It was not until the basket had arrived within a few feet of the Gizbarim

that a low grunt betrayed to their perception a _hog_ of no common size.

“Now El Emanu!” slowly and with upturned eyes ejaculated the trio, as,

letting go their hold, the emancipated porker tumbled headlong among the

Philistines, “El Emanu!—God be with us—it is _the unutterable

flesh!”_

THE SPHINX

During the dread reign of the cholera in New York, I had accepted the

invitation of a relative to spend a fortnight with him in the retirement

of his _cottage ornée_ on the banks of the Hudson. We had here around

us all the ordinary means of summer amusement; and what with rambling in

the woods, sketching, boating, fishing, bathing, music, and books, we

should have passed the time pleasantly enough, but for the fearful

intelligence which reached us every morning from the populous city. Not a

day elapsed which did not bring us news of the decease of some

acquaintance. Then as the fatality increased, we learned to expect daily

the loss of some friend. At length we trembled at the approach of every

messenger. The very air from the South seemed to us redolent with death.

That palsying thought, indeed, took entire possession of my soul. I could

neither speak, think, nor dream of any thing else. My host was of a less

excitable temperament, and, although greatly depressed in spirits, exerted

himself to sustain my own. His richly philosophical intellect was not at

any time affected by unrealities. To the substances of terror he was

sufficiently alive, but of its shadows he had no apprehension.

His endeavors to arouse me from the condition of abnormal gloom into which

I had fallen, were frustrated, in great measure, by certain volumes which

I had found in his library. These were of a character to force into

germination whatever seeds of hereditary superstition lay latent in my

bosom. I had been reading these books without his knowledge, and thus he

was often at a loss to account for the forcible impressions which had been

made upon my fancy.

A favorite topic with me was the popular belief in omens—a belief

which, at this one epoch of my life, I was almost seriously disposed to

defend. On this subject we had long and animated discussions—he

maintaining the utter groundlessness of faith in such matters,—I

contending that a popular sentiment arising with absolute

spontaneity—that is to say, without apparent traces of

suggestion—had in itself the unmistakable elements of truth, and

was entitled to as much respect as that intuition which is the

idiosyncrasy of the individual man of genius.

The fact is, that soon after my arrival at the cottage there had occurred

to myself an incident so entirely inexplicable, and which had in it so

much of the portentous character, that I might well have been excused for

regarding it as an omen. It appalled, and at the same time so confounded

and bewildered me, that many days elapsed before I could make up my mind

to communicate the circumstances to my friend.

Near the close of exceedingly warm day, I was sitting, book in hand, at an

open window, commanding, through a long vista of the river banks, a view

of a distant hill, the face of which nearest my position had been denuded

by what is termed a land-slide, of the principal portion of its trees. My

thoughts had been long wandering from the volume before me to the gloom

and desolation of the neighboring city. Uplifting my eyes from the page,

they fell upon the naked face of the bill, and upon an object—upon

some living monster of hideous conformation, which very rapidly made its

way from the summit to the bottom, disappearing finally in the dense

forest below. As this creature first came in sight, I doubted my own

sanity—or at least the evidence of my own eyes; and many minutes

passed before I succeeded in convincing myself that I was neither mad nor

in a dream. Yet when I described the monster (which I distinctly saw, and

calmly surveyed through the whole period of its progress), my readers, I

fear, will feel more difficulty in being convinced of these points than

even I did myself.

Estimating the size of the creature by comparison with the diameter of the

large trees near which it passed—the few giants of the forest which

had escaped the fury of the land-slide—I concluded it to be far

larger than any ship of the line in existence. I say ship of the line,

because the shape of the monster suggested the idea—the hull of one

of our seventy-four might convey a very tolerable conception of the

general outline. The mouth of the animal was situated at the extremity of

a proboscis some sixty or seventy feet in length, and about as thick as

the body of an ordinary elephant. Near the root of this trunk was an

immense quantity of black shaggy hair—more than could have been

supplied by the coats of a score of buffaloes; and projecting from this

hair downwardly and laterally, sprang two gleaming tusks not unlike those

of the wild boar, but of infinitely greater dimensions. Extending forward,

parallel with the proboscis, and on each side of it, was a gigantic staff,

thirty or forty feet in length, formed seemingly of pure crystal and in

shape a perfect prism,—it reflected in the most gorgeous manner the

rays of the declining sun. The trunk was fashioned like a wedge with the

apex to the earth. From it there were outspread two pairs of wings—each

wing nearly one hundred yards in length—one pair being placed above

the other, and all thickly covered with metal scales; each scale

apparently some ten or twelve feet in diameter. I observed that the upper

and lower tiers of wings were connected by a strong chain. But the chief

peculiarity of this horrible thing was the representation of a Death’s

Head, which covered nearly the whole surface of its breast, and which was

as accurately traced in glaring white, upon the dark ground of the body,

as if it had been there carefully designed by an artist. While I regarded

the terrific animal, and more especially the appearance on its breast,

with a feeling or horror and awe—with a sentiment of forthcoming

evil, which I found it impossible to quell by any effort of the reason, I

perceived the huge jaws at the extremity of the proboscis suddenly expand

themselves, and from them there proceeded a sound so loud and so

expressive of woe, that it struck upon my nerves like a knell and as the

monster disappeared at the foot of the hill, I fell at once, fainting, to

the floor.

Upon recovering, my first impulse, of course, was to inform my friend of

what I had seen and heard—and I can scarcely explain what feeling of

repugnance it was which, in the end, operated to prevent me.

At length, one evening, some three or four days after the occurrence, we

were sitting together in the room in which I had seen the apparition—I

occupying the same seat at the same window, and he lounging on a sofa near

at hand. The association of the place and time impelled me to give him an

account of the phenomenon. He heard me to the end—at first laughed

heartily—and then lapsed into an excessively grave demeanor, as if

my insanity was a thing beyond suspicion. At this instant I again had a

distinct view of the monster—to which, with a shout of absolute

terror, I now directed his attention. He looked eagerly—but

maintained that he saw nothing—although I designated minutely the

course of the creature, as it made its way down the naked face of the

hill.

I was now immeasurably alarmed, for I considered the vision either as an

omen of my death, or, worse, as the fore-runner of an attack of mania. I

threw myself passionately back in my chair, and for some moments buried my

face in my hands. When I uncovered my eyes, the apparition was no longer

apparent.

My host, however, had in some degree resumed the calmness of his demeanor,

and questioned me very rigorously in respect to the conformation of the

visionary creature. When I had fully satisfied him on this head, he sighed

deeply, as if relieved of some intolerable burden, and went on to talk,

with what I thought a cruel calmness, of various points of speculative

philosophy, which had heretofore formed subject of discussion between us.

I remember his insisting very especially (among other things) upon the

idea that the principle source of error in all human investigations lay in

the liability of the understanding to under-rate or to over-value the

importance of an object, through mere misadmeasurement of its

propinquity. “To estimate properly, for example,” he said, “the influence

to be exercised on mankind at large by the thorough diffusion of

Democracy, the distance of the epoch at which such diffusion may possibly

be accomplished should not fail to form an item in the estimate. Yet can

you tell me one writer on the subject of government who has ever thought

this particular branch of the subject worthy of discussion at all?”

He here paused for a moment, stepped to a book-case, and brought forth one

of the ordinary synopses of Natural History. Requesting me then to

exchange seats with him, that he might the better distinguish the fine

print of the volume, he took my armchair at the window, and, opening the

book, resumed his discourse very much in the same tone as before.

“But for your exceeding minuteness,” he said, “in describing the monster,

I might never have had it in my power to demonstrate to you what it was.

In the first place, let me read to you a schoolboy account of the genus

Sphinx, of the family Crepuscularia of the order Lepidoptera, of the class

of Insecta—or insects. The account runs thus:

“‘Four membranous wings covered with little colored scales of metallic

appearance; mouth forming a rolled proboscis, produced by an elongation of

the jaws, upon the sides of which are found the rudiments of mandibles and

downy palpi; the inferior wings retained to the superior by a stiff hair;

antennæ in the form of an elongated club, prismatic; abdomen pointed. The

Death’s-headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among the vulgar,

at times, by the melancholy kind of cry which it utters, and the insignia

of death which it wears upon its corslet.’”

He here closed the book and leaned forward in the chair, placing himself

accurately in the position which I had occupied at the moment of beholding

“the monster.”

“Ah, here it is,” he presently exclaimed—“it is reascending the face

of the hill, and a very remarkable looking creature I admit it to be.

Still, it is by no means so large or so distant as you imagined it,—for

the fact is that, as it wriggles its way up this thread, which some spider

has wrought along the window-sash, I find it to be about the sixteenth of

an inch in its extreme length, and also about the sixteenth of an inch

distant from the pupil of my eye.”

HOP-FROG

I never knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He seemed

to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to

tell it well, was the surest road to his favor. Thus it happened that his

seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers. They

all took after the king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well

as inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there

is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been

quite able to determine; but certain it is that a lean joker is a rara

avis in terris.

About the refinements, or, as he called them, the “ghost” of wit, the king

troubled himself very little. He had an especial admiration for breadth in

a jest, and would often put up with length, for the sake of it.

Over-niceties wearied him. He would have preferred Rabelais’ “Gargantua”

to the “Zadig” of Voltaire: and, upon the whole, practical jokes suited

his taste far better than verbal ones.

At the date of my narrative, professing jesters had not altogether gone

out of fashion at court. Several of the great continental “powers” still

retain their “fools,” who wore motley, with caps and bells, and who were

expected to be always ready with sharp witticisms, at a moment’s notice,

in consideration of the crumbs that fell from the royal table.

_Our_ king, as a matter of course, retained his “fool.” The fact is, he

_required_ something in the way of folly—if only to counterbalance the

heavy wisdom of the seven wise men who were his ministers—not to

mention himself.

His fool, or professional jester, was not only a fool, however. His value

was trebled in the eyes of the king, by the fact of his being also a dwarf

and a cripple. Dwarfs were as common at court, in those days, as fools;

and many monarchs would have found it difficult to get through their days

(days are rather longer at court than elsewhere) without both a jester to

laugh with, and a dwarf to laugh at. But, as I have already observed, your

jesters, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, are fat, round, and

unwieldy—so that it was no small source of self-gratulation with our

king that, in Hop-Frog (this was the fool’s name), he possessed a

triplicate treasure in one person.

I believe the name “Hop-Frog” was _not_ that given to the dwarf by his

sponsors at baptism, but it was conferred upon him, by general consent of

the seven ministers, on account of his inability to walk as other men

do. In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional

gait—something between a leap and a wriggle—a movement that

afforded illimitable amusement, and of course consolation, to the king,

for (notwithstanding the protuberance of his stomach and a constitutional

swelling of the head) the king, by his whole court, was accounted a

capital figure.

But although Hop-Frog, through the distortion of his legs, could move only

with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor, the prodigious

muscular power which nature seemed to have bestowed upon his arms, by way

of compensation for deficiency in the lower limbs, enabled him to perform

many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in question,

or any thing else to climb. At such exercises he certainly much more

resembled a squirrel, or a small monkey, than a frog.

I am not able to say, with precision, from what country Hop-Frog

originally came. It was from some barbarous region, however, that no

person ever heard of—a vast distance from the court of our king.

Hop-Frog, and a young girl very little less dwarfish than himself

(although of exquisite proportions, and a marvellous dancer), had been

forcibly carried off from their respective homes in adjoining provinces,

and sent as presents to the king, by one of his ever-victorious generals.

Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that a close

intimacy arose between the two little captives. Indeed, they soon became

sworn friends. Hop-Frog, who, although he made a great deal of sport, was

by no means popular, had it not in his power to render Trippetta many

services; but she, on account of her grace and exquisite beauty (although

a dwarf), was universally admired and petted; so she possessed much

influence; and never failed to use it, whenever she could, for the benefit

of Hop-Frog.

On some grand state occasion—I forgot what—the king determined

to have a masquerade, and whenever a masquerade or any thing of that kind,

occurred at our court, then the talents, both of Hop-Frog and Trippetta

were sure to be called into play. Hop-Frog, in especial, was so inventive

in the way of getting up pageants, suggesting novel characters, and

arranging costumes, for masked balls, that nothing could be done, it

seems, without his assistance.

The night appointed for the fete had arrived. A gorgeous hall had been

fitted up, under Trippetta’s eye, with every kind of device which could

possibly give eclat to a masquerade. The whole court was in a fever of

expectation. As for costumes and characters, it might well be supposed

that everybody had come to a decision on such points. Many had made up

their minds (as to what roles they should assume) a week, or even a month,

in advance; and, in fact, there was not a particle of indecision anywhere—except

in the case of the king and his seven minsters. Why they hesitated I never

could tell, unless they did it by way of a joke. More probably, they found

it difficult, on account of being so fat, to make up their minds. At all

events, time flew; and, as a last resort they sent for Trippetta and

Hop-Frog.

When the two little friends obeyed the summons of the king they found him

sitting at his wine with the seven members of his cabinet council; but the

monarch appeared to be in a very ill humor. He knew that Hop-Frog was not

fond of wine, for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness; and

madness is no comfortable feeling. But the king loved his practical jokes,

and took pleasure in forcing Hop-Frog to drink and (as the king called it)

“to be merry.”

“Come here, Hop-Frog,” said he, as the jester and his friend entered the

room; “swallow this bumper to the health of your absent friends, [here

Hop-Frog sighed,] and then let us have the benefit of your invention. We

want characters—characters, man—something novel—out of

the way. We are wearied with this everlasting sameness. Come, drink! the

wine will brighten your wits.”

Hop-Frog endeavored, as usual, to get up a jest in reply to these advances

from the king; but the effort was too much. It happened to be the poor

dwarf’s birthday, and the command to drink to his “absent friends” forced

the tears to his eyes. Many large, bitter drops fell into the goblet as he

took it, humbly, from the hand of the tyrant.

“Ah! ha! ha! ha!” roared the latter, as the dwarf reluctantly

drained the beaker. “See what a glass of good wine can do! Why,

your eyes are shining already!”

Poor fellow! his large eyes gleamed, rather than shone; for the effect of

wine on his excitable brain was not more powerful than instantaneous. He

placed the goblet nervously on the table, and looked round upon the

company with a half-insane stare. They all seemed highly amused at

the success of the king’s ‘joke.’

“And now to business,” said the prime minister, a very fat man.

“Yes,” said the King; “Come, Hop-Frog, lend us your

assistance. Characters, my fine fellow; we stand in need of

characters—all of us—ha! ha! ha!” and as this was

seriously meant for a joke, his laugh was chorused by the seven.

Hop-Frog also laughed, although feebly and somewhat vacantly.

“Come, come,” said the king, impatiently, “have you nothing to suggest?”

“I am endeavoring to think of something novel,” replied the dwarf,

abstractedly, for he was quite bewildered by the wine.

“Endeavoring!” cried the tyrant, fiercely; “what do you

mean by _that?_ Ah, I perceive. You are sulky, and want more wine.

Here, drink this!” and he poured out another goblet full and

offered it to the cripple, who merely gazed at it, gasping for breath.

“Drink, I say!” shouted the monster, “or by the

fiends—”

The dwarf hesitated. The king grew purple with rage. The courtiers

smirked. Trippetta, pale as a corpse, advanced to the monarch’s seat, and,

falling on her knees before him, implored him to spare her friend.

The tyrant regarded her, for some moments, in evident wonder at her

audacity. He seemed quite at a loss what to do or say—how most

becomingly to express his indignation. At last, without uttering a

syllable, he pushed her violently from him, and threw the contents of the

brimming goblet in her face.

The poor girl got up the best she could, and, not daring even to sigh,

resumed her position at the foot of the table.

There was a dead silence for about half a minute, during which the falling

of a leaf, or of a feather, might have been heard. It was interrupted by a

low, but harsh and protracted grating sound which seemed to come at once

from every corner of the room.

“What—what—what are you making that noise for?” demanded the

king, turning furiously to the dwarf.

The latter seemed to have recovered, in great measure, from his

intoxication, and looking fixedly but quietly into the tyrant’s face,

merely ejaculated:

“I—I? How could it have been me?”

“The sound appeared to come from without,” observed one of the courtiers.

“I fancy it was the parrot at the window, whetting his bill upon his

cage-wires.”

“True,” replied the monarch, as if much relieved by the suggestion; “but,

on the honor of a knight, I could have sworn that it was the gritting of

this vagabond’s teeth.”

Hereupon the dwarf laughed (the king was too confirmed a joker to object

to any one’s laughing), and displayed a set of large, powerful, and very

repulsive teeth. Moreover, he avowed his perfect willingness to swallow as

much wine as desired. The monarch was pacified; and having drained another

bumper with no very perceptible ill effect, Hop-Frog entered at once, and

with spirit, into the plans for the masquerade.

“I cannot tell what was the association of idea,” observed he, very

tranquilly, and as if he had never tasted wine in his life, “but just

after your majesty, had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face—just

after your majesty had done this, and while the parrot was making that odd

noise outside the window, there came into my mind a capital diversion—one

of my own country frolics—often enacted among us, at our

masquerades: but here it will be new altogether. Unfortunately, however,

it requires a company of eight persons and—”

“Here we are!” cried the king, laughing at his acute discovery of the

coincidence; “eight to a fraction—I and my seven ministers. Come!

what is the diversion?”

“We call it,” replied the cripple, “the Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs, and

it really is excellent sport if well enacted.”

“We will enact it,” remarked the king, drawing himself up, and lowering

his eyelids.

“The beauty of the game,” continued Hop-Frog, “lies in the fright it

occasions among the women.”

“Capital!” roared in chorus the monarch and his ministry.

“I will equip you as ourang-outangs,” proceeded the dwarf; “leave all that

to me. The resemblance shall be so striking, that the company of

masqueraders will take you for real beasts—and of course, they will

be as much terrified as astonished.”

“Oh, this is exquisite!” exclaimed the king. “Hop-Frog! I will make a man

of you.”

“The chains are for the purpose of increasing the confusion by their

jangling. You are supposed to have escaped, en masse, from your keepers.

Your majesty cannot conceive the effect produced, at a masquerade, by

eight chained ourang-outangs, imagined to be real ones by most of the

company; and rushing in with savage cries, among the crowd of delicately

and gorgeously habited men and women. The _contrast_ is inimitable.”

“It must be,” said the king: and the council arose hurriedly (as it was

growing late), to put in execution the scheme of Hop-Frog.

His mode of equipping the party as ourang-outangs was very simple, but

effective enough for his purposes. The animals in question had, at the

epoch of my story, very rarely been seen in any part of the civilized

world; and as the imitations made by the dwarf were sufficiently

beast-like and more than sufficiently hideous, their truthfulness to

nature was thus thought to be secured.

The king and his ministers were first encased in tight-fitting stockinet

shirts and drawers. They were then saturated with tar. At this stage of

the process, some one of the party suggested feathers; but the suggestion

was at once overruled by the dwarf, who soon convinced the eight, by

ocular demonstration, that the hair of such a brute as the ourang-outang

was much more efficiently represented by _flax_. A thick coating of

the latter was accordingly plastered upon the coating of tar. A long

chain was now procured. First, it was passed about the waist of the king,

_and tied;_ then about another of the party, and also tied; then

about all successively, in the same manner. When this chaining

arrangement was complete, and the party stood as far apart from each

other as possible, they formed a circle; and to make all things appear

natural, Hop-Frog passed the residue of the chain in two diameters, at

right angles, across the circle, after the fashion adopted, at the

present day, by those who capture chimpanzees, or other large apes, in

Borneo.

The grand saloon in which the masquerade was to take place, was a circular

room, very lofty, and receiving the light of the sun only through a single

window at top. At night (the season for which the apartment was especially

designed) it was illuminated principally by a large chandelier, depending

by a chain from the centre of the sky-light, and lowered, or elevated, by

means of a counter-balance as usual; but (in order not to look unsightly)

this latter passed outside the cupola and over the roof.

The arrangements of the room had been left to Trippetta’s superintendence;

but, in some particulars, it seems, she had been guided by the calmer

judgment of her friend the dwarf. At his suggestion it was that, on this

occasion, the chandelier was removed. Its waxen drippings (which, in

weather so warm, it was quite impossible to prevent) would have been

seriously detrimental to the rich dresses of the guests, who, on account

of the crowded state of the saloon, could not all be expected to keep from

out its centre; that is to say, from under the chandelier. Additional

sconces were set in various parts of the hall, out of the way, and a

flambeau, emitting sweet odor, was placed in the right hand of each of the

Caryaides [Caryatides] that stood against the wall—some fifty or

sixty altogether.

The eight ourang-outangs, taking Hop-Frog’s advice, waited patiently until

midnight (when the room was thoroughly filled with masqueraders) before

making their appearance. No sooner had the clock ceased striking, however,

than they rushed, or rather rolled in, all together—for the

impediments of their chains caused most of the party to fall, and all to

stumble as they entered.

The excitement among the masqueraders was prodigious, and filled the heart

of the king with glee. As had been anticipated, there were not a few of

the guests who supposed the ferocious-looking creatures to be beasts of

some kind in reality, if not precisely ourang-outangs. Many of the women

swooned with affright; and had not the king taken the precaution to

exclude all weapons from the saloon, his party might soon have expiated

their frolic in their blood. As it was, a general rush was made for the

doors; but the king had ordered them to be locked immediately upon his

entrance; and, at the dwarf’s suggestion, the keys had been deposited with

him.

While the tumult was at its height, and each masquerader attentive only to

his own safety (for, in fact, there was much real danger from the pressure

of the excited crowd), the chain by which the chandelier ordinarily hung,

and which had been drawn up on its removal, might have been seen very

gradually to descend, until its hooked extremity came within three feet of

the floor.

Soon after this, the king and his seven friends having reeled about the

hall in all directions, found themselves, at length, in its centre, and,

of course, in immediate contact with the chain. While they were thus

situated, the dwarf, who had followed noiselessly at their heels, inciting

them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain at the

intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle diametrically

and at right angles. Here, with the rapidity of thought, he inserted the

hook from which the chandelier had been wont to depend; and, in an

instant, by some unseen agency, the chandelier-chain was drawn so far

upward as to take the hook out of reach, and, as an inevitable

consequence, to drag the ourang-outangs together in close connection, and

face to face.

The masqueraders, by this time, had recovered, in some measure, from their

alarm; and, beginning to regard the whole matter as a well-contrived

pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter at the predicament of the

apes.

“Leave them to me!” now screamed Hop-Frog, his shrill voice making itself

easily heard through all the din. “Leave them to me. I fancy I know them.

If I can only get a good look at them, I can soon tell who they are.”

Here, scrambling over the heads of the crowd, he managed to get to the

wall; when, seizing a flambeau from one of the Caryatides, he returned,

as he went, to the centre of the room—leaped, with the agility of a

monkey, upon the kings head, and thence clambered a few feet up the

chain; holding down the torch to examine the group of ourang-outangs, and

still screaming: “I shall soon find out who they are!”

And now, while the whole assembly (the apes included) were convulsed with

laughter, the jester suddenly uttered a shrill whistle; when the chain

flew violently up for about thirty feet—dragging with it the

dismayed and struggling ourang-outangs, and leaving them suspended in

mid-air between the sky-light and the floor. Hop-Frog, clinging to the

chain as it rose, still maintained his relative position in respect to the

eight maskers, and still (as if nothing were the matter) continued to

thrust his torch down toward them, as though endeavoring to discover who

they were.

So thoroughly astonished was the whole company at this ascent, that a dead

silence, of about a minute’s duration, ensued. It was broken by just such

a low, harsh, grating sound, as had before attracted the attention of the

king and his councillors when the former threw the wine in the face of

Trippetta. But, on the present occasion, there could be no question as to

whence the sound issued. It came from the fang-like teeth of the

dwarf, who ground them and gnashed them as he foamed at the mouth, and

glared, with an expression of maniacal rage, into the upturned

countenances of the king and his seven companions.

“Ah, ha!” said at length the infuriated jester. “Ah, ha! I begin to see

who these people are now!” Here, pretending to scrutinize the king more

closely, he held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped him, and

which instantly burst into a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half a

minute the whole eight ourang-outangs were blazing fiercely, amid the

shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken,

and without the power to render them the slightest assistance.

At length the flames, suddenly increasing in virulence, forced the jester

to climb higher up the chain, to be out of their reach; and, as he made

this movement, the crowd again sank, for a brief instant, into silence.

The dwarf seized his opportunity, and once more spoke:

“I now see distinctly.” he said, “what manner of people these maskers are.

They are a great king and his seven privy-councillors,—a king who

does not scruple to strike a defenceless girl and his seven councillors

who abet him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the

jester—and this is my last jest.”

Owing to the high combustibility of both the flax and the tar to which it

adhered, the dwarf had scarcely made an end of his brief speech before the

work of vengeance was complete. The eight corpses swung in their chains, a

fetid, blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass. The cripple hurled

his torch at them, clambered leisurely to the ceiling, and disappeared

through the sky-light.

It is supposed that Trippetta, stationed on the roof of the saloon, had

been the accomplice of her friend in his fiery revenge, and that,

together, they effected their escape to their own country; for neither was

seen again.

THE MAN OF THE CROWD.

Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul.—_La Bruyère_.

It was well said of a certain German book that “_er lasst sich nicht

lesen_”—it does not permit itself to be read. There are some

secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in

their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors and looking them

piteously in the eyes—die with despair of heart and convulsion of

throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer

themselves to be revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes

up a burthen so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the

grave. And thus the essence of all crime is undivulged.

Not long ago, about the closing in of an evening in autumn, I sat at the

large bow window of the D—— Coffee-House in London. For some

months I had been ill in health, but was now convalescent, and, with

returning strength, found myself in one of those happy moods which are so

precisely the converse of _ennui_—moods of the keenest

appetency, when the film from the mental vision departs—the

αχλυξ η πριυ

επῆευ—and the intellect, electrified,

surpasses as greatly its every-day condition, as does the vivid yet

candid reason of Leibnitz, the mad and flimsy rhetoric of Gorgias. Merely

to breathe was enjoyment; and I derived positive pleasure even from many

of the legitimate sources of pain. I felt a calm but inquisitive interest

in every thing. With a cigar in my mouth and a newspaper in my lap, I had

been amusing myself for the greater part of the afternoon, now in poring

over advertisements, now in observing the promiscuous company in the

room, and now in peering through the smoky panes into the street.

This latter is one of the principal thoroughfares of the city, and had

been very much crowded during the whole day. But, as the darkness came on,

the throng momently increased; and, by the time the lamps were well

lighted, two dense and continuous tides of population were rushing past

the door. At this particular period of the evening I had never before been

in a similar situation, and the tumultuous sea of human heads filled me,

therefore, with a delicious novelty of emotion. I gave up, at length, all

care of things within the hotel, and became absorbed in contemplation of

the scene without.

At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing turn. I looked

at the passengers in masses, and thought of them in their aggregate

relations. Soon, however, I descended to details, and regarded with minute

interest the innumerable varieties of figure, dress, air, gait, visage,

and expression of countenance.

By far the greater number of those who went by had a satisfied

business-like demeanor, and seemed to be thinking only of making their way

through the press. Their brows were knit, and their eyes rolled quickly;

when pushed against by fellow-wayfarers they evinced no symptom of

impatience, but adjusted their clothes and hurried on. Others, still a

numerous class, were restless in their movements, had flushed faces, and

talked and gesticulated to themselves, as if feeling in solitude on

account of the very denseness of the company around. When impeded in their

progress, these people suddenly ceased muttering, but re-doubled their

gesticulations, and awaited, with an absent and overdone smile upon the

lips, the course of the persons impeding them. If jostled, they bowed

profusely to the jostlers, and appeared overwhelmed with confusion.—There

was nothing very distinctive about these two large classes beyond what I

have noted. Their habiliments belonged to that order which is pointedly

termed the decent. They were undoubtedly noblemen, merchants, attorneys,

tradesmen, stock-jobbers—the Eupatrids and the common-places of

society—men of leisure and men actively engaged in affairs of their

own—conducting business upon their own responsibility. They did not

greatly excite my attention.

The tribe of clerks was an obvious one and here I discerned two remarkable

divisions. There were the junior clerks of flash houses—young

gentlemen with tight coats, bright boots, well-oiled hair, and

supercilious lips. Setting aside a certain dapperness of carriage, which

may be termed deskism for want of a better word, the manner of these

persons seemed to me an exact fac-simile of what had been the perfection

of bon ton about twelve or eighteen months before. They wore the cast-off

graces of the gentry;—and this, I believe, involves the best

definition of the class.

The division of the upper clerks of staunch firms, or of the “steady old

fellows,” it was not possible to mistake. These were known by their coats

and pantaloons of black or brown, made to sit comfortably, with white

cravats and waistcoats, broad solid-looking shoes, and thick hose or

gaiters. They had all slightly bald heads, from which the right

ears, long used to pen-holding, had an odd habit of standing off on end. I

observed that they always removed or settled their hats with both hands,

and wore watches, with short gold chains of a substantial and ancient

pattern. Theirs was the affectation of respectability—if indeed

there be an affectation so honorable.

There were many individuals of dashing appearance, whom I easily

understood as belonging to the race of swell pick-pockets with which all

great cities are infested. I watched these gentry with much

inquisitiveness, and found it difficult to imagine how they should ever be

mistaken for gentlemen by gentlemen themselves. Their voluminousness of

wristband, with an air of excessive frankness, should betray them at once.

The gamblers, of whom I descried not a few, were still more easily

recognisable. They wore every variety of dress, from that of the

desperate thimble-rig bully, with velvet waistcoat, fancy neckerchief,

gilt chains, and filagreed buttons, to that of the scrupulously inornate

clergyman, than which nothing could be less liable to suspicion. Still

all were distinguished by a certain sodden swarthiness of complexion, a

filmy dimness of eye, and pallor and compression of lip. There were two

other traits, moreover, by which I could always detect them: a guarded

lowness of tone in conversation, and a more than ordinary extension of

the thumb in a direction at right angles with the fingers. Very often, in

company with these sharpers, I observed an order of men somewhat

different in habits, but still birds of a kindred feather. They may be

defined as the gentlemen who live by their wits. They seem to prey upon

the public in two battalions—that of the dandies and that of the

military men. Of the first grade the leading features are long locks and

smiles; of the second, frogged coats and frowns.

Descending in the scale of what is termed gentility, I found darker and

deeper themes for speculation. I saw Jew pedlars, with hawk eyes flashing

from countenances whose every other feature wore only an expression of

abject humility; sturdy professional street beggars scowling upon

mendicants of a better stamp, whom despair alone had driven forth into the

night for charity; feeble and ghastly invalids, upon whom death had placed

a sure hand, and who sidled and tottered through the mob, looking every

one beseechingly in the face, as if in search of some chance consolation,

some lost hope; modest young girls returning from long and late labor to a

cheerless home, and shrinking more tearfully than indignantly from the

glances of ruffians, whose direct contact, even, could not be avoided;

women of the town of all kinds and of all ages—the unequivocal

beauty in the prime of her womanhood, putting one in mind of the statue in

Lucian, with the surface of Parian marble, and the interior filled with

filth—the loathsome and utterly lost leper in rags—the

wrinkled, bejewelled and paint-begrimed beldame, making a last effort at

youth—the mere child of immature form, yet, from long association,

an adept in the dreadful coquetries of her trade, and burning with a rabid

ambition to be ranked the equal of her elders in vice; drunkards

innumerable and indescribable—some in shreds and patches, reeling,

inarticulate, with bruised visage and lack-lustre eyes—some in whole

although filthy garments, with a slightly unsteady swagger, thick sensual

lips, and hearty-looking rubicund faces—others clothed in materials

which had once been good, and which even now were scrupulously well

brushed—men who walked with a more than naturally firm and springy

step, but whose countenances were fearfully pale, whose eyes hideously

wild and red, and who clutched with quivering fingers, as they strode

through the crowd, at every object which came within their reach; beside

these, pie-men, porters, coal-heavers, sweeps; organ-grinders,

monkey-exhibitors, and ballad mongers, those who vended with those who

sang; ragged artizans and exhausted laborers of every description, and all

full of a noisy and inordinate vivacity which jarred discordantly upon the

ear, and gave an aching sensation to the eye.

As the night deepened, so deepened to me the interest of the scene; for

not only did the general character of the crowd materially alter (its

gentler features retiring in the gradual withdrawal of the more orderly

portion of the people, and its harsher ones coming out into bolder relief,

as the late hour brought forth every species of infamy from its den,) but

the rays of the gas-lamps, feeble at first in their struggle with the

dying day, had now at length gained ascendancy, and threw over every thing

a fitful and garish lustre. All was dark yet splendid—as that ebony

to which has been likened the style of Tertullian.

The wild effects of the light enchained me to an examination of individual

faces; and although the rapidity with which the world of light flitted

before the window, prevented me from casting more than a glance upon each

visage, still it seemed that, in my then peculiar mental state, I could

frequently read, even in that brief interval of a glance, the history of

long years.

With my brow to the glass, I was thus occupied in scrutinizing the mob,

when suddenly there came into view a countenance (that of a decrepid old

man, some sixty-five or seventy years of age,)—a countenance which

at once arrested and absorbed my whole attention, on account of the

absolute idiosyncrasy of its expression. Any thing even remotely

resembling that expression I had never seen before. I well remember that

my first thought, upon beholding it, was that Retzch, had he viewed it,

would have greatly preferred it to his own pictural incarnations of the

fiend. As I endeavored, during the brief minute of my original survey, to

form some analysis of the meaning conveyed, there arose confusedly and

paradoxically within my mind, the ideas of vast mental power, of caution,

of penuriousness, of avarice, of coolness, of malice, of blood

thirstiness, of triumph, of merriment, of excessive terror, of intense—of

supreme despair. I felt singularly aroused, startled, fascinated. “How

wild a history,” I said to myself, “is written within that bosom!” Then

came a craving desire to keep the man in view—to know more of him.

Hurriedly putting on an overcoat, and seizing my hat and cane, I made my

way into the street, and pushed through the crowd in the direction which I

had seen him take; for he had already disappeared. With some little

difficulty I at length came within sight of him, approached, and followed

him closely, yet cautiously, so as not to attract his attention.

I had now a good opportunity of examining his person. He was short in

stature, very thin, and apparently very feeble. His clothes, generally,

were filthy and ragged; but as he came, now and then, within the strong

glare of a lamp, I perceived that his linen, although dirty, was of

beautiful texture; and my vision deceived me, or, through a rent in a

closely-buttoned and evidently second-handed roquelaire which enveloped

him, I caught a glimpse both of a diamond and of a dagger. These

observations heightened my curiosity, and I resolved to follow the

stranger whithersoever he should go.

It was now fully night-fall, and a thick humid fog hung over the city,

soon ending in a settled and heavy rain. This change of weather had an odd

effect upon the crowd, the whole of which was at once put into new

commotion, and overshadowed by a world of umbrellas. The waver, the

jostle, and the hum increased in a tenfold degree. For my own part I did

not much regard the rain—the lurking of an old fever in my system

rendering the moisture somewhat too dangerously pleasant. Tying a

handkerchief about my mouth, I kept on. For half an hour the old man held

his way with difficulty along the great thoroughfare; and I here walked

close at his elbow through fear of losing sight of him. Never once turning

his head to look back, he did not observe me. By and by he passed into a

cross street, which, although densely filled with people, was not quite so

much thronged as the main one he had quitted. Here a change in his

demeanor became evident. He walked more slowly and with less object than

before—more hesitatingly. He crossed and re-crossed the way

repeatedly without apparent aim; and the press was still so thick that, at

every such movement, I was obliged to follow him closely. The street was a

narrow and long one, and his course lay within it for nearly an hour,

during which the passengers had gradually diminished to about that number

which is ordinarily seen at noon in Broadway near the park—so vast a

difference is there between a London populace and that of the most

frequented American city. A second turn brought us into a square,

brilliantly lighted, and overflowing with life. The old manner of the

stranger re-appeared. His chin fell upon his breast, while his eyes rolled

wildly from under his knit brows, in every direction, upon those who

hemmed him in. He urged his way steadily and perseveringly. I was

surprised, however, to find, upon his having made the circuit of the

square, that he turned and retraced his steps. Still more was I astonished

to see him repeat the same walk several times—once nearly detecting

me as he came round with a sudden movement.

In this exercise he spent another hour, at the end of which we met with

far less interruption from passengers than at first. The rain fell fast;

the air grew cool; and the people were retiring to their homes. With a

gesture of impatience, the wanderer passed into a by-street comparatively

deserted. Down this, some quarter of a mile long, he rushed with an

activity I could not have dreamed of seeing in one so aged, and which put

me to much trouble in pursuit. A few minutes brought us to a large and

busy bazaar, with the localities of which the stranger appeared well

acquainted, and where his original demeanor again became apparent, as he

forced his way to and fro, without aim, among the host of buyers and

sellers.

During the hour and a half, or thereabouts, which we passed in this place,

it required much caution on my part to keep him within reach without

attracting his observation. Luckily I wore a pair of caoutchouc

over-shoes, and could move about in perfect silence. At no moment did he

see that I watched him. He entered shop after shop, priced nothing, spoke

no word, and looked at all objects with a wild and vacant stare. I was now

utterly amazed at his behavior, and firmly resolved that we should not

part until I had satisfied myself in some measure respecting him.

A loud-toned clock struck eleven, and the company were fast deserting the

bazaar. A shop-keeper, in putting up a shutter, jostled the old man, and

at the instant I saw a strong shudder come over his frame. He hurried into

the street, looked anxiously around him for an instant, and then ran with

incredible swiftness through many crooked and people-less lanes, until we

emerged once more upon the great thoroughfare whence we had started—the

street of the D—— Hotel. It no longer wore, however, the same

aspect. It was still brilliant with gas; but the rain fell fiercely, and

there were few persons to be seen. The stranger grew pale. He walked

moodily some paces up the once populous avenue, then, with a heavy sigh,

turned in the direction of the river, and, plunging through a great

variety of devious ways, came out, at length, in view of one of the

principal theatres. It was about being closed, and the audience were

thronging from the doors. I saw the old man gasp as if for breath while he

threw himself amid the crowd; but I thought that the intense agony of his

countenance had, in some measure, abated. His head again fell upon his

breast; he appeared as I had seen him at first. I observed that he now

took the course in which had gone the greater number of the audience—but,

upon the whole, I was at a loss to comprehend the waywardness of his

actions.

As he proceeded, the company grew more scattered, and his old uneasiness

and vacillation were resumed. For some time he followed closely a party of

some ten or twelve roisterers; but from this number one by one dropped

off, until three only remained together, in a narrow and gloomy lane

little frequented. The stranger paused, and, for a moment, seemed lost in

thought; then, with every mark of agitation, pursued rapidly a route which

brought us to the verge of the city, amid regions very different from

those we had hitherto traversed. It was the most noisome quarter of

London, where every thing wore the worst impress of the most deplorable

poverty, and of the most desperate crime. By the dim light of an

accidental lamp, tall, antique, worm-eaten, wooden tenements were seen

tottering to their fall, in directions so many and capricious that scarce

the semblance of a passage was discernible between them. The paving-stones

lay at random, displaced from their beds by the rankly-growing grass.

Horrible filth festered in the dammed-up gutters. The whole atmosphere

teemed with desolation. Yet, as we proceeded, the sounds of human life

revived by sure degrees, and at length large bands of the most abandoned

of a London populace were seen reeling to and fro. The spirits of the old

man again flickered up, as a lamp which is near its death hour. Once more

he strode onward with elastic tread. Suddenly a corner was turned, a blaze

of light burst upon our sight, and we stood before one of the huge

suburban temples of Intemperance—one of the palaces of the fiend,

Gin.

It was now nearly day-break; but a number of wretched inebriates still

pressed in and out of the flaunting entrance. With a half shriek of joy

the old man forced a passage within, resumed at once his original

bearing, and stalked backward and forward, without apparent object, among

the throng. He had not been thus long occupied, however, before a rush to

the doors gave token that the host was closing them for the night. It was

something even more intense than despair that I then observed upon the

countenance of the singular being whom I had watched so pertinaciously.

Yet he did not hesitate in his career, but, with a mad energy, retraced

his steps at once, to the heart of the mighty London. Long and swiftly he

fled, while I followed him in the wildest amazement, resolute not to

abandon a scrutiny in which I now felt an interest all-absorbing. The sun

arose while we proceeded, and, when we had once again reached that most

thronged mart of the populous town, the street of the D——

Hotel, it presented an appearance of human bustle and activity scarcely

inferior to what I had seen on the evening before. And here, long, amid

the momently increasing confusion, did I persist in my pursuit of the

stranger. But, as usual, he walked to and fro, and during the day did not

pass from out the turmoil of that street. And, as the shades of the

second evening came on, I grew wearied unto death, and, stopping fully in

front of the wanderer, gazed at him steadfastly in the face. He noticed

me not, but resumed his solemn walk, while I, ceasing to follow, remained

absorbed in contemplation. “This old man,” I said at length,

“is the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone.

_He is the man of the crowd._ It will be in vain to follow; for I

shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds. The worst heart of the

world is a grosser book than the ‘Hortulus Animæ,’ {*1} and

perhaps it is but one of the great mercies of God that ‘_er lasst

sich nicht lesen._’”

{*1} The “_Hortulus Animæ cum Oratiunculis Aliquibus Superadditis_”

of Grünninger.

NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD

A Tale With a Moral.

“_Con tal que las costumbres de un autor_,” says Don Thomas de las

Torres, in the preface to his “Amatory Poems” _“sean puras y castas,

importo muy poco que no sean igualmente severas sus obras”_—meaning,

in plain English, that, provided the morals of an author are pure

personally, it signifies nothing what are the morals of his books. We

presume that Don Thomas is now in Purgatory for the assertion. It would be

a clever thing, too, in the way of poetical justice, to keep him there

until his “Amatory Poems” get out of print, or are laid definitely upon

the shelf through lack of readers. Every fiction should have a moral; and,

what is more to the purpose, the critics have discovered that every

fiction has. Philip Melanchthon, some time ago, wrote a commentary upon

the “Batrachomyomachia,” and proved that the poet’s object was to excite a

distaste for sedition. Pierre la Seine, going a step farther, shows that

the intention was to recommend to young men temperance in eating and

drinking. Just so, too, Jacobus Hugo has satisfied himself that, by

Euenis, Homer meant to insinuate John Calvin; by Antinous, Martin Luther;

by the Lotophagi, Protestants in general; and, by the Harpies, the Dutch.

Our more modern Scholiasts are equally acute. These fellows demonstrate a

hidden meaning in “The Antediluvians,” a parable in Powhatan, “new views

in Cock Robin,” and transcendentalism in “Hop O’ My Thumb.” In short, it

has been shown that no man can sit down to write without a very profound

design. Thus to authors in general much trouble is spared. A novelist, for

example, need have no care of his moral. It is there—that is to say,

it is somewhere—and the moral and the critics can take care of

themselves. When the proper time arrives, all that the gentleman intended,

and all that he did not intend, will be brought to light, in the “Dial,”

or the “Down-Easter,” together with all that he ought to have intended,

and the rest that he clearly meant to intend:—so that it will all

come very straight in the end.

There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against me by

certain ignoramuses—that I have never written a moral tale, or, in

more precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics

predestined to bring me out, and develop my morals:—that is the

secret. By and by the “North American Quarterly Humdrum” will make them

ashamed of their stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying execution—by

way of mitigating the accusations against me—I offer the sad history

appended,—a history about whose obvious moral there can be no

question whatever, since he who runs may read it in the large capitals

which form the title of the tale. I should have credit for this

arrangement—a far wiser one than that of La Fontaine and others, who

reserve the impression to be conveyed until the last moment, and thus

sneak it in at the fag end of their fables.

_Defuncti injuriâ ne afficiantur_ was a law of the twelve tables, and _De

mortuis nil nisi bonum_ is an excellent injunction—even if the dead

in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design,

therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad

dog, it is true, and a dog’s death it was that he died; but he himself was

not to blame for his vices. They grew out of a personal defect in his

mother. She did her best in the way of flogging him while an infant—for

duties to her well-regulated mind were always pleasures, and babies,

like tough steaks, or the modern Greek olive trees, are invariably the

better for beating—but, poor woman! she had the misfortune to be

left-handed, and a child flogged left-handedly had better be left

unflogged. The world revolves from right to left. It will not do to whip a

baby from left to right. If each blow in the proper direction drives an

evil propensity out, it follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks

its quota of wickedness in. I was often present at Toby’s chastisements,

and, even by the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was

getting worse and worse every day. At last I saw, through the tears in my

eyes, that there was no hope of the villain at all, and one day when he

had been cuffed until he grew so black in the face that one might have

mistaken him for a little African, and no effect had been produced beyond

that of making him wriggle himself into a fit, I could stand it no longer,

but went down upon my knees forthwith, and, uplifting my voice, made

prophecy of his ruin.

The fact is that his precocity in vice was awful. At five months of age he

used to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate. At six

months, I caught him gnawing a pack of cards. At seven months he was in

the constant habit of catching and kissing the female babies. At eight

months he peremptorily refused to put his signature to the Temperance

pledge. Thus he went on increasing in iniquity, month after month, until,

at the close of the first year, he not only insisted upon wearing

moustaches, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and swearing, and

for backing his assertions by bets.

Through this latter most ungentlemanly practice, the ruin which I had

predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him at last. The fashion had “grown with

his growth and strengthened with his strength,” so that, when he came to

be a man, he could scarcely utter a sentence without interlarding it with

a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually laid wagers—no. I will

do my friend the justice to say that he would as soon have laid eggs. With

him the thing was a mere formula—nothing more. His expressions on

this head had no meaning attached to them whatever. They were simple if

not altogether innocent expletives—imaginative phrases wherewith to

round off a sentence. When he said “I’ll bet you so and so,” nobody ever

thought of taking him up; but still I could not help thinking it my duty

to put him down. The habit was an immoral one, and so I told him. It was a

vulgar one—this I begged him to believe. It was discountenanced by

society—here I said nothing but the truth. It was forbidden by act

of Congress—here I had not the slightest intention of telling a lie.

I remonstrated—but to no purpose. I demonstrated—in vain. I

entreated—he smiled. I implored—he laughed. I preached—he

sneered. I threatened—he swore. I kicked him—he called for the

police. I pulled his nose—he blew it, and offered to bet the Devil

his head that I would not venture to try that experiment again.

Poverty was another vice which the peculiar physical deficiency of

Dammit’s mother had entailed upon her son. He was detestably poor, and

this was the reason, no doubt, that his expletive expressions about

betting, seldom took a pecuniary turn. I will not be bound to say that I

ever heard him make use of such a figure of speech as “I’ll bet you a

dollar.” It was usually “I’ll bet you what you please,” or “I’ll bet you

what you dare,” or “I’ll bet you a trifle,” or else, more significantly

still, “I’ll bet the Devil my head.”

This latter form seemed to please him best;—perhaps because it

involved the least risk; for Dammit had become excessively parsimonious.

Had any one taken him up, his head was small, and thus his loss would have

been small too. But these are my own reflections and I am by no means sure

that I am right in attributing them to him. At all events the phrase in

question grew daily in favor, notwithstanding the gross impropriety of a

man betting his brains like bank-notes—but this was a point which

my friend’s perversity of disposition would not permit him to comprehend.

In the end, he abandoned all other forms of wager, and gave himself up to

“I’ll bet the Devil my head,” with a pertinacity and exclusiveness of

devotion that displeased not less than it surprised me. I am always

displeased by circumstances for which I cannot account. Mysteries force a

man to think, and so injure his health. The truth is, there was something

in the air with which Mr. Dammit was wont to give utterance to his

offensive expression—something in his manner of enunciation—which

at first interested, and afterwards made me very uneasy—something

which, for want of a more definite term at present, I must be permitted to

call queer; but which Mr. Coleridge would have called mystical, Mr. Kant

pantheistical, Mr. Carlyle twistical, and Mr. Emerson hyperquizzitistical.

I began not to like it at all. Mr. Dammits soul was in a perilous state. I

resolved to bring all my eloquence into play to save it. I vowed to serve

him as St. Patrick, in the Irish chronicle, is said to have served the

toad,—that is to say, “awaken him to a sense of his situation.” I

addressed myself to the task forthwith. Once more I betook myself to

remonstrance. Again I collected my energies for a final attempt at

expostulation.

When I had made an end of my lecture, Mr. Dammit indulged himself in some

very equivocal behavior. For some moments he remained silent, merely

looking me inquisitively in the face. But presently he threw his head to

one side, and elevated his eyebrows to a great extent. Then he spread out

the palms of his hands and shrugged up his shoulders. Then he winked with

the right eye. Then he repeated the operation with the left. Then he shut

them both up very tight. Then he opened them both so very wide that I became

seriously alarmed for the consequences. Then, applying his thumb to his

nose, he thought proper to make an indescribable movement with the rest of

his fingers. Finally, setting his arms a-kimbo, he condescended to reply.

I can call to mind only the heads of his discourse. He would be obliged to

me if I would hold my tongue. He wished none of my advice. He despised all

my insinuations. He was old enough to take care of himself. Did I still

think him baby Dammit? Did I mean to say any thing against his character?

Did I intend to insult him? Was I a fool? Was my maternal parent aware, in

a word, of my absence from the domiciliary residence? He would put this

latter question to me as to a man of veracity, and he would bind himself

to abide by my reply. Once more he would demand explicitly if my mother

knew that I was out. My confusion, he said, betrayed me, and he would be

willing to bet the Devil his head that she did not.

Mr. Dammit did not pause for my rejoinder. Turning upon his heel, he left

my presence with undignified precipitation. It was well for him that he

did so. My feelings had been wounded. Even my anger had been aroused. For

once I would have taken him up upon his insulting wager. I would have won

for the Arch-Enemy Mr. Dammit’s little head—for the fact is, my

mamma was very well aware of my merely temporary absence from home.

But Khoda shefa midêhed—Heaven gives relief—as the Mussulmans

say when you tread upon their toes. It was in pursuance of my duty that I

had been insulted, and I bore the insult like a man. It now seemed to me,

however, that I had done all that could be required of me, in the case of

this miserable individual, and I resolved to trouble him no longer with my

counsel, but to leave him to his conscience and himself. But although I

forebore to intrude with my advice, I could not bring myself to give up

his society altogether. I even went so far as to humor some of his less

reprehensible propensities; and there were times when I found myself

lauding his wicked jokes, as epicures do mustard, with tears in my eyes:—so

profoundly did it grieve me to hear his evil talk.

One fine day, having strolled out together, arm in arm, our route led us

in the direction of a river. There was a bridge, and we resolved to cross

it. It was roofed over, by way of protection from the weather, and the

archway, having but few windows, was thus very uncomfortably dark. As we

entered the passage, the contrast between the external glare and the

interior gloom struck heavily upon my spirits. Not so upon those of the

unhappy Dammit, who offered to bet the Devil his head that I was hipped.

He seemed to be in an unusual good humor. He was excessively lively—so

much so that I entertained I know not what of uneasy suspicion. It is not

impossible that he was affected with the transcendentals. I am not well

enough versed, however, in the diagnosis of this disease to speak with

decision upon the point; and unhappily there were none of my friends of

the “Dial” present. I suggest the idea, nevertheless, because of a certain

species of austere Merry-Andrewism which seemed to beset my poor friend,

and caused him to make quite a Tom-Fool of himself. Nothing would serve

him but wriggling and skipping about under and over every thing that came

in his way; now shouting out, and now lisping out, all manner of odd

little and big words, yet preserving the gravest face in the world all the

time. I really could not make up my mind whether to kick or to pity him.

At length, having passed nearly across the bridge, we approached the

termination of the footway, when our progress was impeded by a turnstile

of some height. Through this I made my way quietly, pushing it around as

usual. But this turn would not serve the turn of Mr. Dammit. He insisted

upon leaping the stile, and said he could cut a pigeon-wing over it in the

air. Now this, conscientiously speaking, I did not think he could do. The

best pigeon-winger over all kinds of style was my friend Mr. Carlyle, and

as I knew he could not do it, I would not believe that it could be done by

Toby Dammit. I therefore told him, in so many words, that he was a

braggadocio, and could not do what he said. For this I had reason to be

sorry afterward;—for he straightway offered to bet the Devil his

head that he could.

I was about to reply, notwithstanding my previous resolutions, with some

remonstrance against his impiety, when I heard, close at my elbow, a

slight cough, which sounded very much like the ejaculation “ahem!” I

started, and looked about me in surprise. My glance at length fell into a

nook of the frame—work of the bridge, and upon the figure of a

little lame old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing could be more

reverend than his whole appearance; for he not only had on a full suit of

black, but his shirt was perfectly clean and the collar turned very neatly

down over a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front like a

girl’s. His hands were clasped pensively together over his stomach, and

his two eyes were carefully rolled up into the top of his head.

Upon observing him more closely, I perceived that he wore a black silk

apron over his small-clothes; and this was a thing which I thought very

odd. Before I had time to make any remark, however, upon so singular a

circumstance, he interrupted me with a second “ahem!”

To this observation I was not immediately prepared to reply. The fact is,

remarks of this laconic nature are nearly unanswerable. I have known a

Quarterly Review non-plussed by the word “Fudge!” I am not ashamed to say,

therefore, that I turned to Mr. Dammit for assistance.

“Dammit,” said I, “what are you about? don’t you hear?—the gentleman

says ‘ahem!’” I looked sternly at my friend while I thus addressed him;

for, to say the truth, I felt particularly puzzled, and when a man is

particularly puzzled he must knit his brows and look savage, or else he is

pretty sure to look like a fool.

“Dammit,” observed I—although this sounded very much like an oath,

than which nothing was further from my thoughts—“Dammit,” I

suggested—“the gentleman says ‘ahem!’”

I do not attempt to defend my remark on the score of profundity; I did not

think it profound myself; but I have noticed that the effect of our

speeches is not always proportionate with their importance in our own

eyes; and if I had shot Mr. D. through and through with a Paixhan bomb, or

knocked him in the head with the “Poets and Poetry of America,” he could

hardly have been more discomfited than when I addressed him with those

simple words: “Dammit, what are you about?—don’t you hear?—the

gentleman says ‘ahem!’”

“You don’t say so?” gasped he at length, after turning more colors than a

pirate runs up, one after the other, when chased by a man-of-war. “Are you

quite sure he said that? Well, at all events I am in for it now, and may

as well put a bold face upon the matter. Here goes, then—ahem!”

At this the little old gentleman seemed pleased—God only knows why.

He left his station at the nook of the bridge, limped forward with a

gracious air, took Dammit by the hand and shook it cordially, looking all

the while straight up in his face with an air of the most unadulterated

benignity which it is possible for the mind of man to imagine.

“I am quite sure you will win it, Dammit,” said he, with the frankest of

all smiles, “but we are obliged to have a trial, you know, for the sake of

mere form.”

“Ahem!” replied my friend, taking off his coat, with a deep sigh, tying a

pocket-handkerchief around his waist, and producing an unaccountable

alteration in his countenance by twisting up his eyes and bringing down

the corners of his mouth—“ahem!” And “ahem!” said he again, after a

pause; and not another word more than “ahem!” did I ever know him to say

after that. “Aha!” thought I, without expressing myself aloud—“this

is quite a remarkable silence on the part of Toby Dammit, and is no doubt

a consequence of his verbosity upon a previous occasion. One extreme

induces another. I wonder if he has forgotten the many unanswerable

questions which he propounded to me so fluently on the day when I gave him

my last lecture? At all events, he is cured of the transcendentals.”

“Ahem!” here replied Toby, just as if he had been reading my thoughts, and

looking like a very old sheep in a revery.

The old gentleman now took him by the arm, and led him more into the shade

of the bridge—a few paces back from the turnstile. “My good fellow,”

said he, “I make it a point of conscience to allow you this much run. Wait

here, till I take my place by the stile, so that I may see whether you go

over it handsomely, and transcendentally, and don’t omit any flourishes of

the pigeon-wing. A mere form, you know. I will say ‘one, two, three, and

away.’ Mind you, start at the word ‘away.’” Here he took his position by

the stile, paused a moment as if in profound reflection, then looked up

and, I thought, smiled very slightly, then tightened the strings of his

apron, then took a long look at Dammit, and finally gave the word as

agreed upon—

_One—two—three—and—away!_

Punctually at the word “away,” my poor friend set off in a strong gallop.

The stile was not very high, like Mr. Lord’s—nor yet very low, like

that of Mr. Lord’s reviewers, but upon the whole I made sure that he would

clear it. And then what if he did not?—ah, that was the question—what

if he did not? “What right,” said I, “had the old gentleman to make any

other gentleman jump? The little old dot-and-carry-one! who is he? If he

asks me to jump, I won’t do it, that’s flat, and I don’t care who the

devil he is.” The bridge, as I say, was arched and covered in, in a very

ridiculous manner, and there was a most uncomfortable echo about it at all

times—an echo which I never before so particularly observed as when

I uttered the four last words of my remark.

But what I said, or what I thought, or what I heard, occupied only an

instant. In less than five seconds from his starting, my poor Toby had

taken the leap. I saw him run nimbly, and spring grandly from the floor of

the bridge, cutting the most awful flourishes with his legs as he went up.

I saw him high in the air, pigeon-winging it to admiration just over the

top of the stile; and of course I thought it an unusually singular thing

that he did not continue to go over. But the whole leap was the affair of

a moment, and, before I had a chance to make any profound reflections,

down came Mr. Dammit on the flat of his back, on the same side of the

stile from which he had started. At the same instant I saw the old

gentleman limping off at the top of his speed, having caught and wrapt up

in his apron something that fell heavily into it from the darkness of the

arch just over the turnstile. At all this I was much astonished; but I had

no leisure to think, for Dammit lay particularly still, and I concluded

that his feelings had been hurt, and that he stood in need of my

assistance. I hurried up to him and found that he had received what might

be termed a serious injury. The truth is, he had been deprived of his

head, which after a close search I could not find anywhere; so I

determined to take him home and send for the homœopathists. In the

meantime a thought struck me, and I threw open an adjacent window of the

bridge, when the sad truth flashed upon me at once. About five feet just

above the top of the turnstile, and crossing the arch of the foot-path so

as to constitute a brace, there extended a flat iron bar, lying with its

breadth horizontally, and forming one of a series that served to

strengthen the structure throughout its extent. With the edge of this

brace it appeared evident that the neck of my unfortunate friend had come

precisely in contact.

He did not long survive his terrible loss. The homœopathists did not give

him little enough physic, and what little they did give him he hesitated

to take. So in the end he grew worse, and at length died, a lesson to all

riotous livers. I bedewed his grave with my tears, worked a bar sinister

on his family escutcheon, and, for the general expenses of his funeral,

sent in my very moderate bill to the transcendentalists. The scoundrels

refused to pay it, so I had Mr. Dammit dug up at once, and sold him for

dog’s meat.

THOU ART THE MAN

I will now play the Oedipus to the Rattleborough enigma. I will expound to

you—as I alone can—the secret of the enginery that effected

the Rattleborough miracle—the one, the true, the admitted, the

undisputed, the indisputable miracle, which put a definite end to

infidelity among the Rattleburghers and converted to the orthodoxy of the

grandames all the carnal-minded who had ventured to be sceptical before.

This event—which I should be sorry to discuss in a tone of

unsuitable levity—occurred in the summer of 18—. Mr. Barnabas

Shuttleworthy—one of the wealthiest and most respectable citizens of

the borough—had been missing for several days under circumstances

which gave rise to suspicion of foul play. Mr. Shuttleworthy had set out

from Rattleborough very early one Saturday morning, on horseback, with the

avowed intention of proceeding to the city of ——, about fifteen miles

distant, and of returning the night of the same day. Two hours after his

departure, however, his horse returned without him, and without the

saddle-bags which had been strapped on his back at starting. The animal

was wounded, too, and covered with mud. These circumstances naturally gave

rise to much alarm among the friends of the missing man; and when it was

found, on Sunday morning, that he had not yet made his appearance, the

whole borough arose en masse to go and look for his body.

The foremost and most energetic in instituting this search was the bosom

friend of Mr. Shuttleworthy—a Mr. Charles Goodfellow, or, as he was

universally called, “Charley Goodfellow,” or “Old Charley Goodfellow.”

Now, whether it is a marvellous coincidence, or whether it is that the

name itself has an imperceptible effect upon the character, I have never

yet been able to ascertain; but the fact is unquestionable, that there

never yet was any person named Charles who was not an open, manly, honest,

good-natured, and frank-hearted fellow, with a rich, clear voice, that did

you good to hear it, and an eye that looked you always straight in the

face, as much as to say: “I have a clear conscience myself, am afraid of

no man, and am altogether above doing a mean action.” And thus all the

hearty, careless, “walking gentlemen” of the stage are very certain to be

called Charles.

Now, “Old Charley Goodfellow,” although he had been in Rattleborough not

longer than six months or thereabouts, and although nobody knew any thing

about him before he came to settle in the neighborhood, had experienced no

difficulty in the world in making the acquaintance of all the respectable

people in the borough. Not a man of them but would have taken his bare

word for a thousand at any moment; and as for the women, there is no

saying what they would not have done to oblige him. And all this came of

his having been christened Charles, and of his possessing, in consequence,

that ingenuous face which is proverbially the very “best letter of

recommendation.”

I have already said that Mr. Shuttleworthy was one of the most respectable

and, undoubtedly, he was the most wealthy man in Rattleborough, while “Old

Charley Goodfellow” was upon as intimate terms with him as if he had been

his own brother. The two old gentlemen were next-door neighbours, and,

although Mr. Shuttleworthy seldom, if ever, visited “Old Charley,” and

never was known to take a meal in his house, still this did not prevent

the two friends from being exceedingly intimate, as I have just observed;

for “Old Charley” never let a day pass without stepping in three or four

times to see how his neighbour came on, and very often he would stay to

breakfast or tea, and almost always to dinner, and then the amount of wine

that was made way with by the two cronies at a sitting, it would really be

a difficult thing to ascertain. “Old Charleys” favorite beverage was

Chateau-Margaux, and it appeared to do Mr. Shuttleworthy’s heart good to

see the old fellow swallow it, as he did, quart after quart; so that, one

day, when the wine was in and the wit as a natural consequence, somewhat

out, he said to his crony, as he slapped him upon the back—“I tell

you what it is, ‘Old Charley,’ you are, by all odds, the heartiest old

fellow I ever came across in all my born days; and, since you love to

guzzle the wine at that fashion, I’ll be darned if I don’t have to make

thee a present of a big box of the Chateau-Margaux. Od rot me,”—(Mr.

Shuttleworthy had a sad habit of swearing, although he seldom went beyond

“Od rot me,” or “By gosh,” or “By the jolly golly,”)—“Od rot me,”

says he, “if I don’t send an order to town this very afternoon for a

double box of the best that can be got, and I’ll make ye a present of it,

I will!—ye needn’t say a word now—I will, I tell ye, and

there’s an end of it; so look out for it—it will come to hand some

of these fine days, precisely when ye are looking for it the least!” I

mention this little bit of liberality on the part of Mr. Shuttleworthy,

just by way of showing you how very intimate an understanding existed

between the two friends.

Well, on the Sunday morning in question, when it came to be fairly

understood that Mr. Shuttleworthy had met with foul play, I never saw any

one so profoundly affected as “Old Charley Goodfellow.” When he first

heard that the horse had come home without his master, and without his

master’s saddle-bags, and all bloody from a pistol-shot, that had gone

clean through and through the poor animal’s chest without quite killing

him; when he heard all this, he turned as pale as if the missing man had

been his own dear brother or father, and shivered and shook all over as if

he had had a fit of the ague.

At first he was too much overpowered with grief to be able to do any thing

at all, or to concert upon any plan of action; so that for a long time he

endeavored to dissuade Mr. Shuttleworthy’s other friends from making a

stir about the matter, thinking it best to wait awhile—say for a

week or two, or a month, or two—to see if something wouldn’t turn

up, or if Mr. Shuttleworthy wouldn’t come in the natural way, and explain

his reasons for sending his horse on before. I dare say you have often

observed this disposition to temporize, or to procrastinate, in people who

are labouring under any very poignant sorrow. Their powers of mind seem to

be rendered torpid, so that they have a horror of any thing like action,

and like nothing in the world so well as to lie quietly in bed and “nurse

their grief,” as the old ladies express it—that is to say, ruminate

over the trouble.

The people of Rattleborough had, indeed, so high an opinion of the wisdom

and discretion of “Old Charley,” that the greater part of them felt

disposed to agree with him, and not make a stir in the business “until

something should turn up,” as the honest old gentleman worded it; and I

believe that, after all this would have been the general determination,

but for the very suspicious interference of Mr. Shuttleworthy’s nephew, a

young man of very dissipated habits, and otherwise of rather bad

character. This nephew, whose name was Pennifeather, would listen to

nothing like reason in the matter of “lying quiet,” but insisted upon

making immediate search for the “corpse of the murdered man.” This

was the expression he employed; and Mr. Goodfellow acutely remarked at the

time, that it was “a singular expression, to say no more.” This remark of

“Old Charley’s,” too, had great effect upon the crowd; and one of the

party was heard to ask, very impressively, “how it happened that young Mr.

Pennifeather was so intimately cognizant of all the circumstances

connected with his wealthy uncle’s disappearance, as to feel authorized to

assert, distinctly and unequivocally, that his uncle was ‘a murdered

man.’” Hereupon some little squibbing and bickering occurred among various

members of the crowd, and especially between “Old Charley” and Mr.

Pennifeather—although this latter occurrence was, indeed, by no

means a novelty, for little good-will had subsisted between the parties for

the last three or four months; and matters had even gone so far that Mr.

Pennifeather had actually knocked down his uncle’s friend for some alleged

excess of liberty that the latter had taken in the uncle’s house, of which

the nephew was an inmate. Upon this occasion “Old Charley” is said to have

behaved with exemplary moderation and Christian charity. He arose from the

blow, adjusted his clothes, and made no attempt at retaliation at all—merely

muttering a few words about “taking summary vengeance at the first

convenient opportunity,”—a natural and very justifiable ebullition

of anger, which meant nothing, however, and, beyond doubt, was no sooner

given vent to than forgotten.

However these matters may be (which have no reference to the point now at

issue), it is quite certain that the people of Rattleborough, principally

through the persuasion of Mr. Pennifeather, came at length to the

determination of dispersion over the adjacent country in search of the

missing Mr. Shuttleworthy. I say they came to this determination in the

first instance. After it had been fully resolved that a search should be

made, it was considered almost a matter of course that the seekers should

disperse—that is to say, distribute themselves in parties—for

the more thorough examination of the region round about. I forget,

however, by what ingenious train of reasoning it was that “Old Charley”

finally convinced the assembly that this was the most injudicious plan

that could be pursued. Convince them, however, he did—all except Mr.

Pennifeather, and, in the end, it was arranged that a search should be

instituted, carefully and very thoroughly, by the burghers en masse, “Old

Charley” himself leading the way.

As for the matter of that, there could have been no better pioneer than

“Old Charley,” whom everybody knew to have the eye of a lynx; but,

although he led them into all manner of out-of-the-way holes and corners,

by routes that nobody had ever suspected of existing in the neighbourhood,

and although the search was incessantly kept up day and night for nearly a

week, still no trace of Mr. Shuttleworthy could be discovered. When I say

no trace, however, I must not be understood to speak literally; for trace,

to some extent, there certainly was. The poor gentleman had been tracked,

by his horse’s shoes (which were peculiar), to a spot about three miles to

the east of the borough, on the main road leading to the city. Here the

track made off into a by-path through a piece of woodland—the path

coming out again into the main road, and cutting off about half a mile of

the regular distance. Following the shoe-marks down this lane, the party

came at length to a pool of stagnant water, half hidden by the brambles,

to the right of the lane, and opposite this pool all vestige of the track

was lost sight of. It appeared, however, that a struggle of some nature

had here taken place, and it seemed as if some large and heavy body, much

larger and heavier than a man, had been drawn from the by-path to the

pool. This latter was carefully dragged twice, but nothing was found; and

the party was upon the point of going away, in despair of coming to any

result, when Providence suggested to Mr. Goodfellow the expediency of

draining the water off altogether. This project was received with cheers,

and many high compliments to “Old Charley” upon his sagacity and

consideration. As many of the burghers had brought spades with them,

supposing that they might possibly be called upon to disinter a corpse,

the drain was easily and speedily effected; and no sooner was the bottom

visible, than right in the middle of the mud that remained was discovered

a black silk velvet waistcoat, which nearly every one present immediately

recognized as the property of Mr. Pennifeather. This waistcoat was much

torn and stained with blood, and there were several persons among the

party who had a distinct remembrance of its having been worn by its owner

on the very morning of Mr. Shuttleworthy’s departure for the city; while

there were others, again, ready to testify upon oath, if required, that

Mr. P. did not wear the garment in question at any period during the

remainder of that memorable day, nor could any one be found to say that he

had seen it upon Mr. P.‘s person at any period at all subsequent to Mr.

Shuttleworthy’s disappearance.

Matters now wore a very serious aspect for Mr. Pennifeather, and it was

observed, as an indubitable confirmation of the suspicions which were

excited against him, that he grew exceedingly pale, and when asked what he

had to say for himself, was utterly incapable of saying a word. Hereupon,

the few friends his riotous mode of living had left him deserted him at

once to a man, and were even more clamorous than his ancient and avowed

enemies for his instantaneous arrest. But, on the other hand, the

magnanimity of Mr. Goodfellow shone forth with only the more brilliant

lustre through contrast. He made a warm and intensely eloquent defence of

Mr. Pennifeather, in which he alluded more than once to his own sincere

forgiveness of that wild young gentleman—“the heir of the worthy Mr.

Shuttleworthy,”—for the insult which he (the young gentleman) had,

no doubt in the heat of passion, thought proper to put upon him (Mr.

Goodfellow). “He forgave him for it,” he said, “from the very bottom of

his heart; and for himself (Mr. Goodfellow), so far from pushing the

suspicious circumstances to extremity, which he was sorry to say, really

had arisen against Mr. Pennifeather, he (Mr. Goodfellow) would make every

exertion in his power, would employ all the little eloquence in his

possession to—to—to—soften down, as much as he could

conscientiously do so, the worst features of this really exceedingly

perplexing piece of business.”

Mr. Goodfellow went on for some half hour longer in this strain, very much

to the credit both of his head and of his heart; but your warm-hearted

people are seldom apposite in their observations—they run into all

sorts of blunders, contre-temps and mal apropos-isms, in the

hot-headedness of their zeal to serve a friend—thus, often with the

kindest intentions in the world, doing infinitely more to prejudice his

cause than to advance it.

So, in the present instance, it turned out with all the eloquence of “Old

Charley”; for, although he laboured earnestly in behalf of the suspected,

yet it so happened, somehow or other, that every syllable he uttered of

which the direct but unwitting tendency was not to exalt the speaker in

the good opinion of his audience, had the effect to deepen the suspicion

already attached to the individual whose cause he pleaded, and to arouse

against him the fury of the mob.

One of the most unaccountable errors committed by the orator was his

allusion to the suspected as “the heir of the worthy old gentleman Mr.

Shuttleworthy.” The people had really never thought of this before. They

had only remembered certain threats of disinheritance uttered a year or

two previously by the uncle (who had no living relative except the

nephew), and they had, therefore, always looked upon this disinheritance

as a matter that was settled—so single-minded a race of beings were

the Rattleburghers; but the remark of “Old Charley” brought them at once

to a consideration of this point, and thus gave them to see the

possibility of the threats having been nothing more than a threat. And

straightway hereupon, arose the natural question of cui bono?—a

question that tended even more than the waistcoat to fasten the terrible

crime upon the young man. And here, lest I may be misunderstood, permit me

to digress for one moment merely to observe that the exceedingly brief and

simple Latin phrase which I have employed, is invariably mistranslated and

misconceived. “Cui bono?” in all the crack novels and elsewhere,—in

those of Mrs. Gore, for example, (the author of “Cecil,”) a lady who

quotes all tongues from the Chaldaean to Chickasaw, and is helped to her

learning, “as needed,” upon a systematic plan, by Mr. Beckford,—in

all the crack novels, I say, from those of Bulwer and Dickens to those of

Bulwer and Dickens to those of Turnapenny and Ainsworth, the two little

Latin words cui bono are rendered “to what purpose?” or, (as if quo bono,)

“to what good.” Their true meaning, nevertheless, is “for whose

advantage.” Cui, to whom; bono, is it for a benefit. It is a purely legal

phrase, and applicable precisely in cases such as we have now under

consideration, where the probability of the doer of a deed hinges upon the

probability of the benefit accruing to this individual or to that from the

deed’s accomplishment. Now in the present instance, the question cui bono?

very pointedly implicated Mr. Pennifeather. His uncle had threatened him,

after making a will in his favour, with disinheritance. But the threat had

not been actually kept; the original will, it appeared, had not been

altered. Had it been altered, the only supposable motive for murder on the

part of the suspected would have been the ordinary one of revenge; and

even this would have been counteracted by the hope of reinstation into the

good graces of the uncle. But the will being unaltered, while the threat

to alter remained suspended over the nephew’s head, there appears at once

the very strongest possible inducement for the atrocity, and so concluded,

very sagaciously, the worthy citizens of the borough of Rattle.

Mr. Pennifeather was, accordingly, arrested upon the spot, and the crowd,

after some further search, proceeded homeward, having him in custody. On

the route, however, another circumstance occurred tending to confirm the

suspicion entertained. Mr. Goodfellow, whose zeal led him to be always a

little in advance of the party, was seen suddenly to run forward a few

paces, stoop, and then apparently to pick up some small object from the

grass. Having quickly examined it he was observed, too, to make a sort of

half attempt at concealing it in his coat pocket; but this action was

noticed, as I say, and consequently prevented, when the object picked up

was found to be a Spanish knife which a dozen persons at once recognized

as belonging to Mr. Pennifeather. Moreover, his initials were engraved

upon the handle. The blade of this knife was open and bloody.

No doubt now remained of the guilt of the nephew, and immediately upon

reaching Rattleborough he was taken before a magistrate for examination.

Here matters again took a most unfavourable turn. The prisoner, being

questioned as to his whereabouts on the morning of Mr. Shuttleworthy’s

disappearance, had absolutely the audacity to acknowledge that on that

very morning he had been out with his rifle deer-stalking, in the

immediate neighbourhood of the pool where the blood-stained waistcoat had

been discovered through the sagacity of Mr. Goodfellow.

This latter now came forward, and, with tears in his eyes, asked

permission to be examined. He said that a stern sense of the duty he owed

his Maker, not less than his fellow-men, would permit him no longer to

remain silent. Hitherto, the sincerest affection for the young man

(notwithstanding the latter’s ill-treatment of himself, Mr. Goodfellow)

had induced him to make every hypothesis which imagination could suggest,

by way of endeavoring to account for what appeared suspicious in the

circumstances that told so seriously against Mr. Pennifeather, but these

circumstances were now altogether too convincing—too damning; he

would hesitate no longer—he would tell all he knew, although his

heart (Mr. Goodfellow’s) should absolutely burst asunder in the effort. He

then went on to state that, on the afternoon of the day previous to Mr.

Shuttleworthy’s departure for the city, that worthy old gentleman had

mentioned to his nephew, in his hearing (Mr. Goodfellow’s), that his

object in going to town on the morrow was to make a deposit of an

unusually large sum of money in the “Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank,” and

that, then and there, the said Mr. Shuttleworthy had distinctly avowed to

the said nephew his irrevocable determination of rescinding the will

originally made, and of cutting him off with a shilling. He (the witness)

now solemnly called upon the accused to state whether what he (the

witness) had just stated was or was not the truth in every substantial

particular. Much to the astonishment of every one present, Mr.

Pennifeather frankly admitted that it was.

The magistrate now considered it his duty to send a couple of constables

to search the chamber of the accused in the house of his uncle. From this

search they almost immediately returned with the well-known steel-bound,

russet leather pocket-book which the old gentleman had been in the habit

of carrying for years. Its valuable contents, however, had been

abstracted, and the magistrate in vain endeavored to extort from the

prisoner the use which had been made of them, or the place of their

concealment. Indeed, he obstinately denied all knowledge of the matter.

The constables, also, discovered, between the bed and sacking of the

unhappy man, a shirt and neck-handkerchief both marked with the initials

of his name, and both hideously besmeared with the blood of the victim.

At this juncture, it was announced that the horse of the murdered man had

just expired in the stable from the effects of the wound he had received,

and it was proposed by Mr. Goodfellow that a post mortem examination of

the beast should be immediately made, with the view, if possible, of

discovering the ball. This was accordingly done; and, as if to demonstrate

beyond a question the guilt of the accused, Mr. Goodfellow, after

considerable searching in the cavity of the chest was enabled to detect

and to pull forth a bullet of very extraordinary size, which, upon trial,

was found to be exactly adapted to the bore of Mr. Pennifeather’s rifle,

while it was far too large for that of any other person in the borough or

its vicinity. To render the matter even surer yet, however, this bullet

was discovered to have a flaw or seam at right angles to the usual suture,

and upon examination, this seam corresponded precisely with an accidental

ridge or elevation in a pair of moulds acknowledged by the accused himself

to be his own property. Upon finding of this bullet, the examining

magistrate refused to listen to any farther testimony, and immediately

committed the prisoner for trial—declining resolutely to take any bail in

the case, although against this severity Mr. Goodfellow very warmly

remonstrated, and offered to become surety in whatever amount might be

required. This generosity on the part of “Old Charley” was only in

accordance with the whole tenor of his amiable and chivalrous conduct

during the entire period of his sojourn in the borough of Rattle. In the

present instance the worthy man was so entirely carried away by the

excessive warmth of his sympathy, that he seemed to have quite forgotten,

when he offered to go bail for his young friend, that he himself (Mr.

Goodfellow) did not possess a single dollar’s worth of property upon the

face of the earth.

The result of the committal may be readily foreseen. Mr. Pennifeather,

amid the loud execrations of all Rattleborough, was brought to trial at

the next criminal sessions, when the chain of circumstantial evidence

(strengthened as it was by some additional damning facts, which Mr.

Goodfellow’s sensitive conscientiousness forbade him to withhold from the

court) was considered so unbroken and so thoroughly conclusive, that the

jury, without leaving their seats, returned an immediate verdict of

“Guilty of murder in the first degree.” Soon afterward the unhappy wretch

received sentence of death, and was remanded to the county jail to await

the inexorable vengeance of the law.

In the meantime, the noble behavior of “Old Charley Goodfellow,” had

doubly endeared him to the honest citizens of the borough. He became ten

times a greater favorite than ever, and, as a natural result of the

hospitality with which he was treated, he relaxed, as it were, perforce,

the extremely parsimonious habits which his poverty had hitherto impelled

him to observe, and very frequently had little reunions at his own house,

when wit and jollity reigned supreme—dampened a little, of course, by the

occasional remembrance of the untoward and melancholy fate which impended

over the nephew of the late lamented bosom friend of the generous host.

One fine day, this magnanimous old gentleman was agreeably surprised at

the receipt of the following letter:

Charles Goodfellow, Esq., Rattleborough

From H.F.B. & Co.

Chat. Mar. A—No. 1.—6 doz. bottles (1/2 Gross)

“Charles Goodfellow, Esquire.

“Dear Sir—In conformity with an order transmitted to our firm

about two months since, by our esteemed correspondent, Mr. Barnabus

Shuttleworthy, we have the honor of forwarding this morning, to your address, a

double box of Chateau-Margaux of the antelope brand, violet seal. Box numbered

and marked as per margin.

“We remain, sir,

“Your most ob’nt ser’ts,

“HOGGS, FROGS, BOGS, & CO.

“City of—, June 21, 18—.

“P.S.—The box will reach you by wagon, on the day after your

receipt of this letter. Our respects to Mr. Shuttleworthy.

“H., F., B., & CO.”

The fact is, that Mr. Goodfellow had, since the death of Mr.

Shuttleworthy, given over all expectation of ever receiving the promised

Chateau-Margaux; and he, therefore, looked upon it now as a sort of

especial dispensation of Providence in his behalf. He was highly

delighted, of course, and in the exuberance of his joy invited a large

party of friends to a petit souper on the morrow, for the purpose of

broaching the good old Mr. Shuttleworthy’s present. Not that he said any

thing about “the good old Mr. Shuttleworthy” when he issued the

invitations. The fact is, he thought much and concluded to say nothing at

all. He did not mention to any one—if I remember aright—that

he had received a present of Chateau-Margaux. He merely asked his friends

to come and help him drink some, of a remarkable fine quality and rich

flavour, that he had ordered up from the city a couple of months ago, and

of which he would be in the receipt upon the morrow. I have often puzzled

myself to imagine why it was that “Old Charley” came to the conclusion to

say nothing about having received the wine from his old friend, but I

could never precisely understand his reason for the silence, although he

had some excellent and very magnanimous reason, no doubt.

The morrow at length arrived, and with it a very large and highly

respectable company at Mr. Goodfellow’s house. Indeed, half the borough

was there,—I myself among the number,—but, much to the

vexation of the host, the Chateau-Margaux did not arrive until a late

hour, and when the sumptuous supper supplied by “Old Charley” had been

done very ample justice by the guests. It came at length, however,—a

monstrously big box of it there was, too—and as the whole party were

in excessively good humor, it was decided, nem. con., that it should be

lifted upon the table and its contents disembowelled forthwith.

No sooner said than done. I lent a helping hand; and, in a trice we had

the box upon the table, in the midst of all the bottles and glasses, not a

few of which were demolished in the scuffle. “Old Charley,” who was pretty

much intoxicated, and excessively red in the face, now took a seat, with

an air of mock dignity, at the head of the board, and thumped furiously

upon it with a decanter, calling upon the company to keep order “during

the ceremony of disinterring the treasure.”

After some vociferation, quiet was at length fully restored, and, as very

often happens in similar cases, a profound and remarkable silence ensued.

Being then requested to force open the lid, I complied, of course, “with

an infinite deal of pleasure.” I inserted a chisel, and giving it a few

slight taps with a hammer, the top of the box flew suddenly off, and at

the same instant, there sprang up into a sitting position, directly facing

the host, the bruised, bloody, and nearly putrid corpse of the murdered

Mr. Shuttleworthy himself. It gazed for a few seconds, fixedly and

sorrowfully, with its decaying and lack-lustre eyes, full into the

countenance of Mr. Goodfellow; uttered slowly, but clearly and

impressively, the words—“Thou art the man!” and then, falling over

the side of the chest as if thoroughly satisfied, stretched out its limbs

quiveringly upon the table.

The scene that ensued is altogether beyond description. The rush for the

doors and windows was terrific, and many of the most robust men in the

room fainted outright through sheer horror. But after the first wild,

shrieking burst of affright, all eyes were directed to Mr. Goodfellow. If

I live a thousand years, I can never forget the more than mortal agony

which was depicted in that ghastly face of his, so lately rubicund with

triumph and wine. For several minutes he sat rigidly as a statue of

marble; his eyes seeming, in the intense vacancy of their gaze, to be

turned inward and absorbed in the contemplation of his own miserable,

murderous soul. At length their expression appeared to flash suddenly out

into the external world, when, with a quick leap, he sprang from his

chair, and falling heavily with his head and shoulders upon the table, and

in contact with the corpse, poured out rapidly and vehemently a detailed

confession of the hideous crime for which Mr. Pennifeather was then

imprisoned and doomed to die.

What he recounted was in substance this:—He followed his victim to

the vicinity of the pool; there shot his horse with a pistol; despatched

its rider with the butt end; possessed himself of the pocket-book; and,

supposing the horse dead, dragged it with great labour to the brambles by

the pond. Upon his own beast he slung the corpse of Mr. Shuttleworthy, and

thus bore it to a secure place of concealment a long distance off through

the woods.

The waistcoat, the knife, the pocket-book, and bullet, had been placed by

himself where found, with the view of avenging himself upon Mr.

Pennifeather. He had also contrived the discovery of the stained

handkerchief and shirt.

Toward the end of the blood-chilling recital the words of the guilty

wretch faltered and grew hollow. When the record was finally exhausted, he

arose, staggered backward from the table, and fell—_dead_.

The means by which this happily-timed confession was extorted, although

efficient, were simple indeed. Mr. Goodfellow’s excess of frankness had

disgusted me, and excited my suspicions from the first. I was present when

Mr. Pennifeather had struck him, and the fiendish expression which then

arose upon his countenance, although momentary, assured me that his threat

of vengeance would, if possible, be rigidly fulfilled. I was thus prepared

to view the manoeuvering of “Old Charley” in a very different light from

that in which it was regarded by the good citizens of Rattleborough. I saw

at once that all the criminating discoveries arose, either directly or

indirectly, from himself. But the fact which clearly opened my eyes to the

true state of the case, was the affair of the bullet, found by Mr. G. in

the carcass of the horse. I had not forgotten, although the Rattleburghers

had, that there was a hole where the ball had entered the horse, and

another where it went out. If it were found in the animal then, after

having made its exit, I saw clearly that it must have been deposited by

the person who found it. The bloody shirt and handkerchief confirmed the

idea suggested by the bullet; for the blood on examination proved to be

capital claret, and no more. When I came to think of these things, and

also of the late increase of liberality and expenditure on the part of Mr.

Goodfellow, I entertained a suspicion which was none the less strong

because I kept it altogether to myself.

In the meantime, I instituted a rigorous private search for the corpse of

Mr. Shuttleworthy, and, for good reasons, searched in quarters as

divergent as possible from those to which Mr. Goodfellow conducted his

party. The result was that, after some days, I came across an old dry

well, the mouth of which was nearly hidden by brambles; and here, at the

bottom, I discovered what I sought.

Now it so happened that I had overheard the colloquy between the two

cronies, when Mr. Goodfellow had contrived to cajole his host into the

promise of a box of Chateaux-Margaux. Upon this hint I acted. I procured a

stiff piece of whalebone, thrust it down the throat of the corpse, and

deposited the latter in an old wine box—taking care so to double the body

up as to double the whalebone with it. In this manner I had to press

forcibly upon the lid to keep it down while I secured it with nails; and I

anticipated, of course, that as soon as these latter were removed, the top

would fly off and the body up.

Having thus arranged the box, I marked, numbered, and addressed it as

already told; and then writing a letter in the name of the wine merchants

with whom Mr. Shuttleworthy dealt, I gave instructions to my servant to

wheel the box to Mr. Goodfellow’s door, in a barrow, at a given signal

from myself. For the words which I intended the corpse to speak, I

confidently depended upon my ventriloquial abilities; for their effect, I

counted upon the conscience of the murderous wretch.

I believe there is nothing more to be explained. Mr. Pennifeather was

released upon the spot, inherited the fortune of his uncle, profited by

the lessons of experience, turned over a new leaf, and led happily ever

afterward a new life.

WHY THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN WEARS HIS HAND IN A SLING

It’s on my visiting cards sure enough (and it’s them that’s all o’ pink

satin paper) that inny gintleman that plases may behould the intheristhin’

words, “Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, 39 Southampton Row, Russell

Square, Parrish o’ Bloomsbury.” And shud ye be wantin’ to diskiver who is

the pink of purliteness quite, and the laider of the hot tun in the houl

city o’ Lonon—why it’s jist mesilf. And fait that same is no wonder

at all at all (so be plased to stop curlin’ your nose), for every inch o’

the six wakes that I’ve been a gintleman, and left aff wid the

bog-throthing to take up wid the Barronissy, it’s Pathrick that’s been

living like a houly imperor, and gitting the iddication and the graces.

Och! and wouldn’t it be a blessed thing for your spirrits if ye cud lay

your two peepers jist, upon Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, when he

is all riddy drissed for the hopperer, or stipping into the Brisky for the

drive into the Hyde Park. But it’s the illigant big figgur that I ’ave, for

the rason o’ which all the ladies fall in love wid me. Isn’t it my own

swate silf now that’ll missure the six fut, and the three inches more nor

that, in me stockins, and that am excadingly will proportioned all over to

match? And it is ralelly more than three fut and a bit that there is, inny

how, of the little ould furrener Frinchman that lives jist over the way,

and that’s a-oggling and a-goggling the houl day, (and bad luck to him,)

at the purty widdy Misthress Tracle that’s my own nixt-door neighbor, (God

bliss her!) and a most particuller frind and acquaintance? You percave the

little spalpeen is summat down in the mouth, and wears his lift hand in a

sling, and it’s for that same thing, by yur lave, that I’m going to give

you the good rason.

The truth of the houl matter is jist simple enough; for the very first day

that I com’d from Connaught, and showd my swate little silf in the strait

to the widdy, who was looking through the windy, it was a gone case

althegither with the heart o’ the purty Misthress Tracle. I percaved it,

ye see, all at once, and no mistake, and that’s God’s truth. First of all

it was up wid the windy in a jiffy, and thin she threw open her two

peepers to the itmost, and thin it was a little gould spy-glass that she

clapped tight to one o’ them and divil may burn me if it didn’t spake to

me as plain as a peeper cud spake, and says it, through the spy-glass:

“Och! the tip o’ the mornin’ to ye, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt,

mavourneen; and it’s a nate gintleman that ye are, sure enough, and it’s

mesilf and me forten jist that’ll be at yur sarvice, dear, inny time o’

day at all at all for the asking.” And it’s not mesilf ye wud have to be

bate in the purliteness; so I made her a bow that wud ha’ broken yur heart

altegither to behould, and thin I pulled aff me hat with a flourish, and

thin I winked at her hard wid both eyes, as much as to say, “True for you,

yer a swate little crature, Mrs. Tracle, me darlint, and I wish I may be

drownthed dead in a bog, if it’s not mesilf, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison,

Barronitt, that’ll make a houl bushel o’ love to yur leddyship, in the

twinkling o’ the eye of a Londonderry purraty.”

And it was the nixt mornin’, sure, jist as I was making up me mind whither

it wouldn’t be the purlite thing to sind a bit o’ writin’ to the widdy by

way of a love-litter, when up com’d the delivery servant wid an illigant

card, and he tould me that the name on it (for I niver could rade the

copperplate printin’ on account of being lift handed) was all about

Mounseer, the Count, A Goose, Look-aisy, Maiter-di-dauns, and that

the houl of the divilish lingo was the spalpeeny long name of the little

ould furrener Frinchman as lived over the way.

And jist wid that in cum’d the little willian himself, and then he made me

a broth of a bow, and thin he said he had ounly taken the liberty of doing

me the honor of the giving me a call, and thin he went on to palaver at a

great rate, and divil the bit did I comprehind what he wud be afther the

tilling me at all at all, excipting and saving that he said “pully wou,

woolly wou,” and tould me, among a bushel o’ lies, bad luck to him, that

he was mad for the love o’ my widdy Misthress Tracle, and that my widdy

Mrs. Tracle had a puncheon for him.

At the hearin’ of this, ye may swear, though, I was as mad as a

grasshopper, but I remimbered that I was Sir Pathrick O’Grandison,

Barronitt, and that it wasn’t althegither gentaal to lit the anger git the

upper hand o’ the purliteness, so I made light o’ the matter and kipt

dark, and got quite sociable wid the little chap, and afther a while what

did he do but ask me to go wid him to the widdy’s, saying he wud give me

the feshionable inthroduction to her leddyship.

“Is it there ye are?” said I thin to mesilf, “and it’s thrue for you,

Pathrick, that ye’re the fortunittest mortal in life. We’ll soon see now

whither it’s your swate silf, or whither it’s little Mounseer

Maiter-di-dauns, that Misthress Tracle is head and ears in the love wid.”

Wid that we wint aff to the widdy’s, next door, and ye may well say it was

an illigant place; so it was. There was a carpet all over the floor, and

in one corner there was a forty-pinny and a Jew’s harp and the divil knows

what ilse, and in another corner was a sofy, the beautifullest thing in

all natur, and sitting on the sofy, sure enough, there was the swate

little angel, Misthress Tracle.

“The tip o’ the mornin’ to ye,” says I, “Mrs. Tracle,” and thin I made

sich an illigant obaysance that it wud ha quite althegither bewildered the

brain o’ ye.

“Wully woo, pully woo, plump in the mud,” says the little furrenner

Frinchman, “and sure Mrs. Tracle,” says he, that he did, “isn’t this

gintleman here jist his reverence Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, and

isn’t he althegither and entirely the most particular frind and

acquaintance that I have in the houl world?”

And wid that the widdy, she gits up from the sofy, and makes the swatest

curthchy nor iver was seen; and thin down she sits like an angel; and

thin, by the powers, it was that little spalpeen Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns

that plumped his silf right down by the right side of her. Och hon! I

ixpicted the two eyes o’ me wud ha cum’d out of my head on the spot, I was

so dispirate mad! Howiver, “Bait who!” says I, after awhile. “Is it there

ye are, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns?” and so down I plumped on the lift side

of her leddyship, to be aven with the willain. Botheration! it wud ha done

your heart good to percave the illigant double wink that I gived her jist

thin right in the face with both eyes.

But the little ould Frinchman he niver beginned to suspict me at all at

all, and disperate hard it was he made the love to her leddyship. “Woully

wou,” says he, “Pully wou,” says he, “Plump in the mud,” says he.

“That’s all to no use, Mounseer Frog, mavourneen,” thinks I; and I talked

as hard and as fast as I could all the while, and throth it was mesilf

jist that divarted her leddyship complately and intirely, by rason of the

illigant conversation that I kipt up wid her all about the dear bogs of

Connaught. And by and by she gived me such a swate smile, from one ind of

her mouth to the ither, that it made me as bould as a pig, and I jist took

hould of the ind of her little finger in the most dilikittest manner in

natur, looking at her all the while out o’ the whites of my eyes.

And then ounly percave the cuteness of the swate angel, for no sooner did

she obsarve that I was afther the squazing of her flipper, than she up wid

it in a jiffy, and put it away behind her back, jist as much as to say,

“Now thin, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, there’s a bitther chance for ye,

mavourneen, for it’s not altogether the gentaal thing to be afther the

squazing of my flipper right full in the sight of that little furrenner

Frinchman, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns.”

Wid that I giv’d her a big wink jist to say, “lit Sir Pathrick alone for

the likes o’ them thricks,” and thin I wint aisy to work, and you’d have

died wid the divarsion to behould how cliverly I slipped my right arm

betwane the back o’ the sofy, and the back of her leddyship, and there,

sure enough, I found a swate little flipper all a waiting to say, “the tip

o’ the mornin’ to ye, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt.” And wasn’t it

mesilf, sure, that jist giv’d it the laste little bit of a squaze in the

world, all in the way of a commincement, and not to be too rough wid her

leddyship? and och, botheration, wasn’t it the gentaalest and dilikittest

of all the little squazes that I got in return? “Blood and thunder, Sir

Pathrick, mavourneen,” thinks I to mesilf, “fait it’s jist the mother’s

son of you, and nobody else at all at all, that’s the handsomest and the

fortunittest young bog-throtter that ever cum’d out of Connaught!” And

with that I givd the flipper a big squaze, and a big squaze it was, by the

powers, that her leddyship giv’d to me back. But it would ha split the

seven sides of you wid the laffin’ to behould, jist then all at once, the

consated behavior of Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns. The likes o’ sich a

jabbering, and a smirking, and a parley-wouing as he begin’d wid her

leddyship, niver was known before upon arth; and divil may burn me if it

wasn’t me own very two peepers that cotch’d him tipping her the wink out

of one eye. Och, hon! if it wasn’t mesilf thin that was mad as a Kilkenny

cat I shud like to be tould who it was!

“Let me infarm you, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns,” said I, as purlite as iver

ye seed, “that it’s not the gintaal thing at all at all, and not for the

likes o’ you inny how, to be afther the oggling and a-goggling at her

leddyship in that fashion,” and jist wid that such another squaze as it

was I giv’d her flipper, all as much as to say, “isn’t it Sir Pathrick

now, my jewel, that’ll be able to the protectin’ o’ you, my darlint?” and

then there cum’d another squaze back, all by way of the answer. “Thrue for

you, Sir Pathrick,” it said as plain as iver a squaze said in the world,

“Thrue for you, Sir Pathrick, mavourneen, and it’s a proper nate gintleman

ye are—that’s God’s truth,” and with that she opened her two

beautiful peepers till I belaved they wud ha’ cum’d out of her hid

althegither and intirely, and she looked first as mad as a cat at Mounseer

Frog, and thin as smiling as all out o’ doors at mesilf.

“Thin,” says he, the willian, “Och hon! and a wolly-wou, pully-wou,” and

then wid that he shoved up his two shoulders till the divil the bit of his

hid was to be diskivered, and then he let down the two corners of his

purraty-trap, and thin not a haporth more of the satisfaction could I git

out o’ the spalpeen.

Belave me, my jewel, it was Sir Pathrick that was unreasonable mad thin,

and the more by token that the Frinchman kipt an wid his winking at the

widdy; and the widdy she kept an wid the squazing of my flipper, as much

as to say, “At him again, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, mavourneen:” so I just

ripped out wid a big oath, and says I:

“Ye little spalpeeny frog of a bog-throtting son of a bloody noun!”—and

jist thin what d’ye think it was that her leddyship did? Troth she jumped

up from the sofy as if she was bit, and made off through the door, while I

turned my head round afther her, in a complate bewilderment and

botheration, and followed her wid me two peepers. You percave I had a

reason of my own for knowing that she couldn’t git down the stares

althegither and intirely; for I knew very well that I had hould of her

hand, for the divil the bit had I iver lit it go. And says I:

“Isn’t it the laste little bit of a mistake in the world that

ye’ve been afther the making, yer leddyship? Come back now,

that’s a darlint, and I’ll give ye yur flipper.” But

aff she wint down the stairs like a shot, and thin I turned round to the

little Frinch furrenner. Och hon! if it wasn’t his spalpeeny little

paw that I had hould of in my own—why thin—thin it

wasn’t—that’s all.

And maybe it wasn’t mesilf that jist died then outright wid the laffin’,

to behold the little chap when he found out that it wasn’t the widdy at

all at all that he had had hould of all the time, but only Sir Pathrick

O’Grandison. The ould divil himself niver behild sich a long face as he

pet an! As for Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, it wasn’t for the

likes of his riverence to be afther the minding of a thrifle of a mistake.

Ye may jist say, though (for it’s God’s thruth), that afore I left hould

of the flipper of the spalpeen (which was not till afther her leddyship’s

futman had kicked us both down the stairs), I giv’d it such a nate little

broth of a squaze as made it all up into raspberry jam.

“Woully wou,” says he, “pully wou,” says he—“Cot tam!”

And that’s jist the thruth of the rason why he wears his lift hand in a

sling.

BON-BON.

Quand un bon vin meuble mon estomac,

Je suis plus savant que Balzac—

Plus sage que Pibrac;

Mon bras seul faisant l’attaque

De la nation Cossaque,

La mettroit au sac;

De Charon je passerois le lac,

En dormant dans son bac;

J’irois au fier Eac,

Sans que mon coeur fit tic ni tac,

Présenter du tabac.

—_French Vaudeville_

That Pierre Bon-Bon was a _restaurateur_ of uncommon qualifications,

no man who, during the reign of——, frequented the little Câfé

in the cul-de-sac Le Febre at Rouen, will, I imagine, feel himself at

liberty to dispute. That Pierre Bon-Bon was, in an equal degree, skilled

in the philosophy of that period is, I presume, still more especially

undeniable. His _patés à la fois_ were beyond doubt immaculate; but

what pen can do justice to his essays _sur la Nature_—his

thoughts _sur l’Ame_—his observations _sur l’Esprit?_ If

his _omelettes_—if his _fricandeaux_ were inestimable,

what _littérateur_ of that day would not have given twice as much for

an “_Idée de Bon-Bon_” as for all the trash of “_Idées_” of all

the rest of the _savants?_ Bon-Bon had ransacked libraries which no

other man had ransacked—had more than any other would have

entertained a notion of reading—had understood more than any other

would have conceived the possibility of understanding; and although, while

he flourished, there were not wanting some authors at Rouen to assert

“that his _dicta_ evinced neither the purity of the Academy, nor the

depth of the Lyceum”—although, mark me, his doctrines were by no

means very generally comprehended, still it did not follow that they were

difficult of comprehension. It was, I think, on account of their

self-evidency that many persons were led to consider them abstruse. It is

to Bon-Bon—but let this go no farther—it is to Bon-Bon that

Kant himself is mainly indebted for his metaphysics. The former was indeed

not a Platonist, nor strictly speaking an Aristotelian—nor did he,

like the modern Leibnitz, waste those precious hours which might be

employed in the invention of a _fricasée_ or, _facili gradú_,

the analysis of a sensation, in frivolous attempts at reconciling the

obstinate oils and waters of ethical discussion. Not at all. Bon-Bon was

Ionic—Bon-Bon was equally Italic. He reasoned _à priori_—He

reasoned also _à posteriori_. His ideas were innate—or

otherwise. He believed in George of Trebizonde—He believed in

Bossarion [Bessarion]. Bon-Bon was emphatically a—Bon-Bonist.

I have spoken of the philosopher in his capacity of _restaurateur_. I

would not, however, have any friend of mine imagine that, in fulfilling

his hereditary duties in that line, our hero wanted a proper estimation of

their dignity and importance. Far from it. It was impossible to say in

which branch of his profession he took the greater pride. In his opinion

the powers of the intellect held intimate connection with the capabilities

of the stomach. I am not sure, indeed, that he greatly disagreed with the

Chinese, who held that the soul lies in the abdomen. The Greeks at all

events were right, he thought, who employed the same words for the mind

and the diaphragm. (*1) By this I do not mean to insinuate a charge of

gluttony, or indeed any other serious charge to the prejudice of the

metaphysician. If Pierre Bon-Bon had his failings—and what great man

has not a thousand?—if Pierre Bon-Bon, I say, had his failings, they

were failings of very little importance—faults indeed which, in

other tempers, have often been looked upon rather in the light of virtues.

As regards one of these foibles, I should not even have mentioned it in

this history but for the remarkable prominency—the extreme _alto

relievo_—in which it jutted out from the plane of his general

disposition. He could never let slip an opportunity of making a bargain.

{*1} MD

Not that he was avaricious—no. It was by no means necessary to the

satisfaction of the philosopher, that the bargain should be to his own

proper advantage. Provided a trade could be effected—a trade of any

kind, upon any terms, or under any circumstances—a triumphant smile

was seen for many days thereafter to enlighten his countenance, and a

knowing wink of the eye to give evidence of his sagacity.

At any epoch it would not be very wonderful if a humor so peculiar as the

one I have just mentioned, should elicit attention and remark. At the

epoch of our narrative, had this peculiarity not attracted observation,

there would have been room for wonder indeed. It was soon reported that,

upon all occasions of the kind, the smile of Bon-Bon was wont to differ

widely from the downright grin with which he would laugh at his own jokes,

or welcome an acquaintance. Hints were thrown out of an exciting nature;

stories were told of perilous bargains made in a hurry and repented of at

leisure; and instances were adduced of unaccountable capacities, vague

longings, and unnatural inclinations implanted by the author of all evil

for wise purposes of his own.

The philosopher had other weaknesses—but they are scarcely worthy

our serious examination. For example, there are few men of extraordinary

profundity who are found wanting in an inclination for the bottle. Whether

this inclination be an exciting cause, or rather a valid proof of such

profundity, it is a nice thing to say. Bon-Bon, as far as I can learn, did

not think the subject adapted to minute investigation;—nor do I. Yet

in the indulgence of a propensity so truly classical, it is not to be

supposed that the restaurateur would lose sight of that intuitive

discrimination which was wont to characterize, at one and the same time,

his essais and his omelettes. In his seclusions the Vin de Bourgogne had

its allotted hour, and there were appropriate moments for the Cotes du

Rhone. With him Sauterne was to Medoc what Catullus was to Homer. He would

sport with a syllogism in sipping St. Peray, but unravel an argument over

Clos de Vougeot, and upset a theory in a torrent of Chambertin. Well had

it been if the same quick sense of propriety had attended him in the

peddling propensity to which I have formerly alluded—but this was by

no means the case. Indeed to say the truth, that trait of mind in the

philosophic Bon-Bon did begin at length to assume a character of strange

intensity and mysticism, and appeared deeply tinctured with the diablerie

of his favorite German studies.

To enter the little _café_ in the _cul-de-sac_ Le Febre was, at the period of

our tale, to enter the sanctum of a man of genius. Bon-Bon was a man of

genius. There was not a sous-cusinier in Rouen, who could not have told

you that Bon-Bon was a man of genius. His very cat knew it, and forebore

to whisk her tail in the presence of the man of genius. His large

water-dog was acquainted with the fact, and upon the approach of his

master, betrayed his sense of inferiority by a sanctity of deportment, a

debasement of the ears, and a dropping of the lower jaw not altogether

unworthy of a dog. It is, however, true that much of this habitual respect

might have been attributed to the personal appearance of the

metaphysician. A distinguished exterior will, I am constrained to say,

have its way even with a beast; and I am willing to allow much in the

outward man of the restaurateur calculated to impress the imagination of

the quadruped. There is a peculiar majesty about the atmosphere of the

little great—if I may be permitted so equivocal an expression—which

mere physical bulk alone will be found at all times inefficient in

creating. If, however, Bon-Bon was barely three feet in height, and if his

head was diminutively small, still it was impossible to behold the

rotundity of his stomach without a sense of magnificence nearly bordering

upon the sublime. In its size both dogs and men must have seen a type of

his acquirements—in its immensity a fitting habitation for his

immortal soul.

I might here—if it so pleased me—dilate upon the matter of

habiliment, and other mere circumstances of the external metaphysician. I

might hint that the hair of our hero was worn short, combed smoothly over

his forehead, and surmounted by a conical-shaped white flannel cap and

tassels—that his pea-green jerkin was not after the fashion of those

worn by the common class of restaurateurs at that day—that the

sleeves were something fuller than the reigning costume permitted—that

the cuffs were turned up, not as usual in that barbarous period, with

cloth of the same quality and color as the garment, but faced in a more

fanciful manner with the particolored velvet of Genoa—that his

slippers were of a bright purple, curiously filigreed, and might have been

manufactured in Japan, but for the exquisite pointing of the toes, and the

brilliant tints of the binding and embroidery—that his breeches were

of the yellow satin-like material called aimable—that his sky-blue

cloak, resembling in form a dressing-wrapper, and richly bestudded all

over with crimson devices, floated cavalierly upon his shoulders like a

mist of the morning—and that his tout ensemble gave rise to the

remarkable words of Benevenuta, the Improvisatrice of Florence, “that it

was difficult to say whether Pierre Bon-Bon was indeed a bird of Paradise,

or rather a very Paradise of perfection.” I might, I say, expatiate upon

all these points if I pleased,—but I forbear, merely personal

details may be left to historical novelists,—they are beneath the

moral dignity of matter-of-fact.

I have said that “to enter the _café_ in the _cul-de-sac_ Le Febre was to

enter the sanctum of a man of genius”—but then it was only the man

of genius who could duly estimate the merits of the _sanctum_. A sign,

consisting of a vast folio, swung before the entrance. On one side of the

volume was painted a bottle; on the reverse a _paté_. On the back were

visible in large letters _Œuvres de Bon-Bon_. Thus was delicately shadowed

forth the two-fold occupation of the proprietor.

Upon stepping over the threshold, the whole interior of the building

presented itself to view. A long, low-pitched room, of antique

construction, was indeed all the accommodation afforded by the _café_. In a

corner of the apartment stood the bed of the metaphysician. An army of

curtains, together with a canopy _à la Grècque_, gave it an air at once

classic and comfortable. In the corner diagonary opposite, appeared, in

direct family communion, the properties of the kitchen and the

_bibliotheque_. A dish of polemics stood peacefully upon the dresser. Here

lay an ovenful of the latest ethics—there a kettle of dudecimo

_mélanges_. Volumes of German morality were hand and glove with the gridiron—a

toasting-fork might be discovered by the side of Eusebius—Plato

reclined at his ease in the frying-pan—and contemporary manuscripts

were filed away upon the spit.

In other respects the _Café de Bon-Bon_ might be said to differ little from

the usual restaurants of the period. A fireplace yawned opposite the door.

On the right of the fireplace an open cupboard displayed a formidable

array of labelled bottles.

It was here, about twelve o’clock one night during the severe

winter of ——, that Pierre Bon-Bon, after having listened to

the comments of his neighbours upon his singular propensity—that

Pierre Bon-Bon, I say, having turned them all out of his house, locked

the door upon them with an oath, and betook himself in no very pacific

mood to the comforts of a leather-bottomed arm-chair, and a fire of

blazing fagots.

It was one of those terrific nights which are only met with once or twice

during a century. It snowed fiercely, and the house tottered to its centre

with the floods of wind that, rushing through the crannies in the wall,

and pouring impetuously down the chimney, shook awfully the curtains of

the philosopher’s bed, and disorganized the economy of his pate-pans and

papers. The huge folio sign that swung without, exposed to the fury of the

tempest, creaked ominously, and gave out a moaning sound from its

stanchions of solid oak.