too, my dear; a wicked, scandalous world; a

world full of deceit and _misery_--look at your mother, look at me! Ah,

well, it's all our own fault; yours, madam, for having these--these

_incumbrances_, and mine, poor devil--for not having 'em. Cynthia,

you're a fine girl; a good girl, I know. Ah, here's mamma's pet, I

suppose; Rose Glenn, very pretty name, pretty girl, too, very pretty.

Lips and cheeks like cherries, eyes brighter than Brazil diamonds.

Ma'am, you've got great treasures here; a man must be a stupid ass to

call these _incumbrances_. They are jewels of inestimable value. What's

my filthy bank accounts, dollars and cents, houses, goods and chattels,

that fire may destroy, and thieves steal--to these blessings that--that

God has given the lone widow to strengthen her--cheer her in the dark

path of life? God is great, generous, and just; I see it now, plainer

than I ever did before. Banquo!"

"Yis'r, I'se here, massa."

"Go tell Counsellor Prime to call on me immediately; tell Captain

Winepipes to come over--I want to see him. I'm going to make a fool of

myself, I believe."

"Yes, sah, I'se gone; gorry, I guess dere's suffin gwoin to happen to

dat lady and dem chil'ns--shuah!" said Banquo, rushing out of the house.

The fate of the ship-builder's family was fixed. Job Carson

proposed--and the widow, of course, consented--that Martin Glenn should

become the adopted son of the old gentleman, Job Carson; and that he

should choose a trade or profession, which he should then, or later,

learn, making the old gentleman's house as much his home as

circumstances would permit; the two girls were to remain under the same

roof with the mother, who was at once installed as housekeeper for the

bluff and generous old gentleman.

Old Captain Winepipes insisted on a share in the settlement, to wit:

that both girls should be educated at his expense, which was finally

acceded to, adding, that in case he--Captain Joseph Winepipes--should

live to see Rose Glenn a bride, he should provide for her wedding, and

give her a dowry.

"Set that down in black and white, Mr. Prime," said Job, "and that I,

Job Carson, do agree, should I live to see Cynthia Glenn a wife, to give

her a comfortable start in the world--set that down, for I will do it,

yes, I will," said the old gent, with an emphatic rap on his snuff-box.

* * * * *

Ten years passed away; Captain Winepipes has paid the debt of nature; he

did not live to see Rose Glenn a wife; but, nevertheless, he left a

clause in his will, that fully carried out his expressed intentions when

Rose did marry, some two years after she arrived at the age of sweet

seventeen. Martin Glenn Carson graduated in the printing office, and

very recently filled one of the most important stations in the judiciary

of Illinois, as well as a chivalrous part in the recent war with Mexico.

Cynthia was wedded to a well known member of the Philadelphia bar, an

event that Job Carson barely lived to see, and, as he agreed to, donated

a sum, quite munificent, towards making things agreeable in the progress

of her married life. Widow Glenn remained a faithful servant and friend

to the old merchant, and, upon his death, she became heir to the family

mansion, and means to keep it up at the usual bountiful rate. Large

bequests were made in Job Carson's will, to charitable institutes, but

the bulk of his fortune fell to his adopted son, Martin, who proved not

unworthy of his good fortune. Banquo ended his days in the service of

the widow, who had cause for and took pleasure in blessing the vehicle

that conveyed to herself and orphans their rare good fortune, in guise

of a NEWSPAPER ADVERTISEMENT.

Incidents in a Fortune-Hunter's Life.

We do not now recollect what philosopher it was who said, "it's no

disgrace to be poor, but it's often confoundedly unhandy!" But, we have

little or no sympathy for poor folks, who, ashamed of their poverty,

make as many and tortuous writhings to escape its inconveniences, as

though it was "against the law" to be poor. It is the cause of

incalculable human misery, to _seem_ what we are _not_; to appear beyond

_want_--yea, even in affluence and comfort, when the belly is robbed to

clothe the back--the inner man crucified to make the outside _lie_ you

through the world, or into--genteel "society." This, though abominable,

is common, and leads to innumerable ups and downs, crime and fun, in

this old world that we temporarily inhabit.

Choosing rather to give our life pictures a familiar and diverting--and

certainly none the less instructive garb--than to hunt up misery, and

depict the woeful tragics of our existence, we will give the facts of a

case--not uncommon, we ween, either, that came to us from a friend of

one of the parties.

In most cities--especially, perhaps, in Baltimore and Washington, are

any quantity of decayed families; widows and orphans of men--who, while

blessed with oxygen and hydrogen sufficient to keep them healthy and

active--held offices, or such positions in the business world as enabled

them and their families to carry pretty stiff necks, high heads, and go

into what is called "good society;" meaning of course where good

furniture garnishes good finished domiciles, good carpets, good rents,

good dinners, and where good clothes are exhibited--but where good

intentions, good manners and morals are mostly of no great importance.

As, in most all such cases, when, by some fortuitous accident, the head

of the family collapses, or dies,--the reckless regard for society

having led to the squandering of the income, fast or faster than it

came, the poor family is driven by the same society, so coveted, to hide

away--move off, and by a thousand dodges of which wounded pride is

capable, work their way through the world, under tissues of false

pretences; at once ludicrous and pitiable. Such a family we have in

view. Colonel Somebody held a lucrative office under government, in the

city of Washington. Colonel Somebody, one day, very unexpectedly, died.

There was nothing mysterious in that, but the Somebodies having always

cut quite a swell in the "society" of the capital--which society, let us

tell you, is of the most fluctuating, tin-foil and ephemeral character;

it was by some considered strange, that as soon as Colonel Somebody had

been decently buried in his grave, his family at once made a sale of

their most expensive furniture--the horses, carriage, and man-servant

disappeared, and the Somebodies apprized society that they were going

north, to reside upon an estate of the Colonel's in New York. And so

they vanished. Whither they went or how they fared society did not know,

and society did not care!

Mrs. Somebody had two daughters and a son, the eldest twenty-three,

_confessedly_, and the youngest, the son, seventeen. Marriages, in such

society, floating and changing as it does in Washington, are not

frequent, and less happy or prosperous when effected; every body,

inclined to become acquainted, or form matrimonial connections, are ever

on the alert for something or somebody better than themselves; and under

such circumstances, naturally enough, Miss Alice Somebody--though a

pretty girl--talented, as the world goes, highly educated, too, as many

hundreds beside her, was still a spinster at twenty-three. The fact was,

Mrs. Somebody was a woman of experience in the world--indeed, a dozen

years' experience in life at Washington, had given her very definite

ideas of expediency and diplomacy; and hence, as the means were cut off

to live in their usual style and expensiveness--Mrs. Somebody packed up

and retired to Baltimore. The son soon found an occupation in a

store--the daughter, being a woman of taste and education, resorted

to--as a matter of _diversion_--they could not think of earning a

living, of course!--the needle--while Mrs. Somebody arranged a pair of

neat apartments, for two "gentlemen of unexceptionable reference," as

boarders.

During their palmy days at the capital of the nation, Miss Alice

Somebody came in contact with a young gentleman named Rhapsody,--of

pleasant and respectable demeanor, _an office-holder_, but not high up

enough to suit the tastes and aims of Colonel Somebody and his lady; and

so, our friend Rhapsody stood little or no chance for favor or

preferment in the graces of Miss Alice, though he was a recognized

visitor at the Colonel's house, and essayed to make an impression upon

the heart's affections of the Colonel's daughter.

Time fled, and with its fleetings came those changes in the fates and

fortunes of the Somebodies, we have noted. Nor was our friend Rhapsody

without his changes,--mutations of fortune, a change of government, made

changes. Rhapsody one morning was not as much surprised as mortified to

find his "services no longer required," as a new hand was awaiting his

withdrawal. Rhapsody, true to custom at the capital--lived up to and

ahead of his salary; and, when deposed, deemed it prudent to make his

exit from a spot no longer likely to be favorable to the self-respect or

personal comfort of a man bereft of power, and without patronage or

position. Rhapsody, by trade (luckily he had a trade), was a boot-maker.

Start not, reader, at the idea; we know "shoemaker" may have a tendency

to shock some people, whose moral and mental culture has been sadly

neglected, or quite perverted; but Rhapsody was but a boot-maker, and no

doubt quite as gentlemanly--physically and mentally considered, as the

many thousands who merely _wear_ boots, for the luxury of which they are

indebted to the skill, labor and industry of others. Rhapsody came down

gracefully, and quite as manfully, to his level, only changing the scene

of his endeavors to the city of monuments. Rhapsody had feelings--pride.

He sought obscurity, in which he might perform the necessary labors of

his craft, to enable him to keep his head above water, and await that

tide in the affairs of men, when perhaps he might again be drifted to

fortune and favor.

Rhapsody took lodgings in a respectable hotel; he arose late--took

breakfast, read the news--smoked--lounged--dressed, and went through the

ordinary evolutions of a gentleman of leisure, until he dined at 3 P.

M.; then, by a circuitous way, he proceeded to his shop--put on his

working attire, and went at it faithfully, until midnight, when, having

accomplished his maximum of toil, he re-dressed--walked to his

hotel--talked politics--fashions, etc., took his glass of wine with a

friend, and very quietly retired; to rise on the morrow, and go through

the same routine from day to day, only varying it a little by an eye to

an eligible marriage, or a place.

Rhapsody--we must give him the credit of the fact--from no mawkish

feeling of his own, but from force of public opinion, resorted to this

secret manner of eking out his daily bread, and acting out his part of

the fictitious gentleman. During one of his morning

lounges--accidentally, Rhapsody met Miss Somebody in the street. They

had not met for some few years, and it may not be troublesome to

conceive, that Miss Alice--under the new order of things--was more

pleased than otherwise to renew the acquaintance of other days, with a

gentleman still supposed to be--and his attire and manner surely gave

no sign of an altered state of affairs--in a position recognizable by

society.

Rhapsody renewed his attentions to the Somebody family, and Miss Alice

in particular--with fervor. He admitted himself no longer an _attache_

of government, but offset the deprivation of government patronage, by

asserting that he was graduating for a higher sphere in life than the

drudgery and abjectness of a clerkship--he was studying political

economy, and the learned profession of the law!

The Somebodies were _game_; not a concession would they make to stern

indigence; it was merely for the sake of quietude, said Mrs. Somebody,

and the solace of retirement from the gay and tempestuous whirls of

society, that _we_ changed the scene and dropped a peg lower in domestic

show. Rhapsody believed Colonel Somebody a man of substance. He knew how

easy it was to account for the expenditure of fifteen hundred dollars a

year, but it did not so readily appear possible for a man holding the

Colonel's place and perquisites, some thousands a year, to die poor,

without estate; ergo, the Somebodies were still, doubtless, _somebody_,

and the more the infatuated Rhapsody dwelt upon it, the more he absorbed

the idea of forming an alliance with the dead Colonel's family. And the

favor with which he was received seemed to facilitate matters as

desirably as could be wished for. What airy castles, or gossamer

projects may have haunted the fancy of our sanguine friend, Rhapsody, we

know not; but that he whacked away more cheerily at his trade, and kept

up his appearances spiritedly, was evident enough. An expert and

artistic craftsman, he secured paying work, and executed it to the

satisfaction of his employers.

The industry of the Somebodies was one of the traits in the characters

of the two young women, particularly commendatory to Rhapsody; he

seldom paid them a morning or afternoon call, that they were not

diligently engaged with needles and Berlin wool--fashioning wrought

suspenders for brother, slippers for brother, or mother, or sister, or

the Rev. Mr. So-and-So--the recently made inmate of the family. The

multiplicity of such performances, for brother, mother, sister, the

reverend gentleman--_mere pastime_, as Mrs. Somebody would remark,--most

probably would have caused a mystery or misgiving in the minds of many

adventurous _Lotharios_; but Rhapsody, though, as we see, a man of the

world, had something yet to learn of society and its complexities.

Things progressed smoothly--the reverend gentleman facetiously cajoled

Miss Alice and the mother upon the issue of coming events--the lively

young lawyer, etc., etc.,--and it seemed to be a settled matter that

Miss Alice was to be the bride of Mr. Rhapsody at last.

Rhapsody, usually, after dark, in the evening, in his laboring garments,

made his return of work and received more. Whilst thus out, one evening,

on business, in making a sudden turn of a corner, he came plump upon

Mrs. Somebody and Alice! Rhapsody would have dashed down a cellar--into

a shop--up an alley, or sunk through the footwalk, had any such

opportunity offered, but there was none--he was there--beneath the flame

of a street lamp, with the eagle eyes of all the party upon him! Cut off

from retreat, he boldly faced the enemy!

He was going to a political caucus meeting in a noisy and turbulent

ward--apprehended a disturbance--donned those shady habiliments, and the

large green bag in his hand, that a--well, though it did not seem to

contain such goods, was supposed, for the nonce, to contain his books

and papers; documents he was likely to have use for at the caucus!

Rhapsody got through--it was a tight shave; he dexterously declined

accompanying the ladies home--they were rather queerly attired

themselves, it occurred to Rhapsody; they made some excuse for their

appearance, and so the maskers _quit, even_. Time passed on--Alice and

Rhapsody had almost climaxed the preparatory negotiations of an hymenial

conclusion, when another _contretemps_ came to pass--it was the grand

finale.

It was on a rather blustery night, that Rhapsody, in haste, sought the

shop of his employer; he had work in hand which, being ordered done at a

certain hour, for an anxious customer, he was in haste to deliver. His

green bag under his arm, in rushed Rhapsody,--the servant of the

customer was awaiting the arrival of the _bottier_ and his master's

boots. The shopman eagerly seized Rhapsody's verdant-colored satchel,

and out came the boots, and which underwent many critical inspections,

eliciting sundry professional remarks from the shopman, to our hero,

Rhapsody, who, in his business matters had assumed, it appeared, the

more humble name of _Mr. Jones_, in the shop. The customer's servant

stood by the counter--fencing off a lady, further on--from immediate

notice of Rhapsody. A side glance revealed sundry patterns or specimens

of most elegantly-wrought slippers--the boss of the shop, and the lady,

were apparently negotiating a trade, in these embroidered articles; the

lady, now but a few feet from Rhapsody and the garrulous shopman, turned

toward the poor fellow just as the shopman had stuffed more work into

the green bag--their eyes met. Rhapsody felt an all-overish sensation

peculiar to that experienced by an amateur in a shower bath, during his

first _douse_, or the incipient criminal detected in his initiatory

crime! Poor Rhapsody felt like fainting, while Miss Alice Somebody,

without the nerve to gather up her work, or withstand a further test of

the force of circumstances, precipitately left the store, her face red

as scarlet, and her demeanor wild and incomprehensible, at least to all

but Rhapsody.

* * * * *

Rhapsody was at breakfast the next morning--a servant announced a

gentleman in the parlor desirous of an interview with Mr. Rhapsody--it

was granted, and soon _Jones_, the _boot-maker_, confronted the Rev. Mr.

So-and-So. Though an inclination to _smile_ played about the pleasant

features of the reverend gentleman, he assumed to be severe upon what he

called the duplicity of Mr. Rhapsody; and that gentleman patiently

hearing the story out, quietly asked:

"Are you, sir, here as an accuser--denouncer, or an ambassador of peace

and good will?"

"The latter, sir, is my self-constituted mission," said the reverend

gentleman.

"Then," said Rhapsody, "I am ready to make all necessary concessions--a

clean breast of it, you may say. I am in a false position--struggling

against public opinion--false pride--falsely, and yet honestly, working

my way through the world. I am no more nor less, nominally, than _Jones,

the boot-maker_. Now," continued Rhapsody, "if a false purpose covers

not a false heart also, I can yet be happy in the affections of Miss

Somebody, and she in mine. For those who can battle as we have, against

the common chances of indigence, upright and alone in our integrity, may

surely yet win greater rewards by mutual consolation and support, our

fortunes joined."

"I have not been mistaken, then, sir," said the reverend gentleman, "in

your character, if I was in your occupation; and you may rely upon my

friendly service in an amicable and definite arrangement of this very

delicate matter."

* * * * *

When General Harrison took the "chair of state," our friend Rhapsody was

reinstated in his place, occupied years before, and by fortuitous

circumstances he got still higher--an appointment of trust connected

with a handsome salary; so that Jones, the boot-maker, was enabled to

re-enter the Somebodies into the gay and fluctuating society at the

national capital, from which they had been so unceremoniously driven by

the death of the husband and father. Mrs. Somebody, that was, however,

is now a much older and much wiser person, the wife of our ministerial

friend, who vouches the difficulty he had in overcoming Mrs. Somebody's

repugnance to leather--and for sundry quibbles--yea, strong arguments

against any blood of hers ever uniting with the fates and fortunes of a

boot-maker; with what _propriety_, her experience has long since taught

her. Alice is the happiest of women, mother of many fine children, the

wife of a man poverty could not corrupt, if public opinion forced him to

mask the means that gave him bread. Rhapsody is no longer a politician,

or office-holder, but engaged in lucrative pursuits that yield comfort

and position in society. To relate the trials, courtship and marriage of

"Jones, the boot-maker," is one of our friend Rhapsody's standing jokes,

to friends at the fireside and dinner table; but that such a safe and

happy tableau would again befall parties so circumstanced, is a very

material question; and the moral of our story, being rather complex,

though very definite, we leave to society, and you, reader, to

determine.

A Distinction with a Difference.

A gentleman from "out 'town," came into Redding & Co.'s on Christmas

day, and leaning thoughtfully over the counter, says he to Prescott,

"Got any Psalms here?"

"N-n-no," says Prescott, reflectingly, "but," he continued, after a

moment's pause, and handing down a copy of Hood, "here's plenty of old

Joe's!"

The out-of-town gentleman gave a glance at _the pictures_, and with a

countenance indicative of having been tasting a crab-apple--left!

Pills and Persimmons.

I remember an old "Joke" told me by my father, of an old, and rather

addle-headed gentleman, who some fifty years ago did business in New

Castle, Delaware, and having occasion to send out to England for

hardware, wrote his order, and as he was about to despatch it to the

captain of the ship, lying in the stream, ready for sea, a neighbor got

him to add an order for some kegs of nails, and in the hurry, the old

man dashed off his _P. S._, but upon attempting to read the whole order

over, he couldn't make head or tail of it.

"Well," says he, in a flurry, "I'll send it, just as it is; they are

better scholars in England than I am--_they'll make it out_."

Strange enough to say, when the hardware came over, among the rest of

the stuff were the so many kegs of nails, but upon opening one of these

kegs, it was full, or nearly so, of American quarter dollars. The old

man roared out in a [word missing].

"Haw! haw! haw! Well, blast me," says he, "if _they_ ain't scholars,

fust-rate scholars, in England; _it's worth while sending 'em bad

manuscript_."

A still more comical mistake is related to us, of a commercial

transaction that actually took place within a year or two, between

parties severally situated in Boston and the city of San Francisco,

California. As we consider the whole transaction rather _rich_, we

transcribe it for the diversion it may furnish.

Simmons, the "Oak Hall" man, of Boston, had set up a shop in San

Francisco, to which he was almost daily sending all sorts of cheap

clothing, and making, on the same, more money than a horse could pull;

and in his package, he was in the habit of sending articles for friends,

&c. A gentleman recently gone to the gold country, from Boston,

acquainted with Simmons, and Simmons with him, found, upon looking

around San Francisco, that his own business, _lawing_, wasn't worth two

cents, as many of his craft were turning their attention to matters more

useful to the human family--digging cellars, wheeling baggage, driving

teams, &c. So lawyer Bunker _turned_ his attention from Blackstone,

Chitty, Coke on Littleton, and those fellows of deep-red, blue-black

law, to the manufacture of quack nostrums. Bunker found that the great

appetite we Yankees have for quack medicines, pills and powders,

suffered no diminution in the gold country; on the contrary, the

appetite became rather sharpened for those luxuries, and Bunker found

that a New York butcher, with whom he became acquainted, was absolutely

making his fortune, by the manufacture of dough pills, spiced with

coriander, and a slight tincture of calomel.

"Egad!" says Bunker, "_I'll_ go into medicine. I'll write to a friend in

Boston, to send me _out_ a few medicine and receipt books, and a lot of

pulverized liquorice, quinine, &c., with a pill machine, and I guess

I'll be after my New York butchering friend in a double brace of

shakes."

Now, it may be premised that as Bunker was a lawyer, he wrote a

first-rate hand; in fact, he might have bragged of being able to equal,

if not surpass, the "Hon." Rufus Choate, whose scrawl more resembles the

scratchings of a poor half-drowned in an ink-saucer spider, meandering

over foolscap, than quill-driving, and as unintelligible as the marks of

a tea-box or hieroglyphics on the sarcophagus of ye ancient Egyptians!

In short, Counsellor Bunker's manuscript was awful; a few of his most

intimate friends, only, pretending to have the hang of it at all; and to

one of these friends, Bunker directs his message, transmits it by Uncle

Sam's mail _poche_, and in fever heat he awaits the return of the

precious combustibles that were to make his fortune. In course of time,

Bunker's friends receive the order, but, alas! it was all Greek to them;

they cyphered in vain, to make out any thing in the letters except

_persimmons_.

"What the deuce," says one of Bunker's friends, "does Joe want with

persimmons?"

They went at it again, and again, but there was no mistaking the final

sentence, "_send, without delay, persimmons_."

"Persimmons?" said one.

"Persimmons?" echoed another.

"Persimmons? What in thunder does Joe Bunker want with _persimmons_?"

responded a third.

"Persimmons!" all three chimed.

"Persimmons," says one, "are not used in law proceedings, anyhow."

"Nor in gospel, even, provided Joe has got into that," responded

another.

"Persimmons are not medicinal."

"They are not chemical."

"Persimmons are no part, or ingredient, in art, science, law, or

religion; now, for what does Joe Bunker, counsellor at law, want us to

forward, without delay, _persimmons_?"

Well, they couldn't tell; in vain they reasoned. Joe's letter was very

brief, strictly to the point, and that point was--_persimmons!_ In the

first place, it is not everybody that knows exactly what persimmons are,

where they come from, and what they are good for. One of Bunker's

friends had lived in the South; he knew persimmons; it occurred to him

that possums, and some human beings, especially the colored pop'lation,

were the only critters particularly fond of the fruit. Webster was

consulted, to see what light he cast upon the matter: he informed them

that "_Persimmon_ was a tree, and its fruit, a species of _Diospyros_, a

native of the States south of New York. Fruit like a plum, and when not

ripe, very hard and astringent (rather so), but when ripe, luscious and

highly nutritious."

"Well, there," said one of Bunker's friends, "I'll bet Joe's sick;

persimmons have been prescribed for his cure, and the sooner we send the

persimmons the better!"

"Persimmons! Now I come to think of it," says the man who had a faint

idea of what persimmons were, "they make beer, first-rate beer of

persimmons, in the South, and it's my opinion, that Joe Bunker is going

into persimmon beer business; as you say, he _may be_ sick--persimmon

beer may be the California cure-all; in either case, let us forward the

persimmons without delay!"

Now persimmons never ripen until _touched_ pretty smartly with Jack

Frost. This was in September; persimmons were mostly full grown, but not

ripe. A large keg of them was ordered from Jersey, and as fast as Adams

& Co.'s great Express to San Francisco could take them out, _the

persimmons went!_

Counsellor Bunker, relying upon his friends to forward without delay the

tools and remedial agents to make his fortune in the pill business, went

to work, got him an office, changed his name, and added an M. D. to it,

had a sign painted, advertised his shop, and informed the public that on

such a time he would open, and guarantee to cure all ills, from lumbago

to liver complaint, from toothache to lock-jaw, spring fever to yaller

janders, and in his enthusiasm, he sat down with a ream of paper, to

count up the profits, and calculate the time it would take to get his

pile of gold dust and start for home.

The day arrived that Doctor Phlebotonizem was to open, and he found

customers began to _call_, and sure enough, in comes a large keg, direct

through from the States, to his address; the freight bill on it was

pretty considerable, but Joe out and paid it, rejoicing to think that

now he was all right, and that if the proprietors of gold dust and the

lumbago, or any of the various ills set forth in his catalogue of human

woes, had spare change, he would soon find them out. He closed his door,

opened his cask--

"What in the name of everlasting sin and misery is this?" was the first

_burst_, upon feeling the fine saw dust, and seeing, nicely packed, the

green and purple, round and glossy--he couldn't tell what.

"Pills? No, good gracious, they can't be _pills_--smell queer--some

mistake--can't be any mistake--my name on the cask--(tastes one of the

'article')--O! by thunder! (tastes again)--I'm blasted, they (tastes

again) are, by Jove, _persimmons!_ Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! he! he!

ha! ha! ha!"

And the ex-counsellor of modern law roared until he grew livid in the

face.

"I see--ha! ha! I see; they have misunderstood every line I wrote them,

except the last, and that--ha! ha! ha!--for my direction to send out my

stuff _per Simmons_, they send me PERSIMMONS! Ha! ha! ha! ho! ho!"

But, after enjoying the _fun_ of the matter, ex-counsellor Bunker

discovered the thing was nothing to laugh at; _patients_ were at the

door--if he did not soon prescribe for their cases, his now numerous

creditors would prescribe for him! What was to be done? Very dull and

prosy people often become enterprising and imaginative, to a wonderful

degree, when put to their trumps. This philosophical fact applied to

ex-counsellor Bunker's case exactly. He was there to better his fortune,

and he felt bound to do it, persimmons or no persimmons. It occurred to

him, as those infernal persimmons had cost him something, they ought to

_bring in_ something. By the aid of starch and sugar, Doctor

Phlebotonizem converted some hundreds of the smallest persimmons into

_pills_--sugar-coated pills--warranted to cure about all the ills flesh

was heir to, at $2 each dose. One generally constituted a dose for a

full-grown person, and as the patient left with a countenance much

"puckered up," and rarely returned, the _pseudo_ M. D. concluded there

was virtue in persimmon pills, and so, after disposing of his stock to

first-rate advantage, the doctor paid off his bills; tired of the pill

trade, he _vamosed the ranche_ with about funds enough to reach home,

and explain to his friends the difference between _per_ Simmons and

_persimmons!_

Mysteries and Miseries of the Life of a City Editor.

A great deal has been written, to show that the literary business is a

very disagreeable business; and that branch of it coming under the

"Editorial" head is about as comfortable as the bed of Procustes would

be to an invalid. It may doubtless look and sound well, to see one's

name in print, going the rounds, especially at the head of the editorial

columns, from ten to fifty thousand eyes and tongues scanning and

pronouncing it every day, or week--hundreds and thousands of the fair

sex wondering whether he is a young or an old man, a married man or a

bachelor; while the pious and devout are contemplating the serious of

his emanations, and conjecturing whether he be a Methodist, Puseyite, or

Catholic, a Presbyterian, Unitarian or Baptist; and the politicians

scanning his views, to discover whether he _leans_ toward the

_Locofocos, Free-Soilers, or Whigs_--all being necessarily much

mystified, inasmuch as the neutral writer, or editor, is obliged to

study, and most vigilantly to act, the part of a cunning

diplomatist--stroke every body's hair with the _grain!_

The Tribulations of Incivility.

"A gentleman by the name of Collins stopping with you?"

"Collins?" was the response.

"Yes, Collins, or Collings, I ain't sure which," said the hardy-looking,

bronzed seaman, to the gaily-dressed, flippant-mannered, be-whiskered

man of vast importance, presiding over the affairs of one of our

"first-class hotels."

"Very indefinite inquiry, then," said the hotel manager.

"Well, I brought this small package from Bremen for a gentleman who came

out passenger with us some time ago; he left it in Bremen--wanted me to

fetch it out when the ship returned--here it is."

"What do you want to leave it here for? We know nothing about the man,

sir."

"You don't? Well, you ought to, for the gentleman put up here, and told

me he'd be around when we got into port again. He was a deuced clever

fellow, and you ought to have kept the reckoning of such a man," said

the seaman.

"Ha, ha! we keep so many clever fellows," said he of the hotel, "that

they are no novelties, sir."

"I wonder then," said the seaman, "you do not imitate some of them, for

there's no danger of the world's getting crowded with a crew of good

men."

"If you have any business with us we shall attend to it, sir, but we

want none of your impertinence!"

"O, you don't? Well, Mister, I've business aboard of your craft; if

you're the commodore, I'd like you to see that my friend Collins is

piped up, or that this package be stowed away where he could come afoul

of it. His name is Collins; here it is in black and white, on the

parcel, and here's where I was to drop it."

One of the "understrappers" overhearing the dispute, whispered his

dignified superior that Mr. Collins, an English gentleman, late from

Bremen, was in the house, whereupon the dignified empressario, turning

to the self-possessed man of the sea, said--

"Ah, well, leave the parcel, leave the parcel; we _suppose_ it's

correct."

"There it is," said the seaman; "commodore, you see that the gentleman

gets it; and I say," says the sailor, pushing back his hat and giving

his breeches a regular sailor twitch, "I wish you'd please to say to the

gentleman, Mr. Collins, you know, that Mr. Brace, first officer of the

Triton, would like to see him aboard, any time he's at leisure."

But in the multiplicity of greater affairs, the hotel gentleman hardly

attempted to listen or attend to the sailor's message, and Mr. Brace,

first officer of the Triton, bore away, muttering to himself--

"These land-crabs mighty apt to put on airs. I'd like to have that

powder monkey in my watch about a week--I'd have him down by the lifts

and braces!"

Let us suppose it to be in the glorious month of October, when the

myriads of travellers by land and ocean are wending their way from the

chilly north towards the sunny south, when the invalid seeks the tropics

in pursuit of his health, and the speculative man of business returns

with his "invoices," to his shop, or factory, where profit leads the

way.

We are on board ship--the Triton ploughing the deep blue waters of the

ocean track from Sandy Hook to New Orleans; for October, the weather is

rather unruly, _damp_, and boisterous. We perceive a number of

passengers on board, and by near guess of our memory, we see a person or

two we have seen before. Our be-whiskered friend of the "first-class

hotel," is there; he does not look so self-possessed and pompous on

board the heaving and tossing ship as he did behind his marble slab in

"the office." "The sea, the sea!" as the song says, has quite taken the

starch out of our stiff friend, who is not enjoying a first-rate time.

And from an overheard conversation between two hardy, noble specimens of

men that are men--two officers of the stoutly-timbered ship, the comfort

of the be-whiskered gentleman is in danger of a commutation.

"Do you know him, Mr. Brace?"

"Yes, I know him; I knew him as soon as I got the cut of his jib coming

aboard. Now, says I, my larky, you and I've got to travel together, and

we'll settle a little odd reckoning, if you please, or if you don't

please, afore we see the Balize. You see, that fellow keeps a crack

hotel in York; I goes in there to deliver a package for a deuced good

fellow as ever trod deck, and this powder monkey, loblolly-looking swab,

puts on his airs, sticks up his nose, and hardly condescends to exchange

signals with me. Ha! ha! I've met these galore cocks before; I can take

the tail feathers out of 'em!" says Mr. Brace, who is the same hardy,

frank and free fellow, with whom the reader has already formed something

of a brief acquaintance. The person to whom Brace was addressing himself

was the second officer of the merchantman, and it was settled that

whatever nautical knowledge and skill could do to make things uneasy for

Mr. Lollypops, the empressario of the "first-class hotel," was to be

done, by mutual management of the two salt-water jokers.

"It appears to me, that a--bless me, sir, a--how this ship rolls!" said

Lollypops, coming upon deck, and addressing Mr. Brace; "I--a never saw a

ship roll so."

"Heavy sea on, sir," said Brace; "nothing to what we'll catch before a

week's out."

"Bad coast, I believe, at this time o' year?" said Lollypops, balancing

himself on first one leg and then the other.

"Worst coast in the world, sir; I'd rather go to Calcutta any time than

go to Orleans; more vessels lost on the coast than are lost anywhere

else on the four seas."

"You don't say so!" said Lollypops.

"Fact, sir," said Brace, who occasionally kept exchanging private and

mysterious signals with the second officer, who held the wheel.

"Let her up a point, Mr. Brown, let her up!" Mr. Brown did let her up,

and the way the Triton took head down and heels up and a roll to

windward, did not speak so well for the nautical _menage_ of the

officers as it did for the quiet deviltry of the salt-water Joe Millers.

The avalanche of brine inundated the decks, making the sailors look

quite asquirt, and driving Mr. Lollypops, an ancient voyager or two, and

sundry other travelling gentry--very suddenly into the cabin. The next

day the same performance followed; the appearance of Lollypops on deck

was a signal for Brace or Brown, to go in, get up a double _roll_ on the

ship, an imaginary gale was discussed, wrecks and reefs, dangerous

points and dreadful currents were descanted upon, until Mr. Lollypops'

health, at the end of the first week, was no better fast; in fact, he

was getting sick of the voyage, while others around grew fat upon it. A

fine morning induced the invalid to light his regalia and walk the

decks; immediately Mr. Brace, or Brown, gave orders to wash down the

decks. Mr. Lollypops went aloft, _ergo_, as far as the main top;

immediately the first officer had the men "going about," heaving here

and letting go there; in short, so endangering the hat and underpinning

of the be-whiskered landlord of the "first-class hotel" that he was fain

to crawl down, take the wet decks, tip-toe, and crawl into the cabin,

damp as a dishcloth, and utterly disgusted with what he had seen of the

sea! Accidentally, one afternoon, a tar pot fell from aloft; somehow or

other, the careless sailor who held it, or should have held it--"let go

all" just when Mr. Lollypops was in the immediate neighborhood; the

result was that he had a splendid dressing-gown and other

equipments--ruined eternally! Going into the cabin, Lollypops inquires

for the Captain--

"Sir!" says he, "I am mad, Sir, very mad, Sir; yes, I am, Sir; look at

me, only look at me! In rough weather we do not expect pleasant times at

sea, but, Sir, ever since I have been on board, Sir, your infernal

officers, Sir, have thrown this ship into all manner of unpleasant

situations, kept the decks wet, rattled chains over my berth,

wang-banged the rigging around, and finally, by thunder, I'm covered all

over with villanous soap fat and tar! Now, Sir, this is not all the

result of accident--it's premeditated rascality!"

"Sir"--says the bully mate, coming forward, at this crisis, "my name's

Mr. Brace; when I was aboard your craft, in New York, you rather put on

_airs_, and I said if you and I ever got to sea together--we'd have a

_blow_ out. Now we're about even; if you're a mind we'll call the matter

square--"

"Yes, yes, for heaven's sake, let us have no more of this!" says

Lollypops.

"We'll have a bottle together, and wish for a clean run to Orleans!"

continued officer Brace.

Lollypops agreed; he not only stood the wine, but got over his anger,

vowed to look deeper into character, and never again rebuff honest

manliness, though hid under the coarse costume of a son of Neptune! A

hearty laugh closed the scene, and fair weather and a fine termination

attended the voyage of the Triton to New Orleans; for a finer, drier

craft never danced over the ocean wave, than that good ship, under

_rational_ management.

The Broomstick Marriage.

"Marry in haste and repent at leisure," is a time-honored idea, and

calls to mind a matrimonial circumstance which, according to pretty

lively authority, once came about in the glorious Empire State. A

certain Captain of a Lake Erie steamer, who was blessed with an elegant

temperament for fun, fashion, and the feminines, was "laid up," over

winter, near his childhood's home in Genesee county. Having nearly

exhausted his private stock of jokes, and gone the entire rounds of life

and liveliness of the season, he bethought him how he should create a

little _stir_, and have his joke at the expense of a young Doctor, who

had recently "located" in the neighborhood, and by his rather _taking_

person and manners, cut something of a swath in the community, and

especially amongst the _calico!_

The profession of young Esculapius gave him an access to private society

that ordinary circumstances did not vouch to most men. Among the many

families with which Dr. Mutandis had formed an acquaintance was that of

old Capt. Figgles. The Captain was a queer old mortal, who in his hale

old days had quit life on the ocean wave for the quietude of

agricultural comfort. The Captain was a blustering salt, whimsical, but

generous and social, as old sailors most generally are. He was supposed

to be in easy circumstances, but _how_ easy, very few knew.

Capt. Figgles's family consisted of himself, three daughters, one

married and "settled," the other two at home; an ancient colored woman,

who had served in the Captain's family,--ship and shore--a lifetime.

Dinah and old Sam, her husband, with two or three farm-laborers,

constituted the Captain's household. Betsy, the youngest daughter, the

old man's favorite, had been christened Elizabeth, but that not being

warm enough for Capt. Figgles's idea of attachment, he ever called his

daughter, Betsy, and so she was called by _almost_ everybody at all

familiar with the family. Betsy Figgles was not a very poetical subject,

by name or size. She was a fine, bouncing young woman of

four-and-twenty; she was dutiful and bountiful, if not beautiful. She

was useful, and even ornamental in her old father's eyes, and, as he was

wont to say, in his never-to-be-forgotten salt-water _linguæ_--

"Betsy was a _craft_, she was; a square-bilt, trim, well-ballasted

craft, fore and aft; none of your sky-scraping, taut, Baltimore clipper,

fair-weather, no-tonnage jigamarees! Betsy is a _woman_; her mother was

just like her when I fell in with her, and it wasn't long afore I

chartered her for a life's voyage. And the man who lets such a woman

slip her cable and stand off soundings, for 'Cowes and a market,' when

he's got a chance to fill out her papers and take command, is not a

_man_, but a mouse, or a long-tailed Jamaica rat!"

Between Capt. Tiller, our Lake boatman, and Capt. Figgles, there was an

intimacy of some years' standing, but the old Captain and the young

Captain didn't exactly "hitch horses"--whether it was because Capt. T.

came under the old man's idea of "a Jamaica rat," or because he looked

upon inland sailors as greenhorns, deponent saith not.

Dr. Mutandis and Capt. Figgles were only upon so-so sort of business

sociality, though both the junior Captain and the Doctor were intimate

enough with both the Miss Figgleses. Capt. Tiller, as we intimated, was

about to leave for coming duties on the Lake, and being so full of old

Nick, it was indispensable that he must play off a practical joke, or

have some fun with somebody, as a sort of a yarn for the season, on his

boat.

The Figgleses announced a grand quilting scrape; the Doctor and Captain

were among the invited guests, of course, and for some hours the

assembled party had indeed as grand a good time generally as usually

falls to the lot of a country community. Old black Ebenezer--but whose

name had also been cut down for convenience sake to _Sam_, by the old

Captain--did the orchestral duties upon his fiddle, which, aided by a

youngster on the triangle and another on the tambourine, formed quite "a

full band" for the occasion, and dancing was done up in style!

As a sort of "change of scene" or divertisement in the programme,

somebody proposed games of this and games of that, and while old Capt.

Figgles was as busy as "a flea in a tar bucket"--to use the old

gentleman's simile--fulminating and fabricating a rousing bowl of egg

flip for the entire party, Capt. Tiller and Dr. Mutandis were sort of

paired off with a party of eight, in which were the two Miss Figgleses,

to get up their own game.

"Good!" says Capt. Tiller, "pair off with Miss Betsy, Doctor, and I'll

pair off with Miss Sally (the older daughter of Capt. F.), and now what

say you? Let's make up a wedding-party--_let's jump the broomstick!_"

"Agreed!" cries the Doctor. "Who'll be the parson?"

"I'll be parson," says Capt. T.

"Well, get your book."

"Here it is!" cries another, poking a specimen of current Scripture into

the _pseudo_ parson's hands.

"Miss Betsy and Dr. Mutandis, stand up," says Capt. Tiller, assuming

quite the air and grace of the parson.

Bridesmaids, grooms, &c., were soon arranged in due order, and the

interesting ceremony of joining hands and hearts in one happy bond of

mutual and indissoluble (slightly, sometimes!) love and obedience was

progressing.

"Cap'n Figgles, you're wanted," says one, interrupting the old man, now

busy concocting his grog for all hands.

"Go to blazes, you son of a sea cook!" cries the old gentleman; "haven't

you common decency to see when a man's engaged in a _calculation_ he

oughtn't to be disturbed, eh?"

"But Betsy's going to be married!" insists the disturber, who, in fact,

was half-seas over in infatuation with Miss Betsy, and had had a slight

inkling of a fact that by the law of the State anybody could marry a

couple, and the marriage would be as obligatory upon the parties as

though performed by the identical legal authorities to whom young folks

"in a bad way" are in the habit of appealing for relief.

"Let 'em heave ahead, you marine!" cries Capt. Figgles.

"Are you really willing to allow it?" continues the swain.

"Me willing? It's Betsy's affair; let her keep the lookout," said the

old gent.

"But don't you know, Cap'n----"

"No! nor I don't care, you swab!" cries the excited Captain. "Bear away

out of here," he continued, beginning to get down the glasses from the

corner-cupboard shelves, "unless--but stop! hold on! here, take this

waiter, Jones, and bear a hand with the grog, unless you want to stand

by, and see the ship's company go down by the lifts and braces, dry as

powder-monkeys! There; now pipe all hands--ship aho-o-o-oy!" bawls the

old Captain; "bear up, the whole fleet! Now splice the main-brace! Don't

nobody stand back, like loblolly boys at a funeral--come up and try

Capt. Figgles's grog!"

And up they came, the entire crew, old Ebenezer to the _le'ard_,

sweating like an ox, and laying off for the piping bowl he knew he was

"in for" from the hands of his indulgent old master.

In the mean time, the marriage ceremony had had its hour, and the bride

and bridegroom were "skylarking" with the rest of the company as

happily together as turtle-doves in a clover-patch. The evening's

entertainment wound up with an old-fashioned dance, and the quilting

ended. Dr. Mutandis lived some five miles distant, and having a call to

make the next morning near Capt. Figgles's farm, Dr. M. concluded to

stop with the Captain. As Capt. Tiller was leaving, he took occasion to

whisper into the ear of his medical friend--

"I wish you much joy, my fine fellow; you're married, if you did but

know it--fast as a church! Good time to you and Betsy!"

"The devil!" says the Doctor, musingly; "it strikes me, since I come to

think it over, that the laws of this State do privilege anybody to marry

a couple! By thunder! it would be a fine spot of work for me if I was

held to the ceremony by Miss Figgles!"

But the Doctor kept quiet, and next morning, after breakfast, he

departed upon his business. He had no sooner entered the house of his

patient, than he was wished much joy and congratulated upon the

_fatness_ and jolly good nature of his bride!

"But," says the Doctor, "you're mistaken in this affair. It's all a

hoax--a mere bit of fun!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed his patient, "fun?--you call getting married _fun_?"

"Yes," said the Doctor; "we were down at Capt. Figgles's; there was a

quilting and sort of a frolic going on----"

"Yes, we heard of it."

"And, in fun, to keep up the sports of the evening, Capt. Tiller

proposed to marry some of us. So Miss Figgles and I stood up, and

Captain Tiller acted parson, and we had some sport."

"Well," says the farmer (proprietor of the house), "Capt. Tiller has got

you into a tight place, Doctor; he's been around, laughing at the trick

he's played you, as perhaps you were not aware of the fact that by the

law you are now just as legally and surely married as though the knot

was tied by five dozen parsons or magistrates!"

"I'll shoot Capt. Tiller, by Heavens!" cries the enraged Doctor. "He's a

scoundrel! I'll crop his ears but I'll have satisfaction!"

"Pooh!" says the farmer, "if Betsy Figgles does not object, and her

father is willing and satisfied with the match as it is, I don't see,

Doctor, that you need mind the matter."

"I'll be revenged!" cries the Doctor.

"You were never previously married, were you?" says the farmer.

"No, sir," replied the Doctor.

"Engaged to any lady?" continued the interrogator.

"No, sir; I am too poor, too busy to think of such a folly as increasing

my responsibilities to society!"

"Then, sir," said the farmer, "allow me to congratulate you upon this

very fortunate event, rather than a disagreeable joke, for Capt. Figgles

is worth nearly a quarter of a million of dollars, sir; and Miss Betsy

is no gaudy butterfly, but, sir, she's an excellent girl, whom you may

be proud of as your wife."

"'Squire," says the Doctor, "jump in with me, and go back to the

Captain's and assist me to back out, beg the pardon of Miss Figgles and

her father, and terminate this unpleasant farce."

The magistrate-farmer got into the Doctor's gig, and soon they were at

Capt. Figgles's door.

"Captain," says the Doctor, "I don't know what excuse I _can_ offer for

the fool I've made of myself, through that puppy, Capt. Tiller, but,

sir----"

"Look a-here!" says the Captain, staring the Doctor broad in the face,

"I've got wind of the whole affair; now ease off your palaver. You've

married my daughter Betsy, in a joke; she's fit for the wife of a

Commodore, and all I've got to say is, if you want her, take her; if

you don't want her, you're a fool, and ought to be made a powder-monkey

for the rest of your natural life."

"But the lady's will and wishes have not been consulted, sir."

"Betsy!" cries the old Captain, "come here. What say you--are you

willing to remain spliced with the Doctor, or not? Hold up your head, my

gal--speak out!"

"Yes--_I'm agreed, if he is_," said she.

"Well said, hurrah!" cries the Captain. "Now, sir (to the Doctor), to

make all right and tight, I here give you, in presence of the 'Squire,

my favorite daughter Betsy, and one of the best farms in the State of

New York. Are you satisfied, Doctor?"

"Captain, I am. I shall try, sir, to make your daughter a happy woman!"

returned the Doctor, and he did; he became the founder of a large

family, and one of the wealthiest men in the State.

Rather pleased, finally, with the _joke_, the Doctor managed to turn it

upon the Captain, who in due course of law was arrested upon the charge

of illegally personating a parson, and marrying a couple without a

license! He was fined fifty dollars and costs; and of course was thus

caused to laugh on the wrong side of his mouth.

Appearances are Deceitful.

There are a great many good jokes told of the false notions formed as to

the character and standing of persons, as judged by their dress and

other outward signs. It is asserted, that a fine coat and silvery tone

of voice, are no evidence of the gentleman, and few people of the

present day will have the hardihood to assert that a blunt address, or

shabby coat, are infallible recommendations for putting, however honest,

or worthy, a man in a prominent attitude before the world, or the

community he moves in. Some men of wealth, for the sake of variety,

sometimes assume an eccentric or coarseness of costume, that answers all

very well, as long as they keep where they are known; but to find out

the levelling principles of utter nothingness among your fellow mortals,

only assume a shabby apparel and stroll out among strangers, and you'll

be essentially _knocked_ by the force of these facts. However, in this

or almost any other Christian community, there is little, if any excuse,

for a man, woman, or child going about or being "shabby." Let your

garments, however coarse, be made clean and whole, and keep them so; if

you have but one shirt and that minus sleeves and body, have the

fragments washed, and make not your face and hands a stranger to the

refreshing and purifying effects of water.

General Pinckney was one of the old school gentlemen of South Carolina.

A man he was of the most punctilious precision in manners and customs,

in courtesy, and cleanliness of dress and person; a man of brilliant

talents, and, in every sense of the word, "a perfect gentleman!" Mr.

Pinckney was one of the members of the first Congress, and during his

sojourn in Philadelphia, boarded with an old lady by the name of Hall, I

think--Mrs. Hall, a staid, prim and precise dame of the old regime.

Mistress Hall was a widow; she kept but few boarders in her fine old

mansion, on Chestnut street, and her few boarders were mostly members of

Congress, or belonged to the Continental army. Never, since the days of

that remarkable lady we read of in the books, who made her servant take

her chair out of doors, and air it, if any body by chance sat down on

it, and who was known to empty her tea-kettle, because somebody crossed

the hearth during the operation of boiling water for tea,--exceeded

Mistress Hall in domestic prudery and etiquette; hence it may be well

imagined that "shabby people" and the "small fry" generally, found

little or no favor in the eyes of the Quaker landlady of "ye olden

time."

General Pinckney having served out his term or resigned his place, it

was filled by another noted individual of Charleston, General Lowndes,

one of the most courteous and talented men of his day, but the

slovenliest and most shockingly ill-accoutred man on record. But for the

care and watchfulness of one of the most superb women in existence at

the time--Mrs. Lowndes,--the General would probably have frequently

appeared in public, with his coat inside out, and his shirt over all!

General Lowndes, in starting for Philadelphia, was recommended by his

friend Pinckney, to put up at Mistress Hall's; General P. giving General

Lowndes a letter of introduction to that lady. Travelling was a slow and

tedious, as well as fatiguing and dirty operation, at that day, so that

after a journey from Charleston to Philadelphia, even a man with some

pretensions to dress and respectable _contour_, would be apt to look a

little "mussy;" but for the poor General's part, he looked hard enough,

in all conscience, and had he known the _effect_ such an appearance was

likely to produce upon Mistress Hall, he would not have had the

temerity of invading her premises. But the General's views were far

above "buttons," leather, and prunella. Such a thing as paying

deferential courtesies to a man's garments, was something not dreamed of

in his philosophy.

"Mrs. Hall's, I believe?" said the General, to a servant answering the

ponderous, lion-headed knocker.

"Yes, sah," responded the sable waiter. "Walk dis way, sah, into de

parlor, sah."

The General stalked in, leisurely; around the fire-place were seated a

dozen of the boarders, the aforesaid "big bugs" of the olden time. Not

one moved to offer the stranger a seat by the fire, although his warm

Southern blood was pretty well congealed by the frosty air of the

evening. The General pulled off his gloves, laid down his great heavy

and dusty valice, and quietly took a remote seat to await the presence

of the landlady. She came, lofty and imposing; coming into the parlor,

with her astute cap upon her majestic head, her gold spectacles upon her

nose, as stately as a stage queen!

"Good evening," said the gallant General, rising and making a very

polite bow. "Mrs. Hall, I presume?"

"Yes, sir," she responded, stiffly, and eyeing Lowndes with considerable

diffidence. "Any business with me, sir?"

"Yes, madam," responded the General, "I--a--purpose remaining in the

city some time, and--a--I shall be pleased to put up with you."

"That's impossible, sir," was the ready and decisive reply. "My house is

full; I cannot accommodate you."

"Well, really, that _will_ be a disappointment, indeed," said the

General, "for I'm quite a stranger in the city, and may find it

difficult to procure permanent lodgings."

"I presume not, sir," said she; "there are _taverns_ enough, where

strangers are entertained."

The gentlemen around the fire, never offered to tender the stranger any

information upon the subject, but several eyed him very hard, and

doubtless felt pleased to see the discomfitted and ill-accoutred

traveller seize his baggage, adjust his dusty coat, and start out, which

_he_ was evidently very loth to do.

Just as Lowndes had reached the parlor door, it occurred to him that

Pinckney had recommended him to "put up" at the widow's, and also had

given him a letter of introduction to Mrs. Hall. This reminiscence

caused the General to retrace his steps back into the parlor, where,

placing his portmanteau on the table, he applied the key and opened it,

and began fumbling around for his letters, to the no small wonder of the

landlady and her respectable boarders.

"I have here, I believe, madam, a letter for you," blandly said the

General, still overhauling his baggage.

"A letter for _me_, sir?" responded the lady.

"Yes, madam, from an old friend of yours, who recommended me to stop

with you. Ah, here it is, from your friend General Pinckney, of South

Carolina."

"General Pinckney!" echoed the landlady, all the gentlemen present

cocking their eyes and ears! The widow tore open the letter, while

Lowndes calmly fastened up his portmanteau, and all of a sudden, quite

an incarnation spread its roseate hues over her still elegant features.

Lowndes seized his baggage, and, with a "good evening, madam, good

evening, gentlemen," was about to leave the institution, when the lady

arrested him with:

"Stop, if you please, sir; this is General Lowndes, I believe?"

"General Lowndes, madam, at your service," said he, with a dignified

bow.

According to all accounts, just then, there was a very sudden rising

about the fire-place, and a twinkling of chairs, as if they had all just

been _struck_ with the idea that there was a stranger about!

"Keep your seats, gentlemen," said the General; "I don't wish to disturb

any of you, as I'm about to leave."

"General Lowndes," said the widow, "any friend of Mr. Pinckney is

welcome to my house. Though we are full, I can make room for _you_,

sir."

The General stopped, and the widow and he became first-rate friends,

when they became better acquainted.