MRS. SLAPMAN AT HOME.
Full of new and pleasant thoughts, Marcus Wilkeson walked on toward the
half-antique house which contained the strange old gentleman. Just as he
was about to swing back the iron gate of the front yard, he saw, at a
distance, the two friends of his bosom and Mr. Quigg descending a flight
of steps to the sidewalk. They saw him at the same time; and both
Overtop and Maltboy violently beckoned him to approach. Mr. Quigg added
his solicitations in a calmer and more dignified manner, moving his arm
like an automaton three times from the elbow. Even the driver, Captain
Tonkins, in the spirit of invitation peculiar to his mental state,
steadied himself on the seat, poked his right arm and his long whip
toward Marcus, and said: "Hu-hullo there--come along?" Having done this,
Captain Tonkins furtively poured a gill of brandy into the tin cup, and
drank it under cover of the buffalo robe.
In compliance with this general request, Marcus forbore to open the gate
of the old gentleman's house, and joined his friends.
"How many people have you called on, you old humbug?" asked Overtop, as
Marcus drew near.
Marcus was on the point of alluding to the chance acquaintances that he
had made that morning; but a moment's reflection stopped him.
"I told you," said he, "that my only visit was to be to our odd old
neighbor. I was at his gate, when you called. And now, what do
you want?"
"I want to tell you," said Matthew Maltboy, "that Miss Whedell--the
Juno-like young lady with the handkerchief, you know--is--"
"All your fancy painted her," interrupted Marcus.
"She's lovely--she's divine," said Maltboy, rapturously finishing the
quotation. "I have made an impression. Congratulate me, old boy!"
"I do," said Marcus, laughing, "and only hope that you will find it as
easy getting out of the scrape as into it. And what have you
discovered, Top?"
"That there isn't a sensible woman or an original idea, so far, on the
block. I wouldn't budge an inch farther, but for Quigg's promise to
introduce me to a young widow who lives next door--a regular prodigy of
science and art, according to his story. I think you said she was a
widow, Quigg?"
"I suppose so," said Quigg, "as I never saw nor heard of her husband;
and she's lived on this block five years last May."
The three besieged Marcus to lay aside his scruples for once, and join
them in visiting this accomplished lady. Marcus fought them until his
patience was exhausted, and then gave in.
The door to which they climbed, bore, on a large and shining plate, the
name "Slapman." This door was opened to them by a tall negro in livery,
which, like the wearer, had a borrowed appearance. As they entered, they
saw a little wiry man, with a pale face full of wrinkles and crowsfeet,
bounding up the first flight of stairs, two steps at a time. When the
little man reached the first landing he looked back, and directed a
strange, suspicious glance at the callers.
The opening of the parlor door discovered a room full of men, who were
sipping wine, eating cold fowl and confections, talking and laughing
loudly with each other, or exchanging repartees with a lady who stood in
the centre of the apartment and shed her light upon all. This lady was
Mrs. Grazella Jigbee Slapman.
Previous to her marriage, she had been not altogether unknown to the
corners of several weekly newspapers, under the name of "Grazella." She
had also cultivated a natural talent for painting, so assiduously, that
a little cabinet piece of hers, representing a cat, a lobster, and a
plate of fruit, was considered good enough to exhibit in the window of a
Broadway print shop, in which her uncle was a silent partner, and was
approvingly paragraphed in a paper partly owned by her first cousin. To
gifts capable of producing results like these, she added a great
aptitude for music; although an incurable indolence, she gracefully
said, had always prevented her from learning the piano. While yet
sustaining the name of Jigbee, she had achieved a high reputation in
private circles as a merciless judge of music. But her conversation had
been, from earliest girlhood, her chief attraction. She possessed the
extraordinary faculty of talking with a dozen persons upon a dozen
different subjects at the same time.
Unlike many people similarly endowed, she did not exercise this
wonderful gift for the brutal purpose of putting down feebler
intellects, but only to elicit TRUTH, which she often declared to be the
sole object of her existence. When, by her alliance with Mr. Slapman, a
thrifty speculator in real estate, she was installed as mistress of a
fine house and furniture, and a few thousand a year, the lady naturally
gathered about her a still larger circle of admirers. Her researches for
TRUTH were met halfway by people that were supposed to deal in that
article, abstractly considered; such as poets, painters, sculptors,
reformers, inventors. Anybody with a new idea was sure to be understood
and encouraged by her. Her fondness for new ideas was as keen as an
entomologist's for new bugs or butterflies.
Mrs. Slapman had not made the mistake of neglecting her physical and
perishable charms in deference to her intellectual and immortal nature.
She was twenty-four years old, and had clear, sparkling eyes, a fresh
complexion, good teeth, rich, heavy hair, and a substantial figure. The
pursuit of TRUTH did not disagree with her health.
Mrs. Slapman bustled out of the little knot of persons about her, and
advanced in a frank, hearty way to meet her visitors. To Mr. Quigg she
nodded patronizingly, as to one whom she had long known to be guiltless
of new ideas; but to the strangers who sought her society, she addressed
a cordial smile.
Mr. Quigg, having performed his office, judiciously stepped aside, and
left the honors and burdens of conversation with the three friends.
Matthew Maltboy, with the rashness of youth, opened the verbal
engagement, by remarking that it was a fine day.
This wretched conventionalism was met by a "Very," so obviously
sarcastic, that Marcus Wilkeson decided not to utter a remark which was
at that moment on his lips.
At this embarrassing juncture, Fayette Overtop came to the rescue. "As
we alighted from our sleigh, Mrs. Slapman, I noticed how firmly the snow
at the edge of the street was pressed down by the feet of the hundreds
who have called on you; and I could not but think how truly that white
surface, upon which the prints of so many boots were beautifully
blended, typified the purity of the motives which brought the owners of
those boots to your door."
"A most original and charming remark!" said Mrs. Slapman. "I must repeat
it to Chickson. The author of 'A Snowflake's Lament' will appreciate
that felicitous observation. You have heard of Chickson?"
Mr. Overtop read new books, magazines, literary papers, in considerable
quantities, but did not remember to have ever met with the name.
Speaking upon impulse, and to avoid explanation, however, he said:
"Oh, yes--certainly, but have not the pleasure of his acquaintance."
"You should know each other," said Mrs. Slapman. "Excuse me a minute."
She ran with girlish haste to the other end of the parlors, and brought
back an undersized young man. When he had been introduced to Overtop,
and shaken hands with him, the enthusiastic hostess quoted, somewhat
imperfectly, the beautiful conceit which Overtop had just uttered, and
remarked that it would be a capital subject for a poem.
Mr. Chickson turned his eyes upward to the ceiling, and then downward to
the floor, as if he were committing what he had heard to memory, and
then said it was very curious, but he had thought of the same theme
before, and was intending to write a poem on it next week.
"Now, that's just like you, you provoking creature!" said Mrs. Slapman,
tapping the poet playfully with her fan. "It's really selfish of you to
keep all your poetical thoughts for your poems."
Mr. Chickson smiled pleasantly, but said nothing; and when Mrs.
Slapman's attention was momentarily attracted by a passing remark from
another person, the poet improved the opportunity to slip away and take
another glass of champagne in the corner.
"Ah! gone, is he?" said Mrs. Slapman, remarking his disappearance.
"Though one of the most promising of our young poets, he is dull enough
in conversation. It may be said of him, as of Goldsmith, 'He writes like
an angel, but talks like poor Poll.' You may have read his poem, 'Echoes
of the Empyrean,' published in the _Weekly Lotus_."
Mr. Overtop was wicked enough to say that he had read and admired it.
"It is a curious fact in the history of the poem, that the subtle
thoughts which it evolves were the topic of discussion at one of my
_conversazioni_; and on that very night Chickson told me he had
forty-five lines written on the subject. The knowledge of that trifling
circumstance lends additional interest to the poem."
"That is, if anything could lend additional interest to it," observed
Overtop.
"You are right," said Mrs. Slapman. "TRUTH, like that which animates
every line of the 'Empyrean,' needs no factitious attractions. You have
read the 'Empyrean?'"--turning to Wilkeson and Maltboy, who had stood
hard by during this conversation, calm patterns of politeness.
Mr. Wilkeson, not understanding the question (his thoughts wandering
back to the pale mechanic and his child), nodded "Yes," and was
immediately put down on Mrs. Slapman's mental tablet as a quiet
gentleman of good taste. But Matthew Maltboy, distinctly understanding
it, was candid enough to say "No," and from that moment was as nothing
in the eyes of the lady.
Overtop proceeded to deepen the favorable impression which he had made
upon this charming patroness of intellect.
"Did it ever occur to you how many subjects for the highest order of
poetry lie unnoticed all about us? Take that chandelier, for example,
the prismatic drops of which are dull in the shade, but sparkle with
all the colors of the rainbow in the gaslight. Might not those hidden
splendors be compared to that genius whose brilliancy is alone evoked by
Beauty's radiant smile?"
Marcus Wilkeson squirmed, and Matthew Maltboy felt uneasy, while their
friend was delivering this elaborate idea, and felt easier when he
reached the end in safety. Mr. Overtop himself shared in the sensation
of relief.
"Beautiful! beautiful!" cried Mrs. Slapman, in a species of rapture. "I
must repeat that delicious thought to Chickson. But not now." And she
looked inquiringly at Overtop, as if in expectation that he would utter
another new TRUTH immediately. That gentleman not happening to have one
on his tongue's end, Mrs. Slapman was kind enough to give him time for
reflection.