 | CHAPTER XIII.
BACHELOR COMRADES. My wife and I, or, Harry Henderson's history |  |
13. CHAPTER XIII.
BACHELOR COMRADES.
I SOON became well acquainted with my collaborators
on the paper. It was a pleasant surprise to
be greeted in the foreground by the familiar face
of Jim Fellows, my old college class-mate.
Jim was an agreeable creature, born with a decided genius
for gossip. He had in perfection the faculty which phrenologists
call individuality. He was statistical in the very
marrow of his bones, apparently imbibing all the external
facts of every person and everything around him, by a kind
of rapid instinct. In college, Jim always knew all about
every student; he knew all about everybody in the little
town where the college was situated, their name, history,
character, business, their front door and their back door
affairs. No birth, marriage, or death ever took Jim by surprise;
he always knew all about it long ago.
Now, as a newspaper is a gossip market on a large scale,
this species of talent often goes farther in our modern literary
life than the deepest reflection or the highest culture.
Jim was the best-natured fellow breathing; it was impossible
to ruffle or disturb the easy, rattling, chattering
flow of his animal spirits. He was like a Frenchman in his
power of bright, airy adaptation to circumstances, and determination
and ability to make the most of them.
“How lucky!” he said, the morning I first shook hands
with him at the office of the Great Democracy; “you are
just on the minute; the very lodging you want has been
vacated this morning by old Styles; sunny room—south
windows—close by here—water, gas, and so on, all correct;
and, best of all, me for your opposite neighbor.”
I went round with him, looked, approved, and was settled
and activity of old college days. We had a rattling,
gay morning, plunging round into auction-rooms, bargaining
for second-hand furniture, and with so much zeal did
we drive our enterprise, seconded by the co-labors of a charwoman
whom Jim patronized, that by night I found myself
actually settled in a home of my own, making tea in Jim's
patent bachelor tea-kettle, and talking over his and my
affairs with the freedom of old cronies. Jim made no scruple
in inquiring in the most direct manner as to the terms
of my agreement with Mr. Goldstick, and opened the subject
succinctly, as follows:
“Now, my son, you must let your old grandfather advise
you a little about your temporalities. In the first
place; what's Old Soapy going to give you?”
“If you mean Mr. Goldstick,” said I—
“Yes,” said he, “call him `Soapy' for short. Did he
come down handsomely on the terms?”
“His offers were not as large as I should have liked; but
then, as he said, this paper is not a money-making affair,
but a moral enterprise, and I am willing to work for less.”
“Moral grandmother!” said Jim, in a tone of unlimited
disgust. “He be—choked, as it were. Why, Harry Henderson,
are your eye-teeth in such a retrograde state as that?
Why, this paper is a fortune to that man; he lives in a
palace, owns a picture gallery, and rolls about in his own
carriage.”
“I understood him,” said I, “that the paper was not
immediately profitable in a pecuniary point of view.”
“Soapy calls everything unprofitable that does not yield
him fifty per cent. on the money invested. Talk of moral
enterprise! What did he engage you for?”
I stated the terms.
“For how long?”
“For one year.”
“Well, the best you can do is to work it out now. Never
make another bargain without asking your grandfather.
am nothing at all of a writer compared to you. But then,
to be sure, I fill a place you've really no talent for.”
“What is that?”
“General professor of humbug,” said Jim. “No sort of
business gets on in this world without that, and I'm a real
genius in that line. I made Old Soapy come down, by
threatening to `rat,' and go to the Spouting Horn, and they
couldn't afford to let me do that. You see, I've been up
their back stairs, and know all their little family secrets.
The Spouting Horn would give their eye-teeth for me. It's
too funny,” he said, throwing himself back and laughing.
“Are these papers rivals?” said I.
“Well, I should `rayther' think they were,” said he, eyeing
me with an air of superiority amounting almost to contempt.
“Why, man, the thing that I'm particularly valuable for is,
that I always know just what will plague the Spouting
Horn folks the most. I know precisely where to stick a pin
or a needle into them; and one great object of our paper is
to show that the Spouting Horn is always in the wrong.
No matter what topic is uppermost, I attend to that, and
get off something on them. For you see, they are popular,
and make money like thunder, and, of course, that isn't to
be allowed. “Now,” he added, pointing with his thumb upward,
“overhead, there is really our best fellow—Bolton.
Bolton is said to be the best writer of English in our
day; he's an A No. 1, and no mistake; tremendously educated,
and all that, and he knows exactly to a shaving what's
what everywhere; he's a gentleman, too; we call him the
Dominie. Well, Bolton writes the great leaders, and fires
off on all the awful and solemn topics, and lays off the politics
of Europe and the world generally. When there's a
row over there in Europe, Bolton is magnificent on editorials.
You see, he has the run of all the rows they have had
there, and every bobbery that has been kicked up since the
Christian era. He'll tell you what the French did in 1700
splendidly on what's to turn up next.”
“I suppose they give him large pay,” said I.
“Well, you see, Bolton's a quiet fellow and a gentleman—
one that hates to jaw—and is modest, and so they keep him
along steady on about half what I would get out of them
if I were in his skin. Bolton is perfectly satisfied. If I
were he, I shouldn't be, you see. I say, Harry, I know
you'd like him. Let me bring him down and introduce
him,” and before I could either consent or refuse, Jim rattled
up stairs, and I heard him in an earnest, persuasive
treaty, and soon he came down with his captive.
I saw a man of thirty-three or thereabouts, tall, well
formed, with bright, dark eyes, strongly-marked features,
a finely-turned head, and closely-cropped black hair. He
had what I should call presence—something that impressed
me, as he entered the room, with the idea of a superior kind
of individuality, though he was simple in his manners,
with a slight air of shyness and constraint. The blood
flushed in his cheeks as he was introduced to me, and there
was a tremulous motion about his finely-cut lips, betokening
suppressed sensitiveness. The first sound of his voice, as he
spoke, struck on my ear agreeably, like the tones of a fine
instrument, and, reticent and retiring as he seemed, I felt
myself singularly attracted toward him.
What impressed me most, as he joined in the conversation
with my rattling, free and easy, good-natured neighbor,
was an air of patient, amused tolerance. He struck me as
a man who had made up his mind to expect nothing and ask
nothing of life, and who was sitting it out patiently, as one
sits out a dull play at the theater. He was disappointed
with nobody, and angry with nobody, while he seemed to
have no confidence in anybody. With all this apparent
reserve, he was simply and frankly cordial to me, as a newcomer
and a fellow-worker on the same paper.
“Mr. Henderson,” he said, “I shall be glad to extend to
you the hospitalities of my den, such as they are. If I can
me. Perhaps you would like to walk up and look at my
books? I shall be only too happy to put them at your disposal.”
We went up into a little attic room whose walls were literally
lined with books on all sides, only allowing space for
the two southerly windows which overlooked the city.
“I like to be high in the world, you see,” he said, with a
smile.
The room was not a large one, and the center was occupied
by a large table, covered with books and papers. A cheerful
coal-fire was burning in the little grate, a large leather arm-chair
stood before it, and, with one or two other chairs,
completed the furniture of the apartment. A small, lighted
closet, whose door stood open on the room, displayed a pallet
bed of monastic simplicity.
There were two occupants of the apartment who seemed
established there by right of possession. A large Maltese
cat, with great, golden eyes, like two full moons, sat gravely
looking into the fire, in one corner, and a very plebeian,
scrubby mongrel, who appeared to have known the hard
side of life in former days, was dozing in the other.
Apparently, these genii loci were so strong in their sense
of possession that our entrance gave them no disturbance.
The dog unclosed his eyes with a sleepy wink as we came
in, and then shut them again, dreamily, as satisfied that all
was right.
Bolton invited us to sit down, and did the honors of his
room with a quiet elegance, as if it had been a palace instead
of an attic. As soon as we were seated, the cat sprang
familiarly on the table and sat down cosily by Bolton, rubbing
her head against his coat-sleeve.
“Let me introduce you to my wife,” said Bolton, stroking
her head. “Eh. Jenny, what now?” he added, as she seized
his hands playfully in her teeth and claws. “You see, she
has the connubial weapons,” he said, “and insists on being
treated with attention; but she's capital company. I read
Puss soon stepped from her perch on the table and ensconced
herself in his lap, while I went round examining
his books.
The library showed varied and curious tastes. The books
were almost all rare.
“I have always made a rule,” he said, “never to buy a
book that I could borrow.”
I was amused, in the course of the conversation, at the
relations which apparently existed between him and Jim
Fellows, which appeared to me to be very like what might
be supposed to exist between a philosopher and a lively
pet squirrel—it was the perfection of quiet, amused tolerance.
Jim seemed to be not in the slightest degree under constraint
in his presence, and rattled on with a free and easy
slang familiarity, precisely as he had done with me.
“What do you think Old Soapy has engaged Hal for?”
he said. “Why, he only offers him—” Here followed the
statement of terms.
I was annoyed at this matter-of-fact way of handling
my private affairs, but on meeting the eyes of my new
friend I discerned a glance of quiet humor which re-assured
me. He seemed to regard Jim only as another form of the
inevitable.
“Don't you think it is a confounded take-in?” said Jim.
“Of course,” said Mr. Bolton, with a smile, “but he will
survive it. The place is only one of the stepping-stones.
Meanwhile,” he said, “I think Mr. Henderson can find other
markets for his literary wares, and more profitable ones.
I think,” he added, while the blood again rose in his cheeks,
“that I have some influence in certain literary quarters,
and I shall be happy to do all that I can to secure to him
that which he ought to receive for such careful work as
his. Your labor on the paper will not by any means take
up your whole power or time.”
“Well,” said Jim, “the fact is the same all the world over
—the people that grow a thing are those that get the
least for it. It isn't your farmers, that work early and late,
that get rich by what they raise out of the earth, it's the
middlemen and the hucksters. And just so it is in literature;
and the better a fellow writes, and the more work he
puts into it, the less he gets paid for it. Why, now, look
at me,” he said, “perching himself astride the arm of a
chair, “I'm a genuine literary humbug, but I'll bet you
I'll make more money than either of you, because, you see,
I've no modesty and no conscience. Confound it all, those
are luxuries that a poor fellow can't afford to keep. I'm
a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, but I'm just the sort
of fellow the world wants, and, hang it, they shall pay
me for being that sort of fellow. I mean to make it shell
out, and you see if I don't. I'll bet you, now, that I'd write
a book that you wouldn't, either of you, be hired to write,
and sell one hundred thousand copies of it, and put the
money in my pocket, marry the handsomest, richest, and
best educated girl in New York, while you are trudging on,
doing good, careful work, as you call it.”
“Remember us in your will,” said I.
“Oh, yes, I will,” he said. “I'll found an asylumfor decayed
authors of merit—a sort of literary `Hotel des Invalides.”'
We had a hearty laugh over this idea, and, on the whole,
our evening passed off very merrily. When I shook hands
with Bolton for the night, it was with a silent conviction of
an interior affinity between us.
It is a charming thing in one's rambles to come across a
tree, or a flower, or a fine bit of landscape that one can
think of afterward, and feel richer for their its in the
world. But it is more when one is in a strange place, to
come across a man that you feel thoroughly persuaded is,
somehow or other, morally and intellectually worth exploring.
Our lives tend to become so hopelessly commonplace,
and the human beings we meet are generally so much one
just like another, that the possibility of a new and peculiar
BOLTON'S ASYLUM.
"Halloo, Bolton!" said I. "Have you got a foundling hospital here?"
[Description: 467EAF. Image of Harry and Bolton standing in a living room looking down at three children huddled together by a fireplace. One child is sitting in a chair holding onto an infant while the other looks on. There is a small dog sitting on its hind legs begging Harry for a treat.]
one.
There was something about Bolton both stimulating and
winning, and I lay down less a stranger that night than I
had been since I came to New York.
| CHAPTER XIII.
BACHELOR COMRADES. My wife and I, or, Harry Henderson's history | |