University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.
THE NOMINATING CONVENTION HATCH A CANDIDATE.

To what purpose had Puffer Hopkins pledged his efforts
in tracing and recovering Hobbleshank? What clue—
what single clue remained in his hand, now that he reviewed
all that had fallen within his knowledge, relating
to the old man?

At one time it had occurred to him that light shone
through upon his fortunes, from the chance discourse of
the tailor: that hope was at an end, for, on a re-questioning,
he extracted no more than he knew already, and that
was nothing to the purpose.

Any hope that had arisen from the wish to enlist the
personal services of his poor neighbor in a further search,
was idle; for Fob, from overwork, feebleness of body, and,
as it seemed to Puffer, some secret care that was preying
upon him, was failing every day. To be sure, Fob dwelt upon
the incident he had first recited the same as ever; spoke
of the look and voice of the old man; his wild talk with
the billows and breakers; and his final act in rending the
parchment in pieces. Of what avail was this? It might
be a mere fantasy—a useless humor of both, that this man
was Hobbleshank—this paper, the bond and tenure by
which he held or relinquished his rights. Then Fob
would pass from this topic to talk of the old subjects,
the country, the wood, the field; dwelling upon them with
more enthusiasm than ever, and pausing, at times, to
bedew their memory with a tear. While his strength
lasted, the little tailor performed his daily tasks manfully,
murmuring not once, repining not at all, save over
the remembrance of his country life.

Any hope, therefore, built by Puffer on the services of
Fob dwindled day by day. To what purpose, then, had
Puffer Hopkins proffered aid in tracing and recovering
Hobbleshank? To none whatever! Feeling this,
and admitting to himself how completely darkness
hedged him in on every side, he determined—as most
people do in such emergencies—to let the world take its
course, but at the same time was ready to seize promptly
on the first opportunity that offered—and, to do him justice,
fervently hoping it might be near at hand—to
execute his trust. In the meantime, and while the fortunes
of Hobbleshank were so full of shifting currents that
hurried onward or eddies that tarried and were lost in
themselves, the tide of public life rushed on, swelling
steadily. Puffer had learned by this time that pausing is
to a politician, ruin; and so kept himself abroad in the
stream. He was now known as an active and zealous
partisan: was regarded as a promising and rising young
man; and somehow or other had found himself, by some
secret agency, which he could not guess, (it was the kind
old man toiling for him in silence) pushed forward steadily,
and appointed to offices of confidence and trust, as
they arose in the due progress of his career. A convention
to nominate a Mayor for the city of New York, was
soon to be held and assembled at Fogfire Hall: a delegate
to this he was likewise appointed. Prompt in
the performance of all his duties of this nature, Puffer only
waited for the evening of its gathering to make his way to
the Hall. The night was somewhat stormy, and the
streets were muffled and shrouded in mist; but this did
not prevent its being quite apparent that something more
than usual was a-foot at Fogfire Hall.

Brighter lights streamed through the tap-room windows
as he approached; a din of voices was heard issuing forth
and silencing the turmoil of the street, whenever the door
opened; and quick feet hurried in and out, and kept up a
constant commotion at the door. The tap-room—at all
times a resort of gossips and talkers—swarmed with politicians
and quid-nuncs, some of whom were gathered in
knots, from which a gusty voice would spring up every
now and then above all others, and then subside again;
some walking the room in couples, arm-in-arm at a hurried
pace; some lounging about easily, with sticks in

their hands, from group to group; and others dropping off
from the knots of loud talkers, would saunter to the bar,
and arraying themselves in front of a long round pole—a
liberty-pole shaved down and shod at either end with
brass—replenished the thirsty spirit without stint. The air
of the place was close and odorous, and every man's face
was flushed and wore a burnt and heated look, as if the
tap-room lay directly in the fiery zone. Through this
torrid region Puffer passed, recognizing a friend or two by
the way, and pausing for a grasp; and emerging at a side
door upon the hall, ascended a flight of stairs and was
presently in the committee-room.

The delegates, there assembled in great numbers, stood
about the floor, talking in groups and growing red and
excited, as they plunged, by degrees, deeper and deeper
into the topics of discourse. In a few minutes, when the
room was quite full and the hubbub at its height, a pale
man in whiskers stood up at the other end of the apartment,
holding his hat in one hand and knocking with the
knuckles of the other, with great vehemence, on a table
at his side. This sound caused a sudden silence, and the
members wheeling about in a body, contemplated any
further movement on the part of the pale man in whiskers,
with great interest; which united gaze, the pale man met
with another quite as bold and decided, and, drawing a
deep breath, he nominated, in a loud voice, Mr. Epaminondas
Cobb, as chairman of the committee; which
was unanimously acceded to; then a couple of secretaries
—then a door-keeper; all of whom with due ceremony
assumed their respective stations, and the committee was
organized and in session.

Then Mr. Epaminondas Cobb—who was a short, brick-complexioned
gentleman, with dim eyes, and a pair of
stout silver spectacles astride a dignified, but by no means
massive nose—stood up and asked them if it was their
further pleasure to proceed to the nomination of a Mayor
for the city and county of New-York? To which question
no response being given, it was concluded, (the chief
wisdom of public bodies in such cases lying in the observance
of a profound silence) it was; and they accordingly
entered at once upon the exciting and engrossing business
of nomination.

Candidates were forthwith put in nomination by members,

with great rapidity; some were merely named;
others proclaimed and sustained, and advocated at length,
in formal harangues. There was one committee-man, a
little, shrunken, dried-up gentleman, who was up and down
every five minutes, with a speech in advocacy of the extraordinary
and unquestionable claims of Thomas Cutbill,
butcher: the said Thomas Cutbill being the great man
of his neighborhood—the good Samaritan of his ward;
and furthermore, a luminous expounder, to the delight of
the little committee-man and a knot of cronies, of profound
political doctrine at a familiar bar or coffee-room,
where Mr. Cutbill condescended to be present of a
Wednesday night and take a hand in backgammon or
other intricate games, there going forward.

“I knows Thomas Cutbill,” said his champion, “and
his claims is decided; pig lead is 'nt surer. A benevolenter
gentleman, and a more popular one was never
known. To Mr. Cutbill the people was indebted for the
new fish-market; and asking who it was that invented
the mode of ringing alarms by districts, he'd beg leave of
the committee to say, Cutbill was the man! Cutbill had
been vilified—but there never was a nicer man to the
poor, a more lovely friend of the pauper than that aggravated
individual. He was proud of Mr. Cutbill. Mr.
Cutbill should have his vote!”

When the little champion had uttered this vindication
something like half-a-dozen times—a very mild gentleman
remarked, that what the gentleman opposite had
said was true enough; Mr. Cutbill was a very benevolent
and worthy individual, for he had to his knowledge,
on several occasions arrested lads, ragged and unclean
lads in the street, and advised them—in good faith advised
them, laying his hand kindly upon their heads—to go
home and wash their faces, and put on clean clothes!
What had the gentlemen of the committee to say to that?

On another occasion he had known Mr. Cutbill lift a
poor woman out of the gutter, take her by the arm and
lead her directly into a respectable neighboring house,
seat her on a sofa in the front parlor, and call out, with a
vehemence worthy of himself and the charitable object
he had in view, for a jug of hot negus immediately, and,
if that could'nt be had, for half a dozen Seville oranges,
for the poor lady. Was'nt that man worthy of their suffrages,
he would like to know?

Just as this speaker was concluding, there entered the
committee-room in great state, a gentleman enveloped in
a long brown over-coat, buttoned to the chin; an ample
bandanna muffling his lower features and his head carried
erect. He entered in a straight line, aimed for a blank corner
of the room, looking about as if surprised that the committee
could be in session and he not there—attaining
which, he cast off his over-coat, unmuffled his chin,
and rising at once bolt-upright in his place, proceeded
to deliver himself of his sentiments, first taking his hat
by either rim and fixing it on more firmly than ever.

“A single case was nothing this way or that,” said the
new comer. “Did Mr. Cutbill make it a habit, he would
like to know, to send ragged boys home for clean clothes?
Did he go about encouraging them to dismiss their broken
garments?—that was the point. Was or was not Mr.
Cutbill privately associated, in interest, in some clothing
or ready-made linen establishment? Was Mr. Cutbill a
tall man or a short man? Did he wear red vestings or
white? Was he lean-featured or rubicund? He would
not vote for any man as candidate for the mayoralty of
this great city until he knew his person, his principles,
his private habits to a hair—to an inch! He might as
well tell the committee, at once, that he had his eye on a
gentleman that would make the very candidate they
wanted. On reflection, the gentleman alluded to had
differed from the community in some slight particulars:
he was a man in years, of a very venerable appearance,
but somehow or other had fancied that all his grand-children
were vinegar-cruets, and tried to unstoppel them by
screwing their heads off. This had occasioned his going
into the country for a time, and this would, perhaps, prevent
his running at the approaching election.”

Opposite this speaker sate a thin, thoughtful gentleman,
rather grotesquely habited in a red vest, which
wrapped him round like a great Mohawk blanket, who
watched what fell from him, touching the eccentric candidate,
with extraordinary interest.

The other was no sooner seated, than this individual
started to his feet, and stared wildly about.

“The man he desired to see presiding over the destinies
of this vast metropolis, was the very one that Mr. Fishblatt
had just mentioned; but he could'nt be had! Who
then should it be? Not the Cham of Tartary, he was

quite sure: not the Imaum of Muscat, nor the King of the
Pelew Islands. He must be honest; honest by all means.
He must be in favor of the largest liberty—boundless
liberty, he might say; also opposed to all private rights.
He wanted a man in favor of all colors—of no color himself.
In a word, he must be opposed entirely to the present
condition of things: but what condition of things he must
be in favor of he (the speaker) would'nt at present undertake
to decide. This is no musical forest,” concluded the
gifted declaimer, reiterating sentiments he had expressed
many times before, but more particularly to our knowledge
on Puffer's introduction to the Bottom Club. “This is no musical
forest, no Hindoo hunter's hut, got up for effect at the
amphi-theatre. We have'nt trees here alive with real
birds!—the branches laden with living monkies!—the
fountains visited by long-legged flamingoes!—the greensward
covered with gazelles, grazing and sporting! Oh!
no—we are a mere caucus of plain citizens in our every-day
dresses, sitting in this small room on rough benches,
to re-organize society by giving it a new mayor worthy of
ourselves!” And thereupon the illustrious chairman of
the Bottom Club sate down.

At the conclusion of this powerful and majestic effort,
the committee might have laughed, had they not reflected
that the speaker controled a couple of hundred votes or so
—the disciples and dependents of the Bottom Club—and
they, therefore, on the contrary, looked extremely grave
and respectful.

Candidates now began to be proclaimed by the score;
sometimes they were let slip—one by one in quick
succession—then half a dozen propounders would rise
and discharge their names among the committee in a
body. The chairman was constantly up shouting order;
and whenever a pause occurred some member or other
would spring to his legs, and call their attention to the
undoubted claims, the unsurpassed, unequalled, and unrivalled
services of the Smith or Brown whom he happened
to advocate.

At length, after a great number of ballotings, and a
great variety of fortune, the contest was narrowed to two
candidates; upon these the divided members of the
Convention pitched their whole strength and stripping
themselves to a final rencontre, they respectively entered

upon the public and private history of the gentlemen in
question, with a minuteness and eagerness of biographical
ardor quite astonishing.

One of these was Mr. Bluff, a wholesale grocer; the other,
Gallipot, a retail painter. Mr. Bluff was a stout, comely
gentleman; Gallipot thin and livid, as became his trade;
Mr. Bluff leaned toward the elegant and ornate in dress;
Gallipot, to the vernacular and home-spun. Mr. Egbert
Bluff exercised his wholesale ingenuity, in disposing
of pipes, puncheons, casks and merchandize in
gross; while the revenues of Gallipot accrued from the
embellishment, by retail, of the houses of the middle-class,
the adornment of tradesmen's boards, and the displays
of professional literature on attorney's signs. Mr.
Bluff, the master of every elegant accomplishment, from
the delicate swaying of a cane, up to the cock of a hat
and the proper wearing of a ruffle—belonged to the Ionian
order of candidates; Gallipot, rough in dress, blunt of
speech, rude of grasp, was of the sterner Doric.

The two candidates, so contrasted, stood palpably before
the mind's eye of the committee; and it was their
present and immediate duty to determine, not the separate
value of each of their qualities in itself; but their
aggregate influence in either candidate on the community
and their value when translated in good current votes.

How many streets? how many blocks, squares, wards,
could they respectively command? All they had done,
through many years of struggle and endeavor in their
various callings, for they were both men in middle life,
was now to be nicely weighed against ballots, little talismanic
papers—the secret prescriptions of the public acting
as the physician; the whole life of each to be tallied
off against so many of these mystic counters.

“As for Mr. Bluff,” said Mr. Fishblatt, who was always
the first to deliver his views on the topic before the committee,
“I beg to know, whether it is true, as I am informed,
he is the gentleman that wears a lepine watch with five
jewels? Before receiving an answer to this, I would
inquire, whether Mr. Bluff keeps a carriage, with a black
footman in a silver-buckled hat and white cambric pocket
handkerchief? Also, could any member of the committee
instruct him whether Mr. Bluff's pew was lined with red
damask and fastened with copper tacks, rotten-stoned

every Saturday morning by one of his servants, privily
admitted to the church? Mr. Bluff might dress his children
in scalloped collars and laced pantalettes—the children
of a public man did not always belong to the public (although
he sometimes made it a present of them when he
died) but what business had Mr. Bluff to put two stone dogs
on his stoop? If they had been lions, he (Mr. Fishblatt)
might have forgiven him; two great roaring open-mouthed
lions; even a pair of elephants. These were
noble animals. But dogs! Had any gentleman of the
committee kept a diary of Mr. Bluff's doings for the past
fifteen years? Was any one prepared to say what had
been his private and personal habits, during that time?
If not, the committee were entering upon a most solemn
and important business, with very imperfect materials in
their hands. He had heard that there had been a lurking
committee of five or more to institute a watch upon Mr.
Bluff; to have an eye upon all he did and said from the first
moment he was contemplated as a candidate. Where was
that committee? They had followed him, Mr. Bluff, he
had been informed in confidence, for more than two
weeks; knew all his opinions as expressed in various
places of public and private resort. Mr. Fishblatt would
like to see their minutes. He had been told that Mr.
Bluff had been measured in all the past fortnight, for two
new coats, and a new double vest of black velvet. What
was the meaning of this?”

Mr. Fishblatt had spoken in his hat, which he insisted
on, in despite the remonstrance of the brick-complexioned
chairman, as being more formidable, and more according
to strict congressional method, when at this juncture, occasioned
by the loud and peremptory character of his oratory,
or from some other adequate cause, a brass trumpet
fixed against the ceiling was dislodged, and striking
Mr. Fishblatt on the crown, buried him to the eyes. Before
he could fairly emerge from this sudden midnight and
renew his appeal, another speaker had possession of the
floor.

“He had satisfied himself,” this was a gentleman of a
very nice and accurate turn of mind—“of the exact number
of three-story brick tenements in the city and county
of New York. He would'nt say how many there were, because
he knew, and that was enough. Every brick tenement

had its own voters—say three to each: very good.
Around these were scattered a great many low-roofed
wooden buildings. Three-stories was always commanding:
every three-story—that was his view—would carry
three frame-houses with it to the polls. There was a calculation,
and if Mr. Bluff was'nt the man, he had no
more to say!”

And so this calculating prodigy sate down.

“Will the committee be cautious,” followed a dark-looking
member, with a low forehead, from which a shock
of jet black hair bristled and stood straight up, and a very
harsh voice, “will they look out what they're at? Gallipot's
a painter: there's no objection to that. He's a working-man,
and rolls back his sleeves when he's on a job.
He has a right. Peleg Gallipot's a popular man—
who says he is'nt? What's the matter then! I know
what's the matter—Gallipot, this Peleg Gallipot afore the
committee, had lately painted a Presbyterian church!
There was a snag: get over it if you can!”

To tell the truth, this was a snag; the friends of Gallipot
felt that it was, and, for a time, the Bluffites had it all
their own way. Here were the religious prejudices of the
community, by a single act of the unfortunate Gallipot,
arrayed in deadly hostility against him: all the other
sects would go against him to a man. Gallipot had, in
some unhappy moment of professional hallucination,
painted a Presbyterian church. In this state of affairs the
question was about to be put.

“Hold a minute, my excellent friends,” said the very
mild gentleman who had spoken once before. “Mr. Gallipot
wishes to get upon his legs, and I hope you will
allow him a chance. They need have no fears—they
might put their minds at rest at once about a religious antipathy
to Mr. Gallipot. It was true, and he felt it his
duty to confess it, Mr. G. had painted a Presbyterian
church a short time ago: it was also true, and he felt
great pleasure in being able to make the statement, Mr.
G. was now, also, under contract to paint an Episcopal
church, also a Quaker meeting-house, also a Unitarian
chapel. There was an antidote; and, now, the
sooner they went into an election, the better he and
other friends of the poor man's candidate (as he would
venture to call his worthy friend) would like it!”

Notwithstanding another last desperate attempt on the
part of Mr. Cutbill's champion to press the claims of that
philanthropist on their attention, they did go into an
election, and Gallipot was the man. The announcement
of this result was hailed by the friends of Gallipot in the
committee, with shouts and stamping; and as soon as it
was made known below, where they had been kept
throughout the evening in a state of feverish excitement
by the contradictory reports of various members, who had
dropped down into the tap-room from time to time, by similar
demonstrations.

During all these deliberations, harangues and ballotings
of the Convention, Puffer, under judicious advisement,
had refrained from any public expression of his opinions;
but, as an offset to this inactivity, had gone about the
committee-room and declared himself privately, separately
and apart to each member, in behalf of his candidate,
and had taken great pains, when it came to a final
and decisive ballot, to cast his vote—and to have it so
known by his friends, in favor of Gallipot, the strongest
man. When the committee was dismissed, to avoid
troublesome questionings or reproaches, Puffer escaped as
swiftly as he could, not even tarrying to interchange a
word with Mr. Halsey Fishblatt, who, somewhat discomfited
by the sudden rebuff he had met, pushed his way, as
stately as ever, through the crowd in the bar-room, not
deigning speech or recognition to a solitary soul.

Did no thought of the kind old man enter Puffer's mind
as he departed from Fogfire Hall? No thought of the
first strange interview, the kind counsel, the anxious look?
It did: and Puffer dwelt upon it till it all rose up anew
before him, bright and fresh as the reality. Out of the
past—the brief but eventful interval—the old man came
shambling forth with the old gait, the sidelong demeanor;
the one eye closed, and the one fixed upon him. He
walked by Puffer's side all the way home to the Fork;
and when sleep and darkness again closed in upon
him, again the little paralytic crossed and re-crossed before
him in tears and laughter; and was, finally, lost in a
deep gloom, which compassed him in and shut him from
the sight.