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ROUND THE BLOCK
An American Novel
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
by
JOHN BELL BOUTON
1864
[Illustration: MRS. SLAPMAN AT HOME--(Book First, Chap. IX.)]
CONTENTS.
BOOK FIRST.
NEW YEAR'S DAY.
I. THE BLOCK.
II. THREE BACHELORS.
III. PEEPS.
IV. QUIGG.
V. PLEASURE AS BUSINESS.
VI. SOMETHING HIDDEN.
VII. THE BOY BOG.
VIII. MALTBOY'S TWENTIETH AFFAIR.
IX. MRS. SLAPMAN AT HOME.
X. INFIRMITIES OF GENIUS.
BOOK SECOND.
POLISHING.
I. THE ENIGMA.
II. A DELICATE PROPOSITION.
III. AN AUXILIARY OF MODERN CIVILIZATION.
IV. MISS PILLBODY.
V. A FRIEND IN NEED.
VI. BRANCHING OUT.
VII. THE LITTLE PUPIL.
BOOK THIRD.
TRAIL OF THE SERPENT.
I. "ONE--TWO--THREE--FOUR."
II. THE FALLING BOARD.
III. SNEAKING JUSTIFIED.
IV. UP IN THE AIR.
V. TONGUES OF FIRE.
BOOK FOURTH.
CHILDREN OF THE WORLD.
I. MENDERT VAN QUINTEM AND SON.
II. BUYING GOOD BEHAVIOR.
III. THE YOUNG MONSTER.
IV. WESLEY TIFFINS.
V. THE PANORAMA OF AFRICA.
BOOK FIFTH.
MANOEUVRES.
I. STOLEN--MORE THAN A PURSE.
II. CONSOLATIONS OF HIGH ART.
III. LOVING AFAR OFF.
IV. LEGERDEMAIN.
BOOK SIXTH.
MYSTERIES OF THE NIGHT.
I. THE UNKNOWN HAND.
II. IN VAIN--IN VAIN.
III. THE CLASHING ORBS.
IV. A VISION OP HORRORS.
V. WHAT THE MORNING BROUGHT.
BOOK SEVENTH.
JOURNEYINGS AGAINST FATE.
I. PEA-SHOOTING AS A SCIENCE.
II. BY STEAM.
III. PIGWORTH, J.P.
IV. STOOP.
V. AN AUDIENCE ANALYZED.
VI. HUMORS OF THE MANY-HEADED.
VII. SCENES NOT IN THE BILLS.
BOOK EIGHTH.
A DRAMATIC INTERLUDE.
I. THE OVERTURE.
II. CURTAIN UP.
III. ACT SECOND.
IV. HOW THE PLAY ENDED.
BOOK NINTH.
THE INQUEST.
I. CORONER AND JURY.
II. STATEMENT OF THE PRISONER.
III. JUSTICE GOES TO DINNER.
IV. LIGHT IN THE PRISON.
V. THE SORROW OF WHITE HAIRS.
VI. WHAT PAPER, TYPES, AND INK CAN DO.
VII. PET AS A WITNESS.
VIII. THE BENEFICENCE OF FIRE BELLS.
IX. AN OLD MAN'S OFFERING.
BOOK TENTH.
DONE ON BOTH SIDES.
I. A FISHER OF MEN.
II. PLAYING WITH THE LINE.
III. PULLING IN.
IV. THE FIRST OF MAY.
V. DEMOLITION OF CERTAIN AIR CASTLES.
VI. MR. WHEDELL'S CREDITORS IN CONVENTION ASSEMBLED.
VII. DEUS EX MACHINA.
BOOK ELEVENTH.
DISCOVERIES.
I. THE OLD HOUSE REVISITED.
II. A POSTHUMOUS SECRET.
III. OVERTOP FINDS A SENSIBLE WOMAN.
IV. INNOCENCE ON A SLIPPERY ROAD.
V. BOG'S OPEN SESAME.
VI. TRACKED.
VII. FOUND AND LOST.
BOOK TWELFTH.
SPECULATIONS--PECUNIARY AND MATRIMONIAL.
I. THE "COSMOPOLITAN WINDOW FASTENER."
II. MIDDLE-AGED CUPID.
III. SLAPMAN _vs_. SLAPMAN.
IV. HOW OVERTOP SEALED A CONTRACT IN A WAY UNKNOWN TO CHITTY.
V. A RETURNED CALIFORNIAN.
VI. REVELATIONS OF A LAUGH.
BOOK THIRTEENTH.
THE STRANGE LADY.
I. A STORY OP THE PAST.
II. POSSIBLE LOVE.
III. UNCLE AND NIECE.
BOOK FOURTEENTH.
HAPPY DAYS.
I. OWNERS OF THE BEAUTIFUL.
II. THE LAST OF A MYSTERY.
III. LOVE CROWNED.
IV. FIVE YEARS.
BOOK FIRST.
NEW YEAR'S DAY
CHAPTER I.
THE BLOCK.
On the east side of the block were four brownstone houses, wide, tall,
and roomy. Seen from the street, they had the appearance of not being
inhabited. In the upper stories, all the curtains or blinds were closely
drawn. In the lower story, the heavy lace that hung in carefully
careless folds on each side of the window, seemed never to have been
disturbed since it left the upholsterer's hands. Whatever life and
motion there might have been in the basement, were sheltered from
observation by conical firs or square-clipped box borders, set out on
strictly geometrical principles in each of the four front yards. The
doors were ponderous and tight fitting, as if they were never meant to
be opened; and the vivid polish of their surfaces showed no trace of
human handling. No marks of feet could be detected on the smooth, heavy
flagstones which led up from the sidewalk, or on the great steps flanked
by massive balustrades. The four mansions, in their new, lofty, and
apparently tenantless state, looked, like the occasional residences of
people for some purpose of ceremony, rather than the dear homes of the
small, loving, domestic circles that really lived there.
Such was the outer view of the east side of the block, and it is the
only view that the reader of this book will get; for it is the author's
intention profoundly to respect the select seclusion of the occupants.
Now, the west side of the block was in all respects, exactly opposite to
the east side. The houses were built of bricks, dingy with the whirling
dust of twenty years. Two of the three stories swarmed with women and
children, always visible at all seasons; and the lower story was devoted
to some kind of cheap trade. Wholesale business is gregarious in its
ways; but it is the habit of retail business to scatter, so as to
present, in the same neighborhood, no two people in exactly the same
line. Thus it happened that, on the west side of the block, there was
only one drygoods dealer, whose shop front and awning posts were
festooned with calicoes and other fabrics, ticketed with ingeniously
deformed figures, and bearing some attractive adjective, expressing the
owners private and conscientious opinion of their excellence. There was
one boot-maker, who strung up his products in long branches, like
onions; and, although his business was not at all flourishing, solaced
himself with the reflection that he had a monopoly of it on the block.
There was one apothecary, between whose flashing red and yellow lights
and those of his nearest rival there was a desirable distance. A
solitary coffinmaker, a butcher, a baker, a newspaper vender, a barber,
a confectioner, a hardware merchant, a hatter, and a tailor, each
encroaching rather extensively on the sidewalk with the emblems of his
trade, rejoiced in their exemption from a ruinous competition. The only
people on the block whose interests appeared to clash, were the grocers,
who flanked either corner, and made a large and delusive show of boxes,
barrels, and tea chests; and it was strongly suspected that they were
identical in interests, under different names, and maintained a secret
league to catch all the custom of the vicinity.
The south side was a gradation of buildings, from the two-story brick
grocery on the west corner to the grandest of the stone mansions on the
east. With the exception of two or three houses built in the early
history of the block, and occupied by obstinate old proprietors, it
presented such a regularly ascending line of roofs, that a giant could
have walked up stairs from one end to the other. Although each house was
built upon a plan peculiar to itself, and supposed to reflect the
long-cherished views of the original owner, there were certain
resemblances among them. This was sometimes the effect of a jealous
rivalry; sometimes of imitation. In one dozen houses there was a costly
struggle for supremacy in window curtains. In another dozen, the
harmless contest pertained to Grecian urns crowned with flowers, or dry
dolphins, tritons, or naiads, rising from the bosoms of little gravel
beds in miniature front yards. In a third dozen, there was a perspective
of broad iron balconies elegantly constructed for show, and sometimes
put to hazardous use, on warm summer nights, by venturesome gentlemen
with cigars, or ladies with fans.
About the middle of the block was a colony of doctors, who had
increased, in five years, from two to ten. Their march was eastward, and
it could be calculated to a nicety how long it would be before the small
black, gilt-lettered signs of their profession would press hard upon the
great house at the corner. Why they thus congregated together, unless
with the friendly purpose of relieving each other's patients in each
other's absence, and so saving humanity from sudden suffering and death,
was a mystery to everybody but themselves.
The north side lacked variety. One part of it, comprising twenty lots,
had been built up on speculation by an enterprising landowner. The
houses were precisely alike, from coal cellar to chimney top, with front
railings of exactly the same pattern, crowned with iron pineapples from
the same mould, encompassing little plots of ground laid out in walks
similar to the fraction of a hair; the sole ornaments of which were four
little spruce trees, planted at equal distances apart.
This row of houses was very distracting even to the occupants, with whom
it was a feat of arithmetic to identify their homes in the daytime, and
much more so at night, when the landmarks were shadowy and
indistinguishable. Occasionally, well-meaning tenants found themselves
pulling at wrong doorbells; and there was one man who got tipsy every
Saturday night, and rang himself quite through the row before he tumbled
in on his own hall carpet. It was in counting the spruce trees, he said,
which had a perplexing way of doubling, that he invariably lost
the track.
In nearly every house on this block there was a piano. The piano was the
great equalizer of the block. And, though in the loftier houses the
pianos might have been larger and costlier, and unquestionably noisier,
it did not follow that they were better played or pleasanter to hear
than the humbler instruments which served to swell the tumultuous chorus
in hours of morning practice. With regard to these pianos, it may here
be observed, that a gentleman with a passion for statistics, who chanced
to be well acquainted through the block, made the remarkable discovery
that the players were usually unmarried ladies; and that, when they
acquired husbands (as they occasionally did on that block), they put
aside the piano as something quite incapable of contributing to their
new-found happiness.