RENEWAL OF OLD ACQUAINTANCE.
"How do you do, Mr. Roberts?"
"Eh?"
"Don't you know me?"
"No, certainly."
The crowd about the captain's office, having in good time melted away,
the above encounter took place in one of the side balconies astern,
between a man in mourning clean and respectable, but none of the
glossiest, a long weed on his hat, and the country-merchant
before-mentioned, whom, with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, the
former had accosted.
"Is it possible, my dear sir," resumed he with the weed, "that you do
not recall my countenance? why yours I recall distinctly as if but half
an hour, instead of half an age, had passed since I saw you. Don't you
recall me, now? Look harder."
"In my conscience--truly--I protest," honestly bewildered, "bless my
soul, sir, I don't know you--really, really. But stay, stay," he
hurriedly added, not without gratification, glancing up at the crape on
the stranger's hat, "stay--yes--seems to me, though I have not the
pleasure of personally knowing you, yet I am pretty sure I have at least
_heard_ of you, and recently too, quite recently. A poor negro aboard
here referred to you, among others, for a character, I think."
"Oh, the cripple. Poor fellow. I know him well. They found me. I have
said all I could for him. I think I abated their distrust. Would I could
have been of more substantial service. And apropos, sir," he added, "now
that it strikes me, allow me to ask, whether the circumstance of one
man, however humble, referring for a character to another man, however
afflicted, does not argue more or less of moral worth in the latter?"
The good merchant looked puzzled.
"Still you don't recall my countenance?"
"Still does truth compel me to say that I cannot, despite my best
efforts," was the reluctantly-candid reply.
"Can I be so changed? Look at me. Or is it I who am mistaken?--Are you
not, sir, Henry Roberts, forwarding merchant, of Wheeling, Pennsylvania?
Pray, now, if you use the advertisement of business cards, and happen to
have one with you, just look at it, and see whether you are not the man
I take you for."
"Why," a bit chafed, perhaps, "I hope I know myself."
"And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my
dear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else?
Stranger things have happened."
The good merchant stared.
"To come to particulars, my dear sir, I met you, now some six years
back, at Brade Brothers & Co's office, I think. I was traveling for a
Philadelphia house. The senior Brade introduced us, you remember; some
business-chat followed, then you forced me home with you to a family
tea, and a family time we had. Have you forgotten about the urn, and
what I said about Werter's Charlotte, and the bread and butter, and that
capital story you told of the large loaf. A hundred times since, I have
laughed over it. At least you must recall my name--Ringman, John
Ringman."
"Large loaf? Invited you to tea? Ringman? Ringman? Ring? Ring?"
"Ah sir," sadly smiling, "don't ring the changes that way. I see you
have a faithless memory, Mr. Roberts. But trust in the faithfulness of
mine."
"Well, to tell the truth, in some things my memory aint of the very
best," was the honest rejoinder. "But still," he perplexedly added,
"still I----"
"Oh sir, suffice it that it is as I say. Doubt not that we are all well
acquainted."
"But--but I don't like this going dead against my own memory; I----"
"But didn't you admit, my dear sir, that in some things this memory of
yours is a little faithless? Now, those who have faithless memories,
should they not have some little confidence in the less faithless
memories of others?"
"But, of this friendly chat and tea, I have not the slightest----"
"I see, I see; quite erased from the tablet. Pray, sir," with a sudden
illumination, "about six years back, did it happen to you to receive any
injury on the head? Surprising effects have arisen from such a cause.
Not alone unconsciousness as to events for a greater or less time
immediately subsequent to the injury, but likewise--strange to
add--oblivion, entire and incurable, as to events embracing a longer or
shorter period immediately preceding it; that is, when the mind at the
time was perfectly sensible of them, and fully competent also to
register them in the memory, and did in fact so do; but all in vain, for
all was afterwards bruised out by the injury."
After the first start, the merchant listened with what appeared more
than ordinary interest. The other proceeded:
"In my boyhood I was kicked by a horse, and lay insensible for a long
time. Upon recovering, what a blank! No faintest trace in regard to how
I had come near the horse, or what horse it was, or where it was, or
that it was a horse at all that had brought me to that pass. For the
knowledge of those particulars I am indebted solely to my friends, in
whose statements, I need not say, I place implicit reliance, since
particulars of some sort there must have been, and why should they
deceive me? You see sir, the mind is ductile, very much so: but images,
ductilely received into it, need a certain time to harden and bake in
their impressions, otherwise such a casualty as I speak of will in an
instant obliterate them, as though they had never been. We are but clay,
sir, potter's clay, as the good book says, clay, feeble, and
too-yielding clay. But I will not philosophize. Tell me, was it your
misfortune to receive any concussion upon the brain about the period I
speak of? If so, I will with pleasure supply the void in your memory by
more minutely rehearsing the circumstances of our acquaintance."
The growing interest betrayed by the merchant had not relaxed as the
other proceeded. After some hesitation, indeed, something more than
hesitation, he confessed that, though he had never received any injury
of the sort named, yet, about the time in question, he had in fact been
taken with a brain fever, losing his mind completely for a considerable
interval. He was continuing, when the stranger with much animation
exclaimed:
"There now, you see, I was not wholly mistaken. That brain fever
accounts for it all."
"Nay; but----"
"Pardon me, Mr. Roberts," respectfully interrupting him, "but time is
short, and I have something private and particular to say to you. Allow
me."
Mr. Roberts, good man, could but acquiesce, and the two having silently
walked to a less public spot, the manner of the man with the weed
suddenly assumed a seriousness almost painful. What might be called a
writhing expression stole over him. He seemed struggling with some
disastrous necessity inkept. He made one or two attempts to speak, but
words seemed to choke him. His companion stood in humane surprise,
wondering what was to come. At length, with an effort mastering his
feelings, in a tolerably composed tone he spoke:
"If I remember, you are a mason, Mr. Roberts?"
"Yes, yes."
Averting himself a moment, as to recover from a return of agitation, the
stranger grasped the other's hand; "and would you not loan a brother a
shilling if he needed it?"
The merchant started, apparently, almost as if to retreat.
"Ah, Mr. Roberts, I trust you are not one of those business men, who
make a business of never having to do with unfortunates. For God's sake
don't leave me. I have something on my heart--on my heart. Under
deplorable circumstances thrown among strangers, utter strangers. I want
a friend in whom I may confide. Yours, Mr. Roberts, is almost the first
known face I've seen for many weeks."
It was so sudden an outburst; the interview offered such a contrast to
the scene around, that the merchant, though not used to be very
indiscreet, yet, being not entirely inhumane, remained not entirely
unmoved.
The other, still tremulous, resumed:
"I need not say, sir, how it cuts me to the soul, to follow up a social
salutation with such words as have just been mine. I know that I
jeopardize your good opinion. But I can't help it: necessity knows no
law, and heeds no risk. Sir, we are masons, one more step aside; I will
tell you my story."
In a low, half-suppressed tone, he began it. Judging from his auditor's
expression, it seemed to be a tale of singular interest, involving
calamities against which no integrity, no forethought, no energy, no
genius, no piety, could guard.
At every disclosure, the hearer's commiseration increased. No
sentimental pity. As the story went on, he drew from his wallet a bank
note, but after a while, at some still more unhappy revelation, changed
it for another, probably of a somewhat larger amount; which, when the
story was concluded, with an air studiously disclamatory of alms-giving,
he put into the stranger's hands; who, on his side, with an air
studiously disclamatory of alms-taking, put it into his pocket.
Assistance being received, the stranger's manner assumed a kind and
degree of decorum which, under the circumstances, seemed almost
coldness. After some words, not over ardent, and yet not exactly
inappropriate, he took leave, making a bow which had one knows not what
of a certain chastened independence about it; as if misery, however
burdensome, could not break down self-respect, nor gratitude, however
deep, humiliate a gentleman.
He was hardly yet out of sight, when he paused as if thinking; then with
hastened steps returning to the merchant, "I am just reminded that the
president, who is also transfer-agent, of the Black Rapids Coal Company,
happens to be on board here, and, having been subpoenaed as witness in a
stock case on the docket in Kentucky, has his transfer-book with him. A
month since, in a panic contrived by artful alarmists, some credulous
stock-holders sold out; but, to frustrate the aim of the alarmists, the
Company, previously advised of their scheme, so managed it as to get
into its own hands those sacrificed shares, resolved that, since a
spurious panic must be, the panic-makers should be no gainers by it. The
Company, I hear, is now ready, but not anxious, to redispose of those
shares; and having obtained them at their depressed value, will now sell
them at par, though, prior to the panic, they were held at a handsome
figure above. That the readiness of the Company to do this is not
generally known, is shown by the fact that the stock still stands on the
transfer-book in the Company's name, offering to one in funds a rare
chance for investment. For, the panic subsiding more and more every day,
it will daily be seen how it originated; confidence will be more than
restored; there will be a reaction; from the stock's descent its rise
will be higher than from no fall, the holders trusting themselves to
fear no second fate."
Having listened at first with curiosity, at last with interest, the
merchant replied to the effect, that some time since, through friends
concerned with it, he had heard of the company, and heard well of it,
but was ignorant that there had latterly been fluctuations. He added
that he was no speculator; that hitherto he had avoided having to do
with stocks of any sort, but in the present case he really felt
something like being tempted. "Pray," in conclusion, "do you think that
upon a pinch anything could be transacted on board here with the
transfer-agent? Are you acquainted with him?"
"Not personally. I but happened to hear that he was a passenger. For the
rest, though it might be somewhat informal, the gentleman might not
object to doing a little business on board. Along the Mississippi, you
know, business is not so ceremonious as at the East."
"True," returned the merchant, and looked down a moment in thought,
then, raising his head quickly, said, in a tone not so benign as his
wonted one, "This would seem a rare chance, indeed; why, upon first
hearing it, did you not snatch at it? I mean for yourself!"
"I?--would it had been possible!"
Not without some emotion was this said, and not without some
embarrassment was the reply. "Ah, yes, I had forgotten."
Upon this, the stranger regarded him with mild gravity, not a little
disconcerting; the more so, as there was in it what seemed the aspect
not alone of the superior, but, as it were, the rebuker; which sort of
bearing, in a beneficiary towards his benefactor, looked strangely
enough; none the less, that, somehow, it sat not altogether unbecomingly
upon the beneficiary, being free from anything like the appearance of
assumption, and mixed with a kind of painful conscientiousness, as
though nothing but a proper sense of what he owed to himself swayed him.
At length he spoke:
"To reproach a penniless man with remissness in not availing himself of
an opportunity for pecuniary investment--but, no, no; it was
forgetfulness; and this, charity will impute to some lingering effect of
that unfortunate brain-fever, which, as to occurrences dating yet
further back, disturbed Mr. Roberts's memory still more seriously."
"As to that," said the merchant, rallying, "I am not----"
"Pardon me, but you must admit, that just now, an unpleasant distrust,
however vague, was yours. Ah, shallow as it is, yet, how subtle a thing
is suspicion, which at times can invade the humanest of hearts and
wisest of heads. But, enough. My object, sir, in calling your attention
to this stock, is by way of acknowledgment of your goodness. I but seek
to be grateful; if my information leads to nothing, you must remember
the motive."
He bowed, and finally retired, leaving Mr. Roberts not wholly without
self-reproach, for having momentarily indulged injurious thoughts
against one who, it was evident, was possessed of a self-respect which
forbade his indulging them himself.