My friend, Jacob Dowling, Esq., had been spending the day very
agreeably in his counting-room with some companions, and at night
retired to the domestic circle to ravel out some intricate accounts.
Seated at his parlour table he ordered his wife and children out of the
room and addressed himself to business. While clambering wearily up a
column of figures he felt upon his cheek the touch of something that
seemed to cling clammily to the skin like the caress of a naked oyster.
Thoughtfully setting down the result of his addition so far as he had
proceeded with it, he turned about and looked up.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said he, “but you have not the advantage of
my acquaintance.”
“Why, Jake,” replied the apparition—whom I have thought it useless to
describe—“don’t you know me?”
“I confess that your countenance is familiar,” returned my friend, “but
I cannot at this moment recall your name. I never forget a face, but
names I cannot remember.”
“Jake!” rumbled the spectre with sepulchral dignity, a look of
displeasure crawling across his pallid features, “you’re foolin’.”
“I give you my word I am quite serious. Oblige me with your name, and
favour me with a statement of your business with me at this hour.”
The disembodied party sank uninvited into a chair, spread out his knees
and stared blankly at a Dutch clock with an air of weariness and
profound discouragement. Perceiving that his guest was making himself
tolerably comfortable my friend turned again to his figures, and
silence reigned supreme. The fire in the grate burned noiselessly with
a mysterious blue light, as if it could do more if it wished; the Dutch
clock looked wise, and swung its pendulum with studied exactness, like
one who is determined to do his precise duty and shun responsibility;
the cat assumed an attitude of intelligent neutrality. Finally the
spectre trained his pale eyes upon his host, pulled in a long breath
and remarked:
“Jake, I’m yur dead father. I come back to have a talk with ye ’bout
the way things is agoin’ on. I want to know ’f you think it’s right
notter _recognise_ yur dead parent?”
“It _is_ a little rough on you, dear,” replied the son without looking
up, “but the fact is that [7 and 3 are 10, and 2 are 12, and 6 are 18]
it is so long since you have been about [and 3 off are 15] that I had
kind of forgotten, and [2 into 4 goes twice, and 7 into 6 you can’t]
you know how it is yourself. May I be permitted to again inquire the
precise nature of your present business?”
“Well, yes—if you wont talk anything but shop I s’pose I must come to
the p’int. Isay! you don’t keep any thing to drink ’bout yer, do
ye—Jake?”
“14 from 23 are 9—I’ll get you something when we get done. Please
explain how we can serve one another.”
“Jake, I done everything for you, and you ain’t done nothin’ for me
since I died. I want a monument bigger’n Dave Broderick’s, with an
eppytaph in gilt letters, by Joaquin Miller. I can’t git into any kind
o’ society till I have ’em. You’ve no idee how exclusive they are where
I am.”
This dutiful son laid down his pencil and effected a stiffly vertical
attitude. He was all attention:
“Anything else to-day?” he asked—rather sneeringly, I grieve to state.
“No-o-o, I don’t think of anything special,” drawled the ghost
reflectively; “I’d like to have an iron fence around it to keep the
cows off, but I s’pose that’s included.”
“_Of_ course! And a gravel walk, and a lot of abalone shells, and fresh
posies daily; a marble angel or two for company, and anything else that
will add to your comfort. Have you any other extremely reasonable
request to make of me?”
“Yes—since you mention it. I want you to contest my will. Horace Hawes
is having his’n contested.”
“My fine friend, you did not make any will.”
“That ain’t o’ no consequence. You forge me a good ’un and contest
that.”
“With pleasure, sir; but that will be extra. Now indulge me in one
question. You spoke of the society where you reside. _Where_ do you
reside?”
The Dutch clock pounded clamorously upon its brazen gong a countless
multitude of hours; the glowing coals fell like an avalanche through
the grate, spilling all over the cat, who exalted her voice in a squawk
like the deathwail of a stuck pig, and dashed affrighted through the
window. A smell of scorching fur pervaded the place, and under cover of
it the aged spectre walked into the mirror, vanishing like a dream.
“Love’s Labour Lost”
Joab was a beef, who was tired of being courted for his clean, smooth
skin. So he backed through a narrow gateway six or eight times, which
made his hair stand the wrong way. He then went and rubbed his fat
sides against a charred log. This made him look untidy. You never
looked worse in your life than Joab did.
“Now,” said he, “I shall be loved for myself alone. I will change my
name, and hie me to pastures new, and all the affection that is then
lavished upon me will be pure and disinterested.”
So he strayed off into the woods and came out at old Abner Davis’
ranch. The two things Abner valued most were a windmill and a
scratching-post for hogs. They were equally beautiful, and the fame of
their comeliness had gone widely abroad. To them Joab naturally paid
his attention. The windmill, who was called Lucille Ashtonbury
Clifford, received him with expressions of the liveliest disgust. His
protestations of affection were met by creakings of contempt, and as he
turned sadly away he was rewarded by a sound spank from one of her
fans. Like a gentlemanly beef he did not deign to avenge the insult by
overturning Lucille Ashtonbury; and it is well for him that he did not,
for old Abner stood by with a pitchfork and a trinity of dogs.
Disgusted with the selfish heartlessness of society, Joab shambled off
and was passing the scratching-post without noticing her. (Her name was
Arabella Cliftonbury Howard.) Suddenly she kicked away a multitude of
pigs who were at her feet, and called to the rolling beef of uncanny
exterior:
“Comeer!”
Joab paused, looked at her with his ox-eyes, and gravely marching up,
commenced a vigorous scratching against her.
“Arabella,” said he, “do you think you could love a shaggy-hided beef
with black hair? Could you love him for himself alone?”
Arabella had observed that the black rubbed off, and the hair lay sleek
when stroked the right way.
“Yes, I think so; could you?”
This was a poser: Joab had expected her to talk business. He did not
reply. It was only her arch way; she thought, naturally, that the best
way to win any body’s love was to be a fool. She saw her mistake. She
had associated with hogs all her life, and this fellow was a beef!
Mistakes must be rectified very speedily in these matters.
“Sir, I have for you a peculiar feeling; I may say a tenderness.
Hereafter you, and you only, shall scratch against Arabella Cliftonbury
Howard!”
Joab was delighted; he stayed and scratched all day. He was loved for
himself alone, and he did not care for anything but that. Then he went
home, made an elaborate toilet, and returned to astonish her. Alas! old
Abner had been about, and seeing how Joab had worn her smooth and
useless, had cut her down for firewood. Joab gave one glance, then
walked solemnly away into a “clearing,” and getting comfortably astride
a blazing heap of logs, made a barbacue of himself!
After all, Lucille Ashtonbury Clifford, the light-headed windmill,
seems to have got the best of all this. I have observed that the
light-headed commonly get the best of everything in this world; which
the wooden-headed and the beef-headed regard as an outrage. I am not
prepared to say if it is or not.