IN WHICH SHEPPARD LEE HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH A LADY, WHO TELLS HIM A
SECRET.
"In and mount," said Tickle: "I see Jem Puddle in the street yonder,
and I have an idea I can borrow fifty dollars of him. I will drop round
on you by-and-by."
So saying, Tickle started off and left me at the door of my lodgings.
I had a sort of confused recollection of the place, though I had never
seen it before in my life;--the dingy bricks and weather-stained
marble, the rickety old iron railing on the steps, and the ugly,
worn-out brass plate, with the "J. SNIGGLES" engraved thereon, rose on
my memory like old acquaintances who had grown out of it. The house
might have been a fashionable one in its day; nay, for the matter of
that, it was not so humble in appearance but that a gentleman might
have lived in it, if too poor to inhabit a better; and though out of
the world, being in a street called Eighth, it was within hail of
Chestnut: nevertheless, it was but a poor place compared with my late
dwelling, _my_ house, in Chestnut; the recollection of which, together
with the reflection that I entered this only as a lodger, somewhat
abated the transport of my joy. "Ah!" thought I, "what a pity, in giving
up John H. Higginson's gout and wife, I had also to give up his house
and money!" But the recollection of the two first-named possessions was
fresh upon me, and I ceased to murmur.
I ascended the steps and rang the bell, somewhat faintly, I must
acknowledge; for though I had my friend Tickle's assurance, and a
confused consciousness of my own, that I was at the right place, there
was a certain strangeness in it, naturally arising from my situation,
that made me hesitate. The door, however, opened, and the reception
that followed convinced me I was not intruding where I was not known.
The door was opened by a bouncing Irish wench, of some twenty-five
years or thereabouts, with hair as yellow as a broom-whisk, and
shoulders twice as broad as my own; besides which, she was not
handsome; she had staring gray eyes, brick-coloured cheeks, a nose that
looked up at her forehead, and a mouth not so ugly as spacious.
I was about to pass by this fair apparition with no further notice than
a nod, which I made somewhat instinctively; but I was not fated to get
off so easily. No sooner did she lay eyes upon me than she set up a
squeak, "Oh, hubbuboo! and is it _you_, Misther Dawkins, dear?" and
threw her great beef-steak arms round my neck.
An embrace from a creature of her attractions I could have easily
dispensed with; yet I might have been affected by her joy at seeing
me return alive from the bottom of the river, it was so truly natural
and exuberant, had she not been in a great hurry to qualify it. "Oh,
murder, dear!" she cried, "and I'm glad; for they said, bad luck
till'em, the vagabones! you was drownded, dear, and was after chating
me out iv my money for the washin' and mindin'!"
"The washing and mending?" thought I. "Do I patronise such a tasty body
as this? and do I owe her money?"
But while I muttered thus within, the girl, giving me another hug that
I thought would have made my shoulders change place with one another,
roared out, in continuation,--
"Och, throth, but the man must drown dape that chates Nora Magee of her
own! Musha, hinny darlint, jist pit yer finger into yer pocket and pull
me out the tin dollars and seventy cents that you owe me."
"Certainly, Nora," said I; "and Succuba let me go. But, ged now, Nora,"
I cried, for well I knew my pockets were as empty as the promises I
intended to make her, and I was driven by a sort of instinct upon the
proper course for pacifying the harpy,--a course, I suppose, that
I,--that is, my prototype, the true Dawkins,--had often practised
before;--I say, "Nora, don't talk of dollars and cents; for I intend to
pay you in eagles and half-eagles some of these days, when my uncle
comes; and besides, Nora, you jade you, I intend to give you a buss
into the bargain, as, ged, I believe I will _now_."
And with that I returned the compliment she had paid me, took the great
creature by the neck, and (yea, faith, and I presume I should have done
the same thing with my tailor, if he could have been managed the same
way) absolutely kissed her.
"Och! blessings on yer pritty face!" said she, looking pleased and
disappointed together, but wiping her mouth as if to prepare for a
second salute, "and that's the way you bamboozles me wid your uncles
and your thricks upon a poor cratur's modesty! But, oh, Misther
Dawkins, dear, ye'r lookin' sick and pokey; and so I'll not be after
throubling you; and I hopes your uncle will be soon in Phillydelphy;
for there's our ould Sniggles, the hungry ould nagur (that I should be
saying so of the master o' the house, that gives me a dollar a week
and a new bonnet at Christmas!) he's been rampin', and roarin', and
swearin' like a Turk, my heavy hathred on him, he'll be havin' you up
before the constables and squires for the dirty rint-money, the ould
divil! that you owe him."
"The rent-money?" thought I; and I began to have a sort of feeling
about me, I do not know what, but it was not agreeable. I clapped my
hand into my pocket; there was a pocketbook there, but I had examined
it before, and there was nothing in it. My mind began to misgive me a
little; it was apparent the worthy I. D. Dawkins had not yielded me his
body without leaving me some of his debts to pay: and as to what means
of discharging them he might have bequeathed, I was yet in the dark.
I ascended to my rooms, of which I discovered I had a brace; but I was
in some dudgeon to find them in the third story. "Very odd," said I to
myself, "that I should be a fashionable man and a dandy, and live in a
third story!" My instincts had gone nigh, as I climbed the stairs, to
carry me into a chamber on the first floor; but, "Arrah, now, hinny,"
said Nora, "you'd be after forgetting you agreed to give up the best
chambers till yer uncle comes to town--bad luck to him for keeping me
so long out iv my tin dollars!"
"This uncle of mine," thought I, "will settle all pothers." But who he
was, or what sort of claim I had upon him, I knew no more than the man
in the moon. My associations acted but slowly and imperfectly, and when
I strove to look back upon the past history of my new body, I felt
like a man who has clapped upon his nose his grandmother's spectacles,
through which he can behold objects indeed, but all so confused,
distorted, and mystified, that they serve only to bewilder his vision.
Thus I beheld, when I made the effort, a jumble of events and persons
crowded together on my memory, but without being able to seize upon any
one and examine it to my satisfaction. I had an uncle, it seemed, but I
could not recall any thing like a recollection of having ever seen him.
"But time," thought I, "will set these things right."