After having thrown all his Ritualistic friends at home into a most
unholy and exasperated condition of mind, by a steady series of vague
remarks as to the extreme likelihood of their united implication in the
possible deed of darkness by which he has lost a broadcloth nephew and
an alpaca umbrella, the mournful Mr. BUMSTEAD is once more awaiting the
dawn in that popular retreat in Mulberry Street where he first
contracted his taste for cloves. The Assistant-Assessor and the Alderman
of the Ward are again there, tilted back against the wall in their
chairs; their shares in the Congressional Nominating Convention held in
that room earlier in the night having left them too weary for further
locomotion. The decanters and tumblers hurled by the Nominating
Convention over the question of which Irishman could drink the most to
be nominated, are still scattered about the floor; here and there a
forgotten slungshot marks the places where rival delegations have
confidently presented their claims for recognition; and a few
bullet-holes in the wall above the bar enumerate the various pauses in
the great debate upon the perils of the public peace from Negro
Suffrage.
Reclining with great ease of attitude upon an uncushioned settee, the
Ritualistic organist is aroused from dreamy slumber by the turning-over
of the pipe in his mouth, and majestically motions for the venerable
woman of the house to come and brush the ashes from his clothes.
"Wud yez have it filled again, honey?" asks the woman. "Sure, wan pipe
more would do ye no harrum."
"I'mtooshleepy," he says, dropping the pipe.
"An' are yez too shlapey, asthore, to talk a little bissiness wid an
ould woman?" she asks, insinuatingly. "Couldn't yez be afther payin' me
the bit av a schore I've got agin ye?"
Mr. BUMSTEAD opens his eyes reproachfully, and wishes to know how she
can dare talk about money matters to an organist who, at almost any
moment, may be obliged to see a Chinaman hired in his place on account
of cheapness?
"Could the haythen crayture play, thin?" she asks, wonderingly.
"Thairvairimitative," he tells her;--"Cookwashiron' n' eatbirdsnests."
"An' vote would they, honey?"
"Yesh--'f course--thairvairimitative, I tell y'," snarls he:
"do'tcheapzdirt."
"Is it vote chaper they would, the haythen naygurs, than daycint,
hardworkin' white min?" she asks, excitedly.
"Yesh. Chinesecheaplabor," he says, bitterly.
"Och, hone!" cries the woman, in anguish; "and f'hat's the poor to do
then, honey?"
"Gowest; go'nfarm!" sobs Mr. BUMSTEAD, shedding tears. "I'd go m'self if
a-hadn't lost dear-er-rerelative.--Nephew'n' umbrella."
"Saint PAYTHER! an' f'hat's that?"
"EDWINS!" cries the unhappy organist, starting to his feet with a wild
reel. "Th' pride of'suncle'sheart! I see 'm now,
in'sh'fectionatemanhood, with whalebone ribs, made 'f alpaca,
andyetsoyoung. 'Help me!' hiccries; 'PENDRAGON'sash'nate'n me!'
hiccries--and I go!"
While uttering this extraordinary burst of feeling, he has advanced
towards the door in a kind of demoniac can-can, and, at its close,
abruptly darts into the street and frantically makes off.
"The cross of the holy fathers!" ejaculates the woman, momentarily
bewildered by this sudden termination of the scene. Then a new
expression comes swiftly over her face, and she adds, in a different
tone, "Odether-nodether, but it's coonin' as a fox he is, and it's off
he's gone again widout payin' me the schore! Sure, but I'll follow him,
if it's to the wurruld's ind, and see f'hat he is and where he is."
Thus it happens that she reaches Bumsteadville almost as soon as the
Ritualistic organist, and, following him to his boarding-house,
encounters Mr. TRACEY CLEWS upon the steps.
"Well, now!" calls that gentleman, as she looks inquiringly at him, "who
do you want?"
"Him as just passed in, your Honor."
"Mr. BUMSTEAD?"
"Ah. Where does he play the organ?"
"In St. Cow's Church, down yonder. Mass at seven o'clock, and he'll be
there in half an hour."
"It's there I'll be, thin," mumbles the woman; "and bad luck to it that
I didn't know before; whin I came to ax him for me schore, and might
have gone home widout a cint but for a good lad named EDDY who gave me a
sthamp.--The same EDDY, I'm thinkin', that I've heard him mutter about
in his shlape at my shebang in town, whin he came there on political
business."
After a start and a pause, Mr. CLEWS repeats his information concerning
the Ritualistic church, and then cautiously follows the woman as she
goes thither.
Unconscious of the remarkable female figure intently watching him from
under a corner of the gallery, and occasionally shaking a fist at him,
Mr. BUMSTEAD attends to the musical part of the service with as much
artistic accuracy as a hasty head-bath and a glass of soda-water are
capable of securing. The worshippers are too busy with risings,
kneelings, bowings, and miscellaneous devout gymnastics, to heed his
casual imperfections, and his headache makes him fiercely indifferent to
what any one else may think.
Coming out of the athletic edifice, Mr. CLEWS comes upon the woman
again, who seems excited.
"Well?" he says.
"Sure he saw me in time to shlip out of a back dure," she returns,
savagely; "but it's shtrait to his boording-house I'm going afther him,
the spalpeen."
Again Mr. TRACEY CLEWS follows her; but this time he allows her to go up
to Mr. BUMSTEAD'S room, while he turns into his own apartment where his
breakfast awaits him. "I can make a chalk mark for the trail I've struck
to-day," he says; and then thoughtfully attacks the meal upon the
table.[2]
(_To be Continued._)
[Footnote 2: At this point, the English original of this Adaptation--the
"Mystery of EDWIN DROOD"--breaks off forever.]
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