University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
In which Sheppard Lee has an interview with a lady, who tells him
a secret.

“In and mount,” said Tickle: “I see Jem Puddle
in the street yonder, and I have an idea I can
borrow fifty dollars of him. I will drop round on
you by-and-by.”

So saying, Tickle started off and left me at the
door of my lodgings. I had a sort of confused
recollection of the place, though I had never seen
it before in my life;—the dingy bricks and weather-stained
marble, the rickety old iron railing on the

steps, and the ugly, worn-out brass plate, with the
“J. SNIGGLES” engraved thereon, rose on my
memory like old acquaintances who had grown out
of it. The house might have been a fashionable
one in its day; nay, for the matter of that, it was
not so humble in appearance but that a gentleman
might have lived in it, if too poor to inhabit a
better; and though out of the world, being in a
street called Eighth, it was within hail of Chestnut:
nevertheless, it was but a poor place compared
with my late dwelling, my house, in Chestnut;
the recollection of which, together with the
reflection that I entered this only as a lodger, somewhat
abated the transport of my joy. “Ah!”
thought I, “what a pity, in giving up John H.
Higginson's gout and wife, I had also to give up
his house and money!” But the recollection of
the two first-named possessions was fresh upon
me, and I ceased to murmur.

I ascended the steps and rang the bell, somewhat
faintly, I must acknowledge; for though I
had my friend Tickle's assurance, and a confused
consciousness of my own, that I was at the right
place, there was a certain strangeness in it, naturally
arising from my situation, that made me hesitate.
The door, however, opened, and the reception
that followed convinced me I was not intruding
where I was not known.

The door was opened by a bouncing Irish
wench, of some twenty-five years or thereabouts,
with hair as yellow as a broom-whisk, and shoulders

twice as broad as my own; besides which,
she was not handsome; she had staring gray eyes,
brick-coloured cheeks, a nose that looked up at
her forehead, and a mouth not so ugly as spacious.

I was about to pass by this fair apparition with
no further notice than a nod, which I made somewhat
instinctively; but I was not fated to get off
so easily. No sooner did she lay eyes upon me
than she set up a squeak, “Oh, hubbuboo! and is
it you, Misther Dawkins, dear?” and threw her
great beef-steak arms round my neck.

An embrace from a creature of her attractions I
could have easily dispensed with; yet I might have
been affected by her joy at seeing me return alive
from the bottom of the river, it was so truly natural
and exuberant, had she not been in a great hurry to
qualify it. “Oh, murder, dear!” she cried, “and
I'm glad; for they said, bad luck till'em, the vagabones!
you was drownded, dear, and was after
chating me out iv my money for the washin' and
mindin'!”

“The washing and mending?” thought I. “Do
I patronise such a tasty body as this? and do I
owe her money?”

But while I muttered thus within, the girl, giving
me another hug that I thought would have
made my shoulders change place with one another,
roared out, in continuation,—

“Och, throth, but the man must drown dape that
chates Nora Magee of her own! Musha, hinny
darlint, jist pit yer finger into yer pocket and pull

me out the tin dollars and seventy cents that you
owe me.”

“Certainly, Nora,” said I; and Succuba let me
go. “But, ged now, Nora,” I cried, for well I
knew my pockets were as empty as the promises
I intended to make her, and I was driven by a sort
of instinct upon the proper course for pacifying the
harpy,—a course, I suppose, that I,—that is, my
prototype, the true Dawkins,—had often practised
before;—“I say, Nora, don't talk of dollars and
cents; for I intend to pay you in eagles and half-eagles
some of these days, when my uncle comes;
and besides, Nora, you jade you, I intend to give
you a buss into the bargain, as, ged, I believe I
will now.”

And with that I returned the compliment she
had paid me, took the great creature by the neck,
and (yea, faith, and I presume I should have done
the same thing with my tailor, if he could have been
managed the same way) absolutely kissed her.

“Och! blessings on yer pritty face!” said she,
looking pleased and disappointed together, but
wiping her mouth as if to prepare for a second
salute, “and that's the way you bamboozles me
wid your uncles and your thricks upon a poor cratur's
modesty! But, oh, Misther Dawkins, dear,
ye'r lookin' sick and pokey; and so I'll not be after
throubling you; and I hopes your uncle will be soon
in Phillydelphy; for there's our ould Sniggles, the
hungry ould nagur (that I should be saying so of
the master o' the house, that gives me a dollar a

week and a new bonnet at Christmas!) he's been
rampin', and roarin', and swearin' like a Turk, my
heavy hathred on him, he'll be havin' you up before
the constables and squires for the dirty rint-money,
the ould divil! that you owe him.”

“The rent-money?” thought I; and I began to
have a sort of feeling about me, I do not know
what, but it was not agreeable. I clapped my
hand into my pocket; there was a pocketbook
there, but I had examined it before, and there was
nothing in it. My mind began to misgive me a
little; it was apparent the worthy I. D. Dawkins
had not yielded me his body without leaving me
some of his debts to pay: and as to what means
of discharging them he might have bequeathed, I
was yet in the dark.

I ascended to my rooms, of which I discovered
I had a brace; but I was in some dudgeon to find
them in the third story. “Very odd,” said I to
myself, “that I should be a fashionable man and
a dandy, and live in a third story!” My instincts
had gone nigh, as I climbed the stairs, to carry me
into a chamber on the first floor; but, “Arrah, now,
hinny,” said Nora, “you'd be after forgetting you
agreed to give up the best chambers till yer uncle
comes to town—bad luck to him for keeping me
so long out iv my tin dollars!”

“This uncle of mine,” thought I, “will settle all
pothers.” But who he was, or what sort of claim I
had upon him, I knew no more than the man in
the moon. My associations acted but slowly and

imperfectly, and when I strove to look back upon
the past history of my new body, I felt like a man
who has clapped upon his nose his grandmother's
spectacles, through which he can behold objects
indeed, but all so confused, distorted, and mystified,
that they serve only to bewilder his vision. Thus
I beheld, when I made the effort, a jumble of
events and persons crowded together on my memory,
but without being able to seize upon any
one and examine it to my satisfaction. I had an
uncle, it seemed, but I could not recall any thing
like a recollection of having ever seen him. “But
time,” thought I, “will set these things right.”