E-text prepared by Curtis Weyant, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team from page images generously made
available by the Making of America Collection of the University of
Michigan Library
Note: Images of the original pages are available through the Making
of America Collection of the University of Michigan. See
http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/b/bib/bibperm?q1=abw7901
TRUMPS
A Novel
by
GEO. WM. CURTIS
Author of _Nile Notes of a Howadji_, _The Howadji in Syria_,
_The Potiphar Papers_, _Prue and I_, etc.
1861
CONTENTS
Chapter
I. SCHOOL BEGINS
II. HOPE WAYNE
III. AVE MARIA!
IV. NIGHT
V. PEEWEE PREACHING
VI. EXPERIMENTUM CRUCIS
VII. CASTLE DANGEROUS
VIII. AFTER THE BATTLE
IX. NEWS FROM HOME
X. BEGINNING TO SKETCH
XI. A VERDICT AND A SENTENCE
XII. HELP, HO!
XIII. SOCIETY
XIV. A NEW YORK MERCHANT
XV. A SCHOOL-BOY NO LONGER
XVI. PHILOSOPHY
XVII. OF GIRLS AND FLOWERS
XVIII. OLD FRIENDS AND NEW
XIX. DOG-DAYS
XX. AUNT MARTHA
XXI. THE CAMPAIGN
XXII. THE FINE ARTS
XXIII. BONIFACE NEWT, SON, & CO., DRY GOODS ON COMMISSION
XXXIV. "QUEEN AND HUNTRESS"
XXV. A STATESMAN--AND STATESWOMAN
XXVI. THE PORTRAIT AND THE MINIATURE
XXVII. GABRIEL AT HOME
XXVIII. BORN TO BE A BACHELOR
XXIX. MR. ABEL NEWT, GRAND STREET
XXX. CHECK
XXXI. AT DELMONICO'S
XXXII. MRS. THEODORE KINGFISHER AT HOME. _On dansera_
XXXIII. ANOTHER TURN IN THE WALTZ
XXXIV. HEAVEN'S LAST BEST GIFT
XXXV. MOTHER-IN-LAW AND DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
XXXVI. THE BACK WINDOW
XXXVII. ABEL NEWT _Vice_ SLIGO MOULTRIE REMOVED
XXXVIII. THE DAY AFTER THE WEDDING
XXXIX. A FIELD-DAY
XL. AT THE ROUND TABLE
XLI. A LITTLE DINNER
XLII. CLEARING AND CLOUDY
XLIII. WALKING HOME
XLIV. CHURCH GOING
XLV. IN CHURCH
XLVI. IN ANOTHER CHURCH
XLVII. DEATH
XLVIII. THE HEIRESS
XLIX. A SELECT PARTY
L. WINE AND TRUTH
LI. A WARNING
LII. BREAKFAST
LIII. SLIGO MOULTRIE _vice_ ABEL NEWT
LIV. CLOUDS AND DARKNESS
LV. ARTHUR MERLIN'S GREAT PICTURE
LVI. REDIVIVUS
LVII. DINING WITH LAWRENCE NEWT
LVIII. THE HEALTH OF THE JUNIOR PARTNER
LIX. MRS. ALFRED DINKS
LX. POLITICS
LXI. GONE TO PROTEST
LXII. THE CRASH, UP TOWN
LXIII. ENDYMION
LXIV. DIANA
LXV. THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE
LXVI. MENTOR AND TELEMACHUS
LXVII. WIRES
LXVIII. THE INDUSTRIOUS APPRENTICE
LXIX. IN AND OUT
LXX. THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE
LXXI. RICHES HAVE WINGS
LXXII. GOOD-BY
LXXIII. THE BELCH PLATFORM
LXXIV. MIDNIGHT
LXXV. REMINISCENCE
LXXVI. A SOCIAL GLASS
LXXVII. FACE TO FACE
LXXVIII. FINISHING PICTURES
LXXIX. THE LAST THROW
LXXX. CLOUDS BREAKING
LXXXI. MRS. ALFRED DINKS AT HOME
LXXXII. THE LOST IS FOUND
LXXXIII. MRS. DELILAH JONES
LXXXIV. PROSPECTS OF HAPPINESS
LXXXV. GETTING READY
LXXXVI. IN THE CITY
LXXXVII. A LONG JOURNEY
LXXXVIII. WAITING
LXXXIX. DUST TO DUST
XC. UNDER THE MISLETOE
CHAPTER I.
SCHOOL BEGINS.
Forty years ago Mr. Savory Gray was a prosperous merchant. No gentleman
on 'Change wore more spotless linen or blacker broadcloth. His ample
white cravat had an air of absolute wisdom and honesty. It was so very
white that his fellow-merchants could not avoid a vague impression that
he had taken the church on his way down town, and had so purified himself
for business. Indeed a white cravat is strongly to be recommended as a
corrective and sedative of the public mind. Its advantages have long been
familiar to the clergy; and even, in some desperate cases, politicians
have found a resort to it of signal benefit. There are instructive
instances, also, in banks and insurance offices of the comfort and
value of spotless linen. Combined with highly-polished shoes, it is
of inestimable mercantile advantage.
Mr. Gray prospered in business, and nobody was sorry. He enjoyed his
practical joke and his glass of Madeira, which had made at least three
voyages round the Cape. His temperament, like his person, was just
unctuous enough to enable him to slip comfortably through life.
Happily for his own comfort, he had but a speaking acquaintance with
politics. He was not a blue Federalist, and he never d'd the Democrats.
With unconscious skill he shot the angry rapids of discussion, and swept,
by a sure instinct, toward the quiet water on which he liked to ride. In
the counting-room or the meeting of directors, when his neighbors waxed
furious upon raking over some outrage of that old French infidel, Tom
Jefferson, as they called him, sending him and his gun-boats where no
man or boat wants to go, Mr. Gray rolled his neck in his white cravat,
crossed his legs, and shook his black-gaitered shoe, and beamed, and
smiled, and blew his nose, and hum'd, and ha'd, and said, "Ah, yes!"
"Ah, indeed?" "Quite so!" and held his tongue.
Mr. Savory Gray minded his own business; but his business did not
mind him. There came a sudden crash--one of the commercial earthquakes
that shake fortunes to their foundations and scatter failure on every
side. One day he sat in his office consoling his friend Jowlson, who
had been ruined. Mr. Jowlson was terribly agitated--credit gone--fortune
wrecked--no prospects--"O wife and children!" he cried, rocking to and
fro as he sat.
"My dear Jowlson, you must not give way in this manner. You must
control your feelings. Have we not always been taught," said Mr. Gray,
as a clerk brought in a letter, the seal of which the merchant broke
leisurely, and then skimmed the contents as he continued, "that riches
have wings and--my God!" he ejaculated, springing up, "I am a ruined
man!"
So he was. Every thing was gone. Those pretty riches that chirped and
sang to him as he fed them; they had all spread their bright plumage,
like a troop of singing birds--have we not always been taught that they
might, Mr. Jowlson?--and had flown away.
To undertake business anew was out of the question. His friends said,
"Poor Gray! what shall be done?"
The friendly merchants pondered and pondered. The worthy Jowlson, who
had meanwhile engaged as book-keeper upon a salary of seven hundred
dollars a year--one of the rare prizes--was busy enough for his friend,
consulting, wondering, planning. Mr. Gray could not preach, nor practice
medicine, nor surgery, nor law, because men must be instructed in those
professions; and people will not trust a suit of a thousand dollars, or
a sore throat, or a broken thumb, in the hands of a man who has not
fitted himself carefully for the responsibility. He could not make boots,
nor build houses, nor shoe horses, nor lay stone wall, nor bake bread,
nor bind books. Men must be educated to be shoemakers, carpenters,
blacksmiths, bakers, masons, or book-binders. What _could_ be done?
Nobody suggested an insurance office, or an agency for diamond mines
on Newport beach; for, although it was the era of good feeling, those
ingenious infirmaries for commercial invalids were not yet invented.
"I have it!" cried Jowlson, one day, rushing in, out of breath, among
several gentlemen who were holding a council about their friend
Gray--that is, who had met in a bank parlor, and were talking about
his prospects--"I have it! and how dull we all are! What shall he do?
Why, keep a school, to be sure!--a school!--a school! Take children,
and be a parent to them!"
"How dull we all were!" cried the gentlemen in chorus. "A school is the
very thing! A school it shall be!" And a school it was.
Upon the main street of the pleasant village of Delafield Savory Gray,
Esq., hired a large house, with an avenue of young lindens in front, a
garden on one side, and a spacious play-ground in the rear. The pretty
pond was not far away, with its sloping shores and neat villas, and a
distant spire upon the opposite bank--the whole like the vignette of an
English pastoral poem. Here the merchant turned from importing pongees to
inculcating principles. His old friends sent some of their children to
the new school, and persuaded their friends to send others. Some of his
former correspondents in other parts of the world, not entirely satisfied
with the Asian and East Indian systems of education, shipped their sons
to Mr. Gray. The good man was glad to see them. He was not very learned,
and therefore could not communicate knowledge. But he did his best, and
tried very hard to be respected. The boys did not learn any thing; but
they had plenty of good beef, and Mr. Gray played practical jokes upon
them; and on Sundays they all went to hear Dr. Peewee preach.