 | CHAPTER IX.
AN ENTERTAINMENT AT MR. FISHBLATT'S. The career of Puffer Hopkins |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
AN ENTERTAINMENT AT MR. FISHBLATT'S.
A few mornings after his adventures as scourer, Puffer
Hopkins was sitting at his desk in the Fork, earnestly engaged
in the preparation and composition of a handbill,
for the approaching election. That this was a sufficiently
arduous undertaking for the young politician, was proved by
the great multitude of model placards strewn about the floor,
from which he at intervals solaced himself with a line or
two; by the blank looks with which he at times entirely
halted in his task; and by the painful gaze he occasionally
directed towards the wall, as if he expected to discover there
handwriting wherewith to eke out the unfinished sentence.
Having a good eye for catching phrases, and considerable
readiness in sounding words that would tell well in the popular
ear, the composition presently flowed apace; line upon
line lengthened out, Puffer reciting each aloud as it was
finished, and in the course of about two hours, a thundering
manifesto, doomed soon to echo back from wall, shutter, bulk-head
and house-side, great words of fearful import, and to
set the whole world of meeting-hunters and politicians
astir, was completed.
Puffer Hopkins was clearing his throat and preparing for
a grand rehearsal of this master-piece, when he was suddenly
confronted by a frouzy-headed small girl, who had got
into the apartment, it seemed to him—for he had no notice
of her entrance—by some underhand jugglery or legerdemain,
and who, assuming a face of great mystery, levelled
at him a diminutive billet, with a faint streak of gold about
its edges, and his own name written elaborately on the back.
“Compliments—hopes as how you'll come—and wishes
the bearer to say, wouldn't feel cheerful if Mr. Hopkins
should fail,” said the frouzy-haired girl reciting something
that had been evidently ticketed and laid away in her mind,
to be delivered when called for.
Three lines of writing and a date within, worked out obviously
with painful toil and a great variety of pens, explained
the object of the small visiter, in a request that “Mr. P.
Hopkins would favor Mr. H. Fishblatt with company at
seven o'clock this (Thursday) evening, at the sign of the
same time street and number.
Puffer was in fine spirits, for he had been successful in his
literary labors—and what author's heart is not a-glow when
his invention proves ready, and his hand runs free across the
page?—and he accepted the note with great complaisance,
and bade the frouzy-haired messenger (who stood staring at
the huge text scattered about the floor, as if the great black
letters might be ogres, giants, or some other monsters), inform
Mr. Fishblatt he would attend his summons with the
utmost pleasure.
He was as good as his word; and two hours before the
time named in the invitation, Puffer began to prepare for the
party at Fishblatt's. First and foremost, he drew forth from
a case, in the corner of his lodgings, a brass-buttoned blue
coat, of a popular cut, and fell to beating it over the shoulders
and down the back with a yard stick, as if he had under
his hand the body and person of his direst enemy in the
world: then he twisted the right arm up and dashed at the
place where the ribs might have been; then he fell upon the
breasts and pumelled them horribly; and then, casting aside
his stick, he fastened fiercely on the collar and gave the whole
a mighty shaking, as if he would have the very life out of it.
A pair of light drab cloth pantaloons, dragged from the same
confinement, shared in like manner at his hands; a striped
vest was stretched on the back of a chair like a rack; then
his boots were forced into a high polish, the pantaloons drawn
on, the vest released, and the coat occupied by its legitimate
lord, and Puffer, first attitudenizing a little before the long
glass, and running his fingers through his hair—to get his
head as nearly as possible into the model he had in his eye of
a great politician, whose portrait was in the gallery at the
museum—was ready for the party. Sallying gently forth,
and marching steadily through the streets, with a secret conviction
that every eye in the metropolis was fixed immovably
upon him, he shortly discovered the great brass plate of
Halsey Fishblatt gleaming through the dark, where he knocked,
waited for a minute in a state of awful suspense and was
admitted, as before, by the message-bearer, who came to the
door with a face wrinkled with smiles, and strongly suggestive
of something very nice and choice to be had within.
The small girl asked Puffer to be good enough to go to the
third-story back room, and thither he proceeded; encountering
a fry of dolorous-looking gentlemen, who lingered about the
parlor door, pulling down their wristbands and contemplating
it, as it opened and shut, with as much dread as if it had
been the gate of the doomed; while others hovered about the
great balustrade of the stair-case, in waiting for the descent
of their lady partners from the third-story front room above.
Every now and then an angelic creature, in a white gown
and abundant pink ribbons, came down this Jacob's ladder,
and fastening upon the arm of one of the sentinels, they
marched into the parlor with great state. Returning from
his toilet up stairs, Puffer Hopkins followed the general current,
and discovered a scene the solemnity whereof was exceedingly
impressive and disheartening.
The walls of the parlor upon which he had entered were
lined all round with well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, sitting
as erect as corpses, and gazing into the empty space in
the middle of the apartment, as if some curious meteorological
phenomenon were going on there, in which they all had a
special interest. At the announcement of Puffer Hopkins by
a pale young gentleman at the door, the corpses waked up a
little, some twittered spasmodically, a few moved uneasily in
their chairs, and by the time Puffer had attained a seat in a
corner, the company had again subsided into its condition of
tomb-like repose.
They were presently, however, again wakened—and with
rather more success—by the entrance of the host, Mr. Fishblatt
himself, bearing before him firstly a huge ruffle, which
stood straight out from his bosom like a main-sail, and secondly,
reposing in the shadow of the said ruffle, a black teaboard
of proportionate dimensions, garnished with small jugs
or tumblers of lemonade.
Mr. Fishblatt walked very erect and majestically, and holding
the waiter at arm's length—smiling pleasantly, as a gentleman
always does when he's engaged in a business he knows
himself to be altogether too good for, but which the crisis of
affairs requires him to look after—presented it to the ladies
all around, beginning at the left hand as he was bound to
do and skipping ever so many thirsty gentlemen who
gloated on the small jugs: and then coming down toward the
right hand, as he was likewise bound, he allowed the thirsty
gentlemen to glean from the waiter the tumblers that remained.
It is not to be supposed that Mr. Halsey Fishblatt
the waiter was not a tithe of his toils, for he kept strenuously
urging wherever he went the propriety of taking a tumbler
—the necessity of a draught of the lemonade to cool themselves,
and particularly soliciting and entreating the ladies
to make a paradise of his (Mr. Fishblatt's) parlors, by enjoying
themselves with all their might and main.
The lemonade had scarcely vanished and the empty tumblers
been gathered and borne out of sight, when it was
announced—to the discomforture and confusion of the
company—that the celebrated and distinguished representative
of the Thirteenth Ward in the city Councils—
Alderman Punchwind, by name—was in the house: having,
as it was understood, done Mr. Fishblatt the honor to call
in and partake of the agreeable hospitalities that were then
and there going forward. Mr. Fishblatt, at the thought of
so august a presence, recoiled a little, but recovering speedily,
a deputation was immediately sent out, consisting of
Puffer Hopkins and two young gentlemen who wore large
watch seals, and were rather ambitious of office and employment
of this kind, to wait upon his eminence. In a
few minutes a heavy tread was heard upon the stair, a
commotion in the entry, and in stalked, in a broad-brimmed
hat, a portly, capacious and solid gentleman, of such
dimensions as to resemble not a little a great school-globe,
stepped out of its brass ring, and taking a walk of pleasure:
in he marched, accompanied by his delegation, who
clung close to his skirts to watch the impression his presence
might make on the commonalty assembled.
Puffer Hopkins had a glimmering reminiscence of a
broad-brimmed hat, very much like the Alderman's, escaping
into a pantry at the end of the hall as he came in at the
beginning of the evening, worn by Crump—could it be so?
—Crump, the meek secretary who had been so brow-beaten
in the shower by Mr. Blinker. His brows overshadowed
by the huge hat, and his chin buried in a capacious collar,
Alderman Punchwind paused for a minute at the door,
glanced about slowly and with an air of solemn importance,
and then, without removing his hat or uttering a word,
stalked across the parlor, proceeded to fill a glass from the
side-board where relays of refreshment in liberal quantities
were arranged, and at this moment, deigning to turn around
and recognize the company, he intimated by a look that he
emphatically absorbing his wine much as the Norwegian
Maelstrom might if it were a corporate Alderman and fed
at public charge. Having disposed of the wine, the Alderman
next devoted his attention to the cake and other eatables,
of which great batches disappeared from time to
time; with a pause now and then, to allow him to vary
the entertainment with a friendly return, just to show he
had n't forgotten it, to the decanter; which proceedings were
watched with painful interest by Mr. Fishblatt's guests—who
were horrified at the miraculous disappearance of the provision
for the party, and who looked upon the performance
much as they would at the elephant at the menagerie,
feeding with a bale or two of hay, or the pagan anaconda
at the museum, lunching on a pair of fowls and a live rabbit,
without so much as a grace to the meal.
As soon as Alderman Punchwind had concluded his
corporate banquet by stripping the board of something more
than two-thirds of its contents, solid and liquid, he wiped
his lips, and marching steadily toward the centre of the
rooms, there planted himself by the side of a column and
looked abroad upon the company: fixing his eye, now
and then, with peculiar sternness on some young lady who
happened to be fairer than her neighbors.
After he had enjoyed this recreation for some time, various
members of the company were brought up by
Mr. Fishblatt and introduced (by consent) to the distinguished
functionary, who kept his ground manfully and
received them all with an air of bland and gracious condecension;
allowing each of them to take him by the hand
and to enjoy a few minutes contemplation of his very classic
and expressive features, and then pass off, making room for
others.
While this was proceeding, attention was drawn toward
the door by the entrance of a very uppish gentleman, of a
severe aspect, who carried himself with great state and
port, and cast his eyes disdainfully about, as if he held the
individuals of both sexes and all ages there assembled supremely
cheap and of no account whatever in making up
any thing like an accurate scale of society.
This disdainful and evidently select personage was no
other than John Blinker, Esq., First Director and President
of the Phœnix Fire Company below stairs, who, as soon
came forward extending his hand and smiling pleasantly,
quite anxious, it would seem, to conciliate the favor of a
mighty Alderman and Common Council-man. These overtures
on the part of Mr. Blinker were received by the Alderman,
however, with an air of slight disdain, which caused
the President to cower and fall back a little until Mr.
Punchwind thought proper to relax his features, when the
President advanced again, and had the satisfaction at last,
and after many difficulties, of taking him by the hand.
“Do I understand that the fire-limits of the city are to be
extended?” asked Mr. Blinker, whose mind hovered about
the fiery principle of his calling like a moth about flame,
after waiting in vain for a communication from the
Alderman.
The question was asked, but not answered: for Alderman
Punchwind, reclining his head a little toward his questioner,
allowed a smile to spread over his features—as
much as to say, you don't know how important, how critical
and how solemn a question you have put to me—and
said not a word.
“I think it would be an advantage to the city to have
them extended, sir. I hope I am not so unfortunate as to
differ in opinion with Alderman Punchwind!” said Mr.
Blinker, meekly.
The Alderman only smiled again—intimating thereby,
apparently, that there were state reasons why this anxious
interrogatory of the great President's could n't be answered,
just then.
At this moment, Puffer Hopkins, who had overheard the
questions of Mr. Blinker, and entertaining a becoming reverence
for the distinguished individual before him—feeling,
too, perhaps, that a modicum of metropolitan information
from the very fountain head, on a subject in which he felt an
interest, from his frequent professional pilgrimages to political
meetings, lectures, and other night-resorts, might be serviceable—impelled
by some, or all of these considerations,
Puffer proceeded to ask, in a tone of profound respect,—
“Whether they were to have new windows in the public
lamps?”
“New lamp-windows, did you ask?” retorted the Alderman,
as plainly as he could without the trouble of opening
his lips.
“I did, sir,” reiterated Puffer Hopkins, beginning to feel
rhetorically inclined, and so understanding the learned
gentleman, “and knowing the interest felt in the answer, and
your ability to give us a clear and decisive reply, I put it to
you in this public manner—whether we are to have new
glasses in the public lamps! A gust of wind in our streets
of a dark night is equal to an eclipse of the sun in broad
day, in their present dilapidated condition. The darkness
of Egypt overspreads this city, sir, at times; a Siberian
darkness, where bears and catamounts might dwell, perhaps,
if it were not for the city police and our vigilant magistracy.”
The Alderman paused, and looked about him with a grave
and majestic air. He seemed reluctant to respond.
“It's your duty, sir,” said Mr. Fishblatt, coming in at this
crisis, standing directly in front of the Alderman, and looking
him steadily in the face, “to inform us of your views on
this all-important subject. The happiness of this community
is dependent on it, sir. There'll be an immense oversetting
of hacks, breakage of legs, and fracture of skulls, if things
remain in their present condition, I can tell you. This metropolis
is as black now, sir, at night, as the bottom of an
ink-bottle, and people float about the streets at random, like
so many bugs on the surface of a dark pool. What's all
the crime of this great city owing to, sir? Some will say,
its intemperance, and a neglect of the public pumps. Others
will say, its ignorance, and neglect of the public schools.
Some will tell you, it's because we've got too many penitentiaries
and houses of refuge, and others will tell you,
it's because they're too few. Pumps, penitentiaries, and
public schools, can't explain it;—it's your miserable public
lamps, sir! It's your knavish oil-men, and your rascally
glaziers, that are corrupting us every day and every night—
more particularly at night. They're the origin of your dissolute
sons, your profligate daughters, your sinful judges, and
your dishonest clerks. Nobody comes out at noon and
makes a beast of himself in the street. Keep the city welllighted,
and you keep it virtuous, sir. You should have a
lamp at the front of every tenement; and where the streets
are so narrow that the houses might catch from the wick,
you should have men moving up and down with great lanterns,
and keep all the thoroughfares and alleys in a glow.
You would n't have a murder once in a century, and as for
Phœnix, sir, and the Megalosaurius!”
At the termination of this earnest appeal, the company
had gathered in a body about the person of the Alderman,
and stood waiting, with intense interest, for his answer.
Alderman Punchwind hereupon canvassed the assemblage
with great deliberation, and having finished, elevated the
fore-finger of his right hand, and passed it significantly down
his nose, dispatched a sagacious wink toward Mr. Blinker,
with his sinister eye, and mildly muttering “Smoked beans,”
departed.
Can it create surprise to know that the company there
assembled by invitation of Mr. Fishblatt, were astounded at
this strange and unseemly exit of the distinguished gentleman
from the Thirteenth Ward? that Mr. Fishblatt was horrified
and stricken with amaze? that Mr. Blinker was indignant?
that the delegation that had waited upon the Alderman felt
slightly humiliated and abashed at the conduct of their superior?
That Puffer Hopkins was profoundly penetrated
with a sense of the uncertainty of human affairs—for had
there not been here an individual occupying but a minute
before the very highest conceivable pinnacle—the very
Himalayah-top of human greatness attainable at a small
party—and had n't that individual, with most suicidal rashness,
pitched himself off headlong into the very centre
of a low, vulgar kitchen-garden, by an allusion to fumigated
beans?
The entertainment was now, in truth, at an end; and although
fragments of cake and fag-ends of decanters—generously
left by Alderman Punchwind—were from time to
time brought forward, the spirits of the party flagged. Mr.
Fishblatt hung his head; and when, at a few minutes of midnight,
the Insurance President disappeared, the party gradually
broke up; two or three, at first, leaving at a time, and
then a shoal of half a dozen, and in less than an hour the
rooms were deserted.
Puffer Hopkins, who had gallantly assumed the charge of
a young lady, with a pair of piercing black eyes, who lived
in a remote suburb, with which Puffer was by no means
familiar, spent the remainder of the night, up to three o'clock,
in piloting the young lady homeward, and the balance, till
dawn, in discovering his way back again, through divers
crooks and crosses, through streets that ran at first directly
more out again; getting now and then into a road that had
no outlet, and then into one that had an outlet that led into
nothing.
The mysterious proceedings of Alderman Punchwind, it
should be stated, remain to this day unexplained. On inquiry,
a few days after the entertainment, Mr. Fishblatt was
assured, that on the night in question, Alderman Punchwind,
the authentic and accredited representative of the Thirteenth
Ward, was in his own room laboriously employed on a report
of fifty-three pages foolscap, on the subject of spiles and pier
heads, and had n't left it for a moment, except to step over the
way to his neighbor the timber-merchant, to get a few facts
to put in his report. It therefore only remained for rumor to
say that this was the apparition of the Alderman; which was
confirmed with the superstitious by Mr. Punchwind's being
carried off just seven days afterward by an apoplexy, at one
of the city suppers. Others thought it might have been all a
dream and delusion on the part of the company, who may
be reasonably supposed to have been at the time under the
influence of Mr. Fishblatt's good cheer: and others again—
and certain mysterious smiles on the part of the frouzy-haired
servant girl hinted as much—would not be beaten from
the belief that it was Crump; Crump, the humble secretary
of the Phœnix Fire Company, himself; who had adopted this
method, it was suggested, of enjoying one first-rate banquet,
which his own salary did n't admit of, and at the same time
of retaliating the severities of his superior; having the entire
pleasure of both amusements, the feast and the revenge,
to himself, which was very characteristic.
For ourselves, we rather incline to this last solution, inasmuch
as the subject of Mr. Fishblatt's party was, from the
time of the starting of this hypothesis, a forbidden subject
thenceforth and forever in the office of the Phœnix Company,
by express order of Mr. Blinker, who said it was altogether
too frivolous to think of.
| CHAPTER IX.
AN ENTERTAINMENT AT MR. FISHBLATT'S. The career of Puffer Hopkins | |