 | Sheppard Lee |  |
BOOK III.
CONTAINING MUCH THAT WILL BE INTERESTING
TO YOUNG GENTLEMEN IN DEBT, AND TO FATHERS
OF FAMILIES WHO DESIRE TO HAVE
THEIR CHILDREN RISE IN SOCIETY.
1. CHAPTER I.
The inconveniences of being drowned.—The first chapter of the
history of I. D. Dawkins, Esq.
When I recovered my wits, I thought I had got
into the place which is never mentioned among
polite people, except at church. I perceived a
horrible smell of gin, whiskey, hartshorn, tobacco-smoke,
and spirits of camphire, as if these made up
the constituents of the atmosphere of darkness;
and I saw, though very obscurely, for the light
was dim, and there seemed to be films over my
eyes, a number of figures that moved to and fro,
uttering discordant noises. One of them, it seems,
and I took it for granted he was the chief devil,
stood by me, pressing my ribs with a fist that felt
marvellously heavy, while with the other he maintained
a grasp upon my nose, to which ever and
anon he gave a considerable tweak; while another,
little less dreadful, stood at his side, armed
common fire-bellows, the nozle of which he held
at but a little distance from my own. There were
four others of them, each of whom had me by a
leg or arm, pulling and slapping with much zeal,
and, as I supposed, preparing me for a gridiron;
while divers others flitted about, as I mentioned
before, talking with voices that appeared to me
louder than thunder.
Such were the observations which I made,
vaguely and confusedly (for there was a great
stupor over most of my senses), and which led
me to suspect I was in the place of torment; in
which suspicion I was confirmed by a thousand
pangs I felt all over my body, so strange, racking,
and horrible, that unless one were to have the
toothache, gout, earache, gravel, rheumatism, headache,
a stumped toe, and locked jaw all together,
it would be impossible to form any just conception
of the nature and variety of my torments. I had,
I verily believed, the paddle-wheel of a steamboat
in my head, which was revolving full thirty times
a minute, with a hideous crashing and clamour,
and churning my brains to atoms; and, by the
same rule, I conceived there was an iron-foundry
in my lungs and heart, every cell and cavity of
which was full of hot castings.
But it would require a greater space than the
subject is worthy of, to describe the agonies I endured
in those moments of torture; and they were,
perhaps, the more poignant, since I could neither
cry,—which I was the more inclined to do from
conceiving myself in the kingdom of darkness.
When I opened my eyes, I heard him who had
me by the nose yell out something to the others;
upon which there was a great stir and outcry
among them, and I distinctly heard one say, after
a great oath, “We'll do well enough without a
doctor.”
“What!” said I to myself, “have they doctors
here too? Do they follow their patients?”
“But,” continued the same voice, “we'll never
finish the job till we roll him over a barrel. He'll
never show game till the water's out of him.”
These words, it may be supposed, were sufficient
to give my mind the right cue, and relieve
me of all apprehensions in relation to death and
condemnation. On the contrary, they confirmed
me the more strongly in my conceit. How there
should be water in me I knew not; but my idea
was, the inhuman imps wished to roll it out of me,
only to make me burn the better. Fortunately for
me, another voice made answer, and opposed the
atrocious proposal.
“No rolling on barrels,” it said, “nor hanging
up by the heels”—(hanging up by the heels!
thought I)—“it is against the rules of the Humane
Society; and here they are.'
“The Humane Society!” thought I; “is there
a Humane Society among the devils?”
“The rule is,” the second voice went on, “as
and breathes, to pour a little brandy and water
down.”
“Brandy and water!” said the first voice, evidently
in a passion; “and I wonder if that a'n't
against the rules of the Temperance Society? Better
give the man so much burning brimstone?”
“The Temperance Society?” thought I.—I
might have brought myself to believe they had a
Temperance Society, as well as a Humane one, in
the lower regions, had it not been for the violent
ardour of him who pronounced its name. I knew
by his rage and fury he could belong to no Temperance
Society but in the United States of America;
and the inference was therefore plain, that instead
of being in the other world, I was in the
United States of America myself.
But before I could infer myself into this happy
belief, I was confused by a hot argument that grew
up between the advocates of the two societies, who
waxed quarrelsome, until there was a sudden cry,
“The doctor has come!” which pacified them in a
moment, and satisfied me I was neither dead nor
buried.
The doctor stalked up to me; I thought I knew
his features and voice, but my sight and hearing
were still confused. I have no doubt he treated
me secundum artem; but in about five minutes I
was as dead as ever.
2. CHAPTER II.
A conversation betwixt the Author and his bosom friend, John
Tickle, Esq.
However, it was not my fate to die in good earnest.
By-and-by I opened my eyes, feeling in
very passable health, though somewhat weak and
dejected.
The devils, or my late attendants, whoever they
were, had all vanished, and with them noise, darkness,
and the various ill odours that had afflicted
my nostrils. I was lying in a very good bed, and
chamber with curtained windows, the curtains being
closed, to keep out the sunshine that was playing
on them; and at my side there sat in an arm-chair
a young gentleman of a buckish appearance,
sound asleep. The creaking of the bed, as I rose
on my elbow, roused him; he started, rubbed his
eyes, and, looking me in the face, burst into a
hearty laugh.
“Bravo!” he cried; “I told old Boneset so! I
could watch as comfortably as ever a child's nurse
of Messina. I thought I should have the child
wake me with crying! I vow to gad, I've been
snoozing all night. And so you've opened your
peepers like an honest man at last, Dawky!—
Pray, what the devil made you drown yourself?”
And here the young gentleman, seizing me by
zest than before.
“Sah!” said I, looking at him with both surprise
and confusion; for, though his voice and face
seemed familiar to me, I could not for the life of
me say who he was. “Sa—ah, really I—ah—”
and here I stopped; for, first, I knew not what to
say, and secondly, my bewildered looks set him
into such a roar of merriment, that there was no
saying a word to him.
“Come, you dog,” said he, with a grin here and
a roar there, “don't be comical just after coming
out of the grave. A man just fished out of a river,
and rescued from death after a hard fight between
the doctor and the devil, should be serious and ecclesiastical,
solemn of visage, and sanctified of
conversation. No joking, you dog; but get up,
Absalomize, and talk. No joking, I say; no joking
with Jack Tickle.”
As he spoke he seized me by the shoulder, and
dragged me half out of bed.
“Ged and demmee!” said I, “remember my
foot!” For my toe catching in the bed-cord, I suddenly
recollected the gouty member.
“I will,” said he, with another roar; “for, the
Lord knows, 'tis the best part of you. Spoil Dawky's
foot, and ruin him with women and shoe-makers
for ever! The one ceases to adore, and
the other trusts no longer.”
“But I mean the gout,” said I.
“The fiddlestick and fiddle!” said he: “whoever
the gout? Up, Dawky, my dog, and tell me what
set you to drowning? If 'twas about Betty Small,
'twas a small matter. What! drown for being
jilted! If 'twas about the tailor's bill, 'twas still
more ridiculous. I say, Dawky, my fellow, what
made you drown yourself?”
“Drown myself!” said I; but I said it with a
stare. The odd behaviour and expressions of the
young gentleman, who called himself Jack Tickle
(a name that I never remembered to have heard
before in my life, although his countenance was
certainly highly familiar), and certain queer associations
his appearance gave birth to; the singularity
of my feelings; and, more than all, the appearance
of my foot and leg (the former of which, instead of
being tumid and red with gout, was white, and of
elegant shape, while the latter, which but the day
before had a calf to compare with any old Quaker's
in Arch-street, was now as lank as a sword-blade);
I say, these circumstances had the effect to increase
my confusion to that degree, that I felt like one
who is asleep and knows it—provided one ever
did or can feel so.
In the midst of all I suddenly cast my eyes upon
a goodly large looking-glass that hung against
the wall, and saw my reflection therein. It was
the image of Mr. I. Dulmer Dawkins! his exact
representation, perfect in beard and visage, save
that the former was in great disorder, and the latter
somewhat white, and equally perfect in figure, as
one in the full panoply of the tailor.
“My ged!” said I, “I am transformed again!”
And with that I made a hop up to the glass to
look at myself closer. There was no mistaking
the matter, even if the looking-glass had. I looked
at my legs, and I gave a tweak at my mustaches.
My shoulders were elegantly narrow, and my foot
as sound as a savage's. I jumped up, cut a pigeon-wing,
and then, descending, attempted a ballet-dancer's
pirouette; after which I looked again into
the glass. I was a young man of twenty-five, and
the most elegant fellow I ever laid eyes on!
I ran to Jack, and hugged him round the neck,
crying, “Lard, Jack, you rogue, I'm the most comical
creature that ever lived!”
“Ay,” said he, smothering with laughter and my
embraces together; “but what made you drown
yourself?”
I recollected all about it, and suddenly felt astonished.
I remembered how I had jumped into
the water, and how I had fished myself out, as
dead as a poker; that is, how Mr. Higginson had
fished me, or rather how I had fished Mr. Dawkins.
I remembered how I, John Hazlewood Higginson,
had wished to be Mr. I. Dulmer Dawkins, and now
I was Mr. I. Dulmer Dawkins himself, and nobody
but he. I sat down on the bedside, marvelling how
such a thing could be; and the wonder of it was
indeed amazing. That my spirit should creep into
a man's body, though strange enough, was not so
body together (for I did not know it had been otherwise
disposed of), especially so corpulent a one
as John H. Higginson's, should get into one—that
was truly marvellous.
But my study was brought to an end by Tickle
suddenly exclaiming, with a voice of concern,
“Curse him! gad, poor fellow, I believe he has
washed his wits out! He has gone mad!”
“No more than you have,” said I, shaking him
by the hand; “but you must allow it is a most extraordinary
affair.”
“'Pon honour, yes,” said he, laughing as hard as
ever; “but what made you throw yourself into the
river?”
“Why,” said I, in a hurry, “to save Dawkins.”
“To save Dawkins!!!” said he, looking at me
as one would look at a shoemaker who brings a
pair of shoes home the day he has promised them.
“That is,” said I, “to save Higginson.”
“To save Higginson!!!” he cried, with such a
roar of laughter as made my teeth rattle; “why
there were twenty people saw Higginson drag you
out! I say, Dawky, no lillibullering—what did
you jump into the river for?”
“I jumped,” said I, quite in a quandary, “after
my hat.”
At this answer my friend Jack Tickle threw himself
upon the bed, where he rolled over and over,
until his coat was covered with down and feathers,
which cooled his transports a little.
“I see,” said he, “I see! It was the last of the
family; for hatters' tick was exhausted! Right,
Dawky; in such straits of credit, I think I should
have jumped after mine! Who would not fight,
roast, or drown, for his hat, when it was the last
decent one he ever expected to have on his head?
I am glad this was the cause: it makes me think
better of you. I thought, like the rest, it was on
account of your disappointment from the adorable
Betty—”
“The devil take Betty!” said I, but without
well knowing why.
“He has!” cried Jack, uproariously; “at least a
poor devil has. She has thrown away her seventy
thousand upon a fellow no more to be compared
with you than a tame goose with a wild one: and
instead of spending it like a man, the rascal will
buy stocks, and save it. I say, Dawky, you must
have been surprised at her conduct—as we all
were;—really, we thought you had her; and there
was no one more certain than the fair Miss Smith.”
“The devil take the fair Miss Smith!” said I.
“He will,” said Tickle, shaking his head and
laughing; “or, if he don't, I don't know who will;
for it is a clear matter—dad's done up entirely, and
they say the sheriff is already making an inventory
of his chattels. A great pity, Dawky; for, if she
had but money, Miss Smith would be certainly
an angel incarnate—a nymph, a houri—the finest
woman in town. I say, Dawky, I think she almost
had you!”
3. CHAPTER III.
In which Sheppard Lee is prepared for the brilliant destiny that
awaits him.
There were many things in the conversation of
my friend Tickle which I did not exactly comprehend,
though I had a vague, confused appreciation
of all, and afterward understood him well enough.
The fact is, I was in the same difficulty which had
beset me when scarce warm in the body of Mr.
Higginson, that is, a confusion of characters, propensities,
and associations, only that the last were
imperfect, as if my memory had suddenly given
way; and besides, the difficulty was in both cases
increased by the feeling of amazement with which,
for several hours, when properly conscious of it, I
pondered over the marvel of my transformation.
How such a thing could happen, or had happened,
I knew no more than the man in the moon: it was
a new thing in the history of man, and there was
nothing in philosophy (at least, such philosophy as
I had at that time) to explain it. I had certainly
done nothing, on my part, in either case, to effect a
change, save merely wishing it; and it seemed to
me that I possessed a power, never before known
to a human being, of transferring my spirit from
body to body, whenever I willed, at least, under
certain circumstances. But on this subject I will
have more to say hereafter.
Happen how and by what means it might, it was
certain a transfer had taken place; and that I was
no longer the poor miserable John H. Higginson,
with the gout and a scolding wife; the conception
and full consciousness of which were so rapturous,
that I suddenly bounded on my feet, and danced
about like a madman, now running to the glass to
admire my youthful and elegant appearance, and
now flinging my arms round the neck of my friend,
and hugging him twenty times over.
The conversation that passed between us was
exceedingly joyous and varied; though, as I said
before, I had but an imperfect understanding of
many things Tickle said; for which reason I will
record no more of his expressions, lest they should
confuse the reader's mind, as they did mine. Some
things, however, I gathered from him in relation to
my catastrophe and resuscitation which are proper
to be told.
It seems that when I—that is, John H. Higginson—wished
I were, or might be, the defunct,
Dulmer Dawkins, I fell down under a sudden
stroke of apoplexy, which was supposed to be
caused by my exertions to rescue the unfortunate
beau; and, indeed, I saw in the first newspaper
I looked into, upon getting to Philadelphia afterward,
a long account of my demise, with a highly
eulogistic and affecting account of my heroism in
sacrificing my life for another's; for, as the paragraph
stated, I was of a full and plethoric habit,
strongly inclined to apoplexy, of which I was
exertion; and therefore my act was the more truly
heroic. The paper was of a highly democratic
character, and the notice was closed by a ferocious
warning to the young bug of aristocracy (meaning
the elegant and fashionable. I. Dulmer Dawkins),
“to remember, when wasting his trivial existence
in that heartless society, whose pleasures were
obtained at the expense of their worthier, though
poorer fellow-creatures, that the preservation of it
had cost the nation one of its most excellent citizens,
and the world a virtuous man and pure patriot:”—
by which I understood that John H. Higginson
was of the democratic party; although that
was a circumstance of which the gout and my wife
had kept me ignorant, as long as I lived in his body.
As for me—that is, I. D. Dawkins—being lugged
into the tavern, along with my late tenement,
the body of John H. Higginson, I was fallen foul
of by all hands; and what with tweaking my nose,
beating my arms, scorching my legs with hot
bricks, flaying me with salt, whiskey, spirits, and
such things, and filling my lungs with dust and
ashes from an old fire-bellows, I was brought to life
again, greatly to the triumph of my tormentors, before
the appearance of a physician; who, however,
subsequently assured me they had revived me with
such effect as to give him double trouble to keep
me in the land of the living afterward; for it seems,
after being more dead than alive all that night, I had
remained in a kind of stupor all the following day,
enough, as the doctor prognosticated I would be,
but only after I had remained more than thirty-six
hours in a state of insensibility.
As for my body—that is, Higginson's—it had the
honour, after being cogitated over by the coroner,
of riding home in my splendid barouche, with the
thousand-dollar hourses; but whether my wife went
with it or not, I never cared to inquire. It was
enough she was gone; and oh, rapture of raptures!
gone for ever.
My friend Tickle illuminated me as to other matters,
especially in relation to the fair Miss Smith;
with whom, it seems (and I recollected all about it
when he had set my new associations properly to
work), I had been quite particular, until he himself
discovered the insolvency of her father's estate;
when (and this I began to recollect in the same
manner) I instantly turned my attentions upon another—the
fair Miss Small—who jilted me. These
things, I say, I soon began to recall to mind, as
well as many other incidents in the past life of I.
Dulmer Dawkins; and, indeed, in the course of a
few days, I was as much at home in his body, and
among his affairs, as he had ever been himself.
But of this anon. I learned that Mr. Periwinkle
Smith, after seeing me lodged in the tavern, had
driven off to town to engage medical assistance;
and this he did so effectually, that I had no less
than seven doctors at one time to send me their
bills; which was a very foolish thing of them.
Of these things, I say, I discoursed with my
friend Jack Tickle, whose conversation, together
with the happy consciousness I had of my transformation,
infused inexpressible vivacity into my
spirits. I was marvellously pleased at the idea of
being a fine young fellow, with the freedom of
chip-chop society; and I was impatient to return to
the city to enjoy my happiness.
“Bravo!” said Jack; “we'll walk in together.
But do you know, Dawky,” he went on, nodding
and winking, “that this is a cursed no-credit place,
and that the man below betrayed a certain vulgar
anxiety about scot and lot, and the extra expenses
you had put him to? What do you say about paying?”
“Really,” said I, clapping my hands into my
pockets, “I have forgotten my pocketbook!”
“To be sure you have,” said Tickle, laughing;
“but why need you tell me so? I am no shop-keeper.”
“I mean,” said I, in alarm, “demmee, that I
have lost it, and with that hundred-dollar bill my
brother Tim—”
“Your brother Tim!” said Tickle; “who's he?”
I was struck all aback. I remembered that I
was I. D. Dawkins.
Tickle perceived my confusion, and enjoyed it,
attributing it to another cause.
“Right!” said he, grinning with delight; “but
don't make any pretence with me. I didn't expect
you to have any money; and, the Lord be thanked,
and help you to a pigeon besides.”
With these words, and many others not needful
to be mentioned, he led the way down stairs, where
he became astonishingly grave and dignified—a
peculiarity I found myself falling into—slapped his
ratan against his legs, called for “his friend Dawkins's
bill,” and paid it—that is, I suppose he did,
for I stalked out upon the porch, as if I considered
such vulgar matters beneath my notice.
Here, being soon joined by Tickle, and the day
proving uncommonly fine, we set out on foot towards
the city; and I was conducted by my friend
to the door of my own lodgings.
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
“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
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
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
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
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.”
5. CHAPTER V.
An inventory of a young gentleman's effects, with some account of
Mr. Sniggles, his landlord.
My chambers were but meanly furnished, and
this— But it needs not I should acquaint the
reader with the divers proofs that rose every moment
to convince me Mr. I. D. Dawkins, though a
dandy, was not a rich one. Before I had rummaged
an hour among his chattels, I discovered
enough to set me into a cold shiver, and almost
make me repent having taken possession of his
body. I found lying upon his table no less than
thirty-seven folded papers—the tribute doubtless
were either billetsdoux or mere cards of invitation
to ladies' parties, and twenty-nine were letters from
tailors, shoemakers, &c., all of them requesting
payment of money owed, and most of them as
ferocious in spirit as they were original in style
and grammar. In an old trunk, which I ransacked,
as well as every chest of drawers and closet in
the rooms (the keys were ready at hand in my
pocket), I discovered a bushel or two of bills—I
suppose there may have been a thousand of them,
for they were of all dates—not one of which had a
receipt to it.
But, to make amends for this evil, I found Mr.
I. D. Dawkins's wardrobe in pretty good condition,
except in the article of shirts; of which I discovered
but six, and those none of the best. However,
there were three dozen good dickeys, and a
great abundance of loose collars and wristbands;
with which, I perceived, I might do without shirts
altogether.
But what gave me most pleasure, and indeed
quite consoled me under the feelings of disappointment
and doubt that had begun to rise, was a
marvellous great quantity of love-letters, locks of
hair, finger-rings, odd gloves, &c., that I found
scattered about; each, as was apparent, the tribute
or spoil of some admiring fair. “Aha!” said I, “I
am a devil of a fellow among the girls: who can
resist me?” The idea of being a favourite among
the women, and the prospect I had of shooting
agreeable. “Ged and demmee,” said I, “I
will look about me now, and fix for life. I will
pick out the finest creature I can find who has
a fortune, and marry her; and then, I say, demm
all tailors and other people. I will marry a wife,
eged!”
It was doubly remarkable I should make such a
resolution, having had but lately such a lesson of
the joys of matrimony. But I found myself fast
growing another man. I still retained a lively
recollection of Mrs. Higginson, but fancy pictured
an angel in the anticipated Mrs. Dawkins. Dim
visions—which seemed to be made up as much
of crude recollections as of half-formed anticipations—dim
visions of lovely eyes and noses floated
over my brain; I sank into a soft, elysium-like
revery; when I suddenly heard a voice, somewhat
tremulous and feeble, but rude as the screech of a
strawberry-woman in spring, saying,
“Sir, I say, sir, Mr. Dawkins, I shall trouble
you, I say, for the amount of that 'ere small account.”
The accents were more horrible to my soul than
the grating of a dentist's file upon the tenderest of
grinders. I looked up from my feet, which I had
been admiring, and beheld a visage somewhat iracund
and savage, but so vulgar and plebeian in all
its lineaments, that my fear was changed into contempt.
“And I say, sare! whoever you ah,” said I,
he-ah? who ah you?”
At these questions the man looked petrified; he
opened his mouth till I thought his under jaw
would drop off, and stared at me in dumb amazement.
I had some hopes he was about to fall down
in a fit. I am not naturally of a bloodthirsty
turn; but I knew he was a dun, and such persons
one always wishes the devil would snatch up.
But he recovered his tongue, and, to do him justice,
I must confess he used it with a spirit I did
not look for in such a mean, shrivelled-up body as
he had.
“Don't go for to insult me,” said the Goth, gritting
his teeth, and spluttering his words through
them as through a watering-pot; “I'll let you know
who I am. I'll have my money, or I'll have the
worth on it out on you; for I won't be cheated no
more for nothing. And as for what I'm doing here,
I'll let you know as how I'm master in my
own house; and, as Mrs. Sniggles says—”
“Sniggles!” said I, recollecting that the rascal
was my landlord and creditor. I started up, and
seizing the enraged little man by the hand, I begged
his pardon.
“Really, my dear soul,” said I, “I was in a
brown study, and I didn't know you. Pray how
d'ye do? how is Mrs. Sniggles? You must know
I have hardly yet got over my unfortunate fall into
the water. Really, sah, I was almost drowned,
and I had the misfortune to lose my pocketbook.”
“None on your gammon on me!” said Mr.
Sniggles, looking as intrepid as ever; “for I don't
believe none on it; and I don't believe you're no
gentleman neither, or you wouldn't keep me out
of my money. You see, Mr. Dawkins, do you
see, you've had my rooms five months, and I
ha'n't seen the colour on your money over once;
it's all promise and no pay. And so, as I was saying,
I won't be diddled no longer, or I'll see the
end of it; for, as Mrs. Sniggles says, we can't afford
to be diddled for nothing.”
“Come, Sniggles,” said I, “don't be in a passion;
I'll pay you. What's the amount?”
“Seventeen weeks on the second story, seven
dollars a week—monstrous cheap at that, considerin'
there's breakfast in—one hundred and nineteen
dollars—and taking off the ten dollars you
paid me, as per account, one hundred and nine dollars;
four weeks on the third story, at five dollars
and a half (and good rooms too), twenty-two dollars;
and adding the ten dollars I paid the shoe-maker,
and the five dollars sixty cents I loaned
you to pay the fine at the mayor's office, for smashing
the lamp, makes jest a hundred and forty-one
dollars sixty cents, no halves nor quarters, precise;
and the sooner you shows me the money the better.”
“A confounded long bill that, Sniggles,” said
I; “but I don't dispute it; and the moment my
uncle comes to town—”
The mean, avaricious fellow had begun to look
his account, which he held in his hand; but no
sooner had the words “my uncle” left my lips, than
he began to jump up and down, pulling his hair,
gritting his teeth, and shaking his fists like a mad-man;
and to my astonishment the contemptible
fellow waxed profane, and actually cursed me and
my uncle too. His oaths, as may be supposed,
only made him appear more low-lived and vulgar
than before; for cursing and swearing are the
hardest things to do genteelly that I know: there
are but few persons in the world who can produce
an oath with any thing like elegance; it is the
truest criterion of gentility, and in consequence I
would recommend no person to attempt one who
is not confident of his high breeding.
My landlord, Mr. Sniggles, fell to cursing and
swearing, and insulted me very grossly; first, by
affecting to believe that no such person as my uncle
existed; secondly, by threatening to turn me
out of his house; and thirdly, by assuring me he
would have his account in an attorney's hands before
I was an hour older. It was in vain I exhorted
him to moderate his passion, and strove to wheedle
him into a better humour; I had forgotten (or
rather I did not yet know) the true secret of his
character, which was cowardice, by addressing my
arguments to which I might have readily brought
him to reason. But, in truth, I was frightened myself;
how I was to pay a bill of a hundred and
forty-one dollars sixty cents was a thing only to be
lodgings in the debtors' apartments up Arch-street,
was as vinegar and wormwood to my imagination.
The more I strove to sooth the wrath of Mr.
Sniggles, the more ferocious he became; until at
last he did nothing but dance round and round me,
like a little dog barking at a big one that is tied to
a post, crying out all the time, frantic with despair
and fury, “Pay me what you owe me! pay this
here bill here! pay me my money, or I'll have you
in jail!” with other expressions equally foolish and
insulting.
6. CHAPTER VI.
Sheppard Lee hears news of his uncle, and Mr. Sniggles is brought
to his senses.
In the midst of my troubles, up comes my friend
Tickle and pops into the room. He gave a stare
at Sniggles, and next a grin; and then, just as I
was looking to be laughed at, he made a spring
and caught me round the neck, crying, with uncommon
exultation and eagerness,—
“I congratulate you, Dawkins, you dog! and,
mind, you must lend me five hundred dollars tomorrow!”
Before I could answer a word to this surprising
address, he turned upon Sniggles, and, looking
black as a thunder-cloud, cried,—
“Hah! Sniggles? What is the fellow doing
here? dunning you for his money? The scoundrel!
Hah! What!”
I thought he would have kicked the poor man
out of the room, and so thought Sniggles also; for,
though he exclaimed, “Touch me if you dare!” he
ran to the door, where he looked vastly alarmed,
and was able to muster only a single expression of
resolution. “I asks my money,” said he, “and
dang me but I'll have it; for, as Mrs. Sniggles
says, I'll not be diddled for nothing.”
“Pay the rascal his dirty money, and then be
done with him; leave his house, and patronise him
no more,” said Jack. Then turning to me, he
made three skips into the air, clapped his hands,
and running up to me and giving me a second embrace,
cried,—
“Angels, horses, and women! hug me, kiss me,
and lend me that five hundred dollars—your uncle
has arrived!”
“Uncle! what uncle?” said I.
“Why your uncle Wiggins—your rich old uncle—your
dad of an uncle—your bank and banker
—your— But I say, Dawky, you'll lend me that
five hundred, won't you? Saw him at the hotel
—just arrived—asked anxiously for his nephew
Dawkins;—bad look about the eyes—will die in a
month; and then—then, my fellow! fourteen thousand
a year, if it's fourteen hundred!”
“Fourteen thousand a year!” echoed I; the
words were also muttered over by Sniggles. I
uneasy.
“If that's so,” said he, “then I hope Mr. Dawkins
will pay me my money, and not take no offence,
for none wasn't intended.”
“Pay you your money!” said Jack Tickle, stepping
up to him in a rage; “no, you rapacious dun,
he sha'n't pay you a cent. You shall sue him, and
get judgment, and wait six months for your money.”
“No, you rascallion!” said I, “I won't take
that revenge of such a low fellow. I'll pay you
your money, and be done with you. But, Jack, I
say, demmee, let's be off; let's run down to my
uncle Wiggins.”
“Wiggins!” said my landlord; “why, you always
said his name was Wilkins!”
“And so it is,” said Tickle; “Wiggins P. Wilkins,
the rich and well-known Wiggins P. Wilkins.
But what do you want here? Have you had your
answer? What do you mean by intruding here?
You'll get your money; and so, if you please, do
Mr. Dawkins and me the favour to walk down
stairs, or—”
“Well,” said my amiable creditor, whose fury
was quite overcome by Tickle's violence, and his
report of my uncle's arrival, “I always said Mr.
Dawkins was a gentleman, and would pay me one
day or another; and one day's just as good as another;
and so I hopes he'll take no offence. But as
for you, and the likes of you, Mr. Tickle,” said the
little man, endeavouring to assume courage, “I
howsomever, as you're Mr. Dawkins's friend, I'll
say no more about it.”
And with that my gentleman walked down
stairs.
“Let us go!” said I. “Let us run—let us fly!”
“Where?” said Tickle.
“Why, to my uncle. Where is he?”
“Where!” cried Tickle, bursting into a roar of
laughter. “Are you as big a fool as Sniggles?
You didn't believe me! Ah, lud! is there nobody
witty but myself?”
“And my uncle a'n't come, then?” said I.
“What made you say so?”
“To rid you of a dun, my fellow,” said Jack. “I
saw the rascal had worked himself into a phrensy,
and that you were at your wit's end. I had pity
on your distresses, and so ran in with a huge lie,
as irresistible as a broadsword, to the rescue. Victory
and Jo Pæan! I have routed the enemy, and
you are no longer in fear. Keep up the fire, and
you are easy for a week.”
“But my uncle really intends to leave me that
fourteen thousand a year?” said I.
“Has he got it?” said Jack, giving me a comical
stare.
“Jack,” said I, after pausing a little, “I want to
ask you a favour.”
“Have but twenty-five in the world,” said Tickle,
pulling out his pocketbook; “but you shall have
ten.”
“It isn't that,” said I; “I want you to tell me
my history.”
“Your history!” said Tickle, staring at me in
surprise.
7. CHAPTER VII.
In which Sheppard Lee is told his history.
An idea had suddenly seized me; and I must
say, that up to this time, it was the most brilliant
one that ever entered my mind. My ignorance of
Mr. I. D. Dawkins's affairs was still highly inconvenient
and oppressive, and I was determined, with
my friend's assistance, to remove it.
“Tickle,” said I, “I really believe the doctor
has only half resuscitated me; my body is pretty
well, but my mind is only so-so. Would you believe
it, my memory is quite gone?”
“As to your debts, certainly,” said Jack; “so is
mine.”
“Ged,” said I, “'tis gone altogether. Really, it
seems to me as if I had only begun existence this
morning; my recollection of all events (and even
persons known) anterior to my sop in the river, is
so imperfect, you can't conceive. Would you believe
it, I really didn't know that rogue Sniggles,
and had to ask him his name! The ladies, too,
Jack—Miss Smith, Miss Small, and the rest that
you were talking about—who the deuse are they?
an uncle? and if so, who and what is he? for I
swear, 'pon honour, Jack, I know no more than the
man in the moon. In a word, Jack, demmee, I am
in my second childhood, and you must help me out
of it. Give me, therefore, my history, my whole
history, and tell me all about me; for may I be
dunned to death if I rightly know who I am!”
“You don't?” said Jack; “well, that's funny;
but I have heard of such things before. Is a dip
in cold water, then, so hard on the memory? I
say, Dawky, my fellow, couldn't we contrive some
way to dip our creditors? But, eged now, Dawky,
you a'n't serious?”
“I am,” said I; “and I beg you'll give me an
idea who I am, and all other things appertaining.”
“Oh!” said Tickle, who seemed vastly diverted
by my embarrassment, “that is soon done. You
are a dandy of pure blood, and poor as a church
mouse, but not yet out of favour. Your father, who
was a dandy before you, and in prime esteem,
having bought his way into notice with two or
three cargoes of indigo and young hyson (for he
was an India merchant), properly laid out in elegant
entertainments, gave up trade to live a gentleman,
and died one; leaving you, an elegant fellow
and ignoramus, as a gentleman's son should be, to
spend his leavings. This you have done, Dawky,
and most gloriously. For five years, none of us,
the sons of nabobocracy, could compare with you
in dash, flash, and splash. But even Phaeton fell!
into the gutter, and tailors looked alarmed—stocks
flew out at the window, bricks and mortar took to
themselves wings, and your stockings began to
want darning. Then said Dawkins, `I will marry
a wife,' and he looked loving at Periwinkle's fair
daughter; and Periwinkle's fair daughter looked
loving at Dawkins; and Dawkins calling counsel
of his friend, John Tickle, of Ticklesbury Manor,
beheld and lo! Periwinkle's fair daughter's father's
fine estate was fenced round with rows of
mortgages, as thick and thorny as prickly-pears.
Whereupon the inconstant swain, forgetting his
vows, ran to the elegant Miss Small, who smiled
on him, and married another; and the loss of this
adorable fair, fortune and all, together with an
uncommon fit of dunning, so affected my friend's
spirits, that he threw himself into the Schuylkill,
whence he was fished by a fellow called What-d'-ye-call-it,
a brewer.”
“Well,” said I; “but do you mean to say I
have squandered all my property?”
“Every sous,” said my friend; “it is just six
weeks since you spent the last dollar of the last
term of your annuity.”
“What annuity?” said I.
“Why, the five years' annuity you bought of
old Goldfist. Is it possible you don't recollect
him? Don't you remember the row of negro-houses
you owned down in Southwark?”
“I don't,” said I.
“A piece of arrant cheating! sheer swindling!”
said Tickle; “but when did old Skinner ever
make an honest bargain? The houses and lot of
ground worth two thousand, as they stood; but
title good and indefeisible, and capable of being
made worth twenty thousand: I remember you
offered 'em to old Goldfist for seven. What said
the old hunks? `Give me immediate possession,
and thereupon you shall have a bonus of a thousand
on the nail, together with the same sum
yearly for five years, provided you live so long—
if not, then as long as you live.' Snapped like a
gudgeon, and was bit; and on the fifth year—beginning
of August last, had the last integer of payment,
with comfort of seeing a property you had
sold for six thousand, yielding its possessor just
that much a year.”
“The geds!” said I; “has old Goldfist six
thousand a year?”
“Say sixty,” replied Jack.
“Tickle,” said I, “the old curmudgeon has a
daughter: I'll marry her.”
“No you won't,” said my friend, shaking his
head mournfully: “old Goldfist is too well acquainted
with your affairs; and unless you have
his consent, what will you get by her?”
“Tickle,” said I, “I must marry somebody, or
be ruined. But stay, there's my uncle; now, my
dear fellow, who is he?”
“Faith,” said Tickle, “I don't know; always
supposed he belonged to the Apocrypha, and was
sues a young fellow that has good expectations
from a rich uncle. But, now I think of it, I believe
you did once tell me you had an uncle—
some vagabond trading fellow or other—in the
west; but I never heard you say you expected any
thing of him. I thought you called him Wiggins;
but Sniggles says Wilkins. All's one, however;
for I remember you said he had brats of his
own.”
I began to feel uncomfortable; and, upon questioning
my friend further, I discovered that my situation
was far from being agreeable. I had a horrible
quantity of debts on my shoulders, and no fund
to discharge them; and, what was worse, I found
that my means of subsistence were not only precarious,
but I had good reason to fear they were
any thing but reputable. My dear friend John
Tickle, though a gentleman and dandy, it was
plain, was a personage who lived by his wits; and
I began to see that Mr. I. D. Dawkins was another.
From Tickle's expressions, I perceived that our
chief dependance lay in the noble trade of pigeon-hunting.
As this is a word some of my readers
may be too unsophisticated to understand, I will
explain it, and in very few words. As there are
in the world young fellows of plebeian origin but
full pockets, who are ambitious to figure in elegant
society, so there are also in elegant society sundry
youths of better fame than fortune, who are willing
to patronise them, provided any thing can be made
Phaeton is taught to spend his money in ways
most advantageous to his patrons, though by no
means to his own profit. Such a young gentleman
is then called a pigeon, and is allowed to flutter in
the sunbeams, while his eagle-clawed friends are
helping themselves to his feathers; the last of
which being abstracted, he is commonly called a
fine fellow, and kicked out of their company. I
cannot pretend to say what degree of relish my
prototype, the true I. D. Dawkins, may have had
for such a mode of existence; but I must aver in
my own defence, that I had, throughout the whole
adventure, while in his body, so much of Sheppard
Lee's original sense of honour and honesty hanging
about me, that I was more than once shocked
at the meanness and depravity of such a course of
life; and when I first understood the thing from
Tickle, I was so ashamed of myself, that had I
lighted upon the body of any decent man at the
moment, I do verily believe I should have done
my best to get into it, and so put an end to Mr. I.
D. Dawkins altogether. But men's bodies are not
like the dry-goods dealers' boxes in Market-street,
to be stumbled into at any moment.
It was some comfort to me to find that our practice
in this particular was so little known, that both
Tickle and myself—but myself more especially
—were considered in the main very excellent, exemplary
young men, as far as dandies could be,
and were still allowed to mingle in elegant society.
was in but doubtful odour with the ladies, at least
with their mammas; for he had been for some years
living on his wits: but I, on the contrary, being
pretty universally regarded as the heir-expectant of
a rich uncle, and being besides a prettier fellow,
was received with general favour and approbation.
Having obtained from Tickle as much of my (or
Mr. I. D. Dawkins's) history as was necessary, I
gave my worthy friend to understand I should need
his advice and assistance in returning into society;
“for,” said I, and very truly too, “I really
sha'n't know anybody, and shall feel very awkward.
Here,” I added, “are two invitations for
this very evening—one from Mrs. Pickup, and the
other from the Misses Oldstyle. Now who is Mrs.
Pickup? and who are the Oldstyles? and where
the mischief do they live?”
“It is very odd you should forget so much,”
said Tickle; and then proceeded to give me the information
I wanted, promising also to go with me to
both places himself, and prompt me through all
difficulties.
8. CHAPTER VIII.
A conversation with a tailor. Sheppard Lee finds himself in a situation
truly appalling.
Having thus got upon the subject of the ladies,
we—that is, Tickle and myself—fell into a highly
agreeable conversation, in the course of which I
lost sight of all my fears and anxieties, until they
were suddenly recalled by the entrance—and a
very unceremonious one it was—of a tall fellow
with hinge knees and crow-bar elbows, fashionably
dressed, but whom there was no mistaking for
aught but a vulgarian. I knew his errand before he
spoke; and so did Tickle, who instantly cried out,
“Snip the tailor, eged! and another paroxysm
of dunning!”
“Servant, Mr. Dawkins,—servant, Mr. Tickle,”
said the gentleman, giving each of us a scrape;
“hope no intrusion and no offence; wouldn't go to
controvert gentlemen on no account. But, talking
of accounts, Mr. Dawkins, hope you'll excuse me;
wouldn't dun a gentleman for the world, but have a
cussed note in bank for cloth, and must make up the
sum by to-morrow; and so, if it's convenient, Mr.
Dawkins, shall be obliged for the amount of bill.”
“My uncle,” said I—
“Can't go that no more,” said the tailor; “can't
go that no more, begging pardon. Bill outstanding
nineteen months and over; wouldn't mind letting
on the money-market: no money to be had
nowhere.”
“Right,” said Jack; “and what makes you
suppose you will get it here? Now, Snip, my
dear fellow, make yourself short. 'Tis not convenient
just now for my friend Dawkins to pay you.”
“Must take up that note,” said Mr. Snip; “can't
think of waiting no longer.”
The rascal spoke resolutely, though more cowardly-looking
than Sniggles: but who could withstand
the rage and indignation of my friend
Tickle?
“Away, you ungrateful loon!” said he; “is that
the way you serve the man that made you? Who
would have employed you, you botch, if Dawkins
had not taken you up and made you fashionable?”
“Ay, demmee, Snip,” said I, taking my cue from
Tickle, “I say, wasn't I the making of you? and
do you come dunning me? Didn't I recommend
you into notice and business? didn't I send my
friends to you?”
“Can't deny,” said the tailor, “won't controvert;
but must say, can't always get my money of Mr.
Dawkins's friends; but don't mean no offence.
Wouldn't think of pressing Mr. Dawkins; always
said he was my friend; wouldn't mind holding
back, if Mr. Dawkins would send me good pay-customers.”
“Well,” said I, thinking the man was modest in
Raws before the week is out, and you may charge
them double.”
“Very much obliged, and won't controvert,” said
Mr. Snip, humbly; “but can't take no more promises.”
“And you really insist upon having your money?”
said Tickle.
“Ay!” said I, re-echoing his indignation, and
putting on a dignity that even awed myself, “you
are determined to have your money, and to lose
your business? Tickle, hand me back that five
hundred I lent you, or enough of it to pay the rascallion—shall
have it again as soon as I can run
down and see my uncle Wilkins. I say, Tickle,
hand me the money, and let me pay the ungrateful
rascal off.”
“If I do,” said Jack, “demmee! Encourage
dunning? Never!”
“He shall have his money,” said I. “Here,
you Snip, you man, you have broken your own
neck; come back here to-morrow at half past
twelve, with a receipt in full, take your money, and
never look to make a gentleman's coat again.
Come, Tickle, it is time I was with my uncle;
you shall go along and dine with him. A fine old
cock, I assure you!”
I surveyed the tailor; my dignity, and the sound
of my uncle's name, had subdued him. He slipped
his bill into his pocket, and looked penitent.
“Won't controvert a gentleman on no occasion,”
friend; and as for Mr. Dawkins's uncle—”
“Yes!” said Jack, “yes! you said you did not
believe in any such person! did not believe there
was such a person!”
“Can't controvert no gentleman,” said the tailor,
looking as if he had been rubbed down with his
own goose; “but never said no such thing, Mr.
Tickle. Always believed in Mr. Dawkins's uncle,
but only thought perhaps he wouldn't pay—that is,
wasn't certain, and didn't mean no offence; and so
if Mr. Dawkins will say a word for me now and
then to gentlemen that wants coats, I'll leave it to
his convenience; hoping he will excuse my coming
up stairs without asking, not having found no
servant, and not supposing he would take no offence,
and—”
And so the rascallion was going on, heaping
apology on apology, and about to depart in contrition
for his offence; when, as my evil genius would
have it, in popped Mr. Sniggles, foaming with
wrath, and looking daggers and conflagration.
“Trouble you for the amount of that 'ere small
account,” said the fellow; “don't believe in no
more uncles; won't be diddled no longer for nothing;
all diddle about uncle—just as Mrs. Sniggles
says—no more uncle than she has!”
“What do you mean?” said Jack Tickle; but
his indignation no longer daunted the dun, who cried
out, with uncommon emphasis and effect,—
“Had my doubts about the matter, and told
come;' says Mrs. Sniggles, `Run down to the tavern
and see; for no sitch thing a'n't certain till we
knows it.' And so I runs down to the Mansion
House, and Mr. Wilkins wasn't there; and then I
runs to the United States, hoping it was a mistake,
and Mr. Wilkins wasn't there; and then I runs to
this place and that place, and Mr. Wilkins wasn't
there; and, as Mrs. Sniggles said, Mr. Wilkins
wasn't nowhere, but 'twas all diddle, and throwing
dust in my eyes. And so, as for this here account,
one hundred and forty-one dollars sixty—”
“Don't controvert no one,” said Mr. Snip, who
had listened all agape to the outpourings of the
other, and now turned his battery upon me again,
“but can't think of keeping the account open no
longer; don't want to be hard upon any gentleman,
but must have my money.”
“One hundred and forty-one dollars sixty cents,”
said Sniggles.
“Two hundred and thirty-seven,” said Snip.
But why should I detail the particulars of that
eventful hour? Even Tickle's courage sank before
the fire of the enraged assailants; and as for
mine, had it been fortified by a heart of steel and
ribs of brass, it must have yielded to the horrors
that followed. Duns follow the same laws as flies
and carrion-crows; no sooner does one swoop at a
victim, than down drop a thousand others to share
the feast. Scarce had my landlord and the tailor
begun the assault, when there sneaked into the room
leather and rosin, who displayed a greasy scrap of
paper, and added his pipe to the others. Then
came another, with inky hands, a black spot on his
nose, and a new hat under his arm; then another,
and another, and another; until I believe there
were fourteen different souls in the room (or rather
bodies, for I don't think they had one soul among
them), all of them armed with long bills, all clamorous
for their money, and all (each being encouraged
by the example of the others) as noisy, mad,
and ferocious as any mob of free and independent
republicans I ever laid eyes on. Such a siege of
dunning was perhaps never endured, except by a
poor dandy. They dunned and they dinned, they
poked out their ugly bills, and they gave loose to
their inhuman tongues,—in a word, they conducted
in such a manner that I was more than once inclined
to jump out the window, being driven to
complete desperation.
In the midst of all, and when I saw no escape
whatever from my persecutions, they were brought
to a close by a most unexpected incident. The
door flew open, and in rushed—not a fifteenth tormentor,
as I expected—but an angel of light in the
person of Nora Magee, who screamed out at the
top of her voice,—
“Och, hinny darlint, your uncle, Misther Wiggins,
has come! and in a beautiful carriage! and
he looks as if he could pay your ditts twice over!
Sure, now, and ye'll ax him for my tin dollars?”
9. CHAPTER IX.
The Author receives a visit from his uncle, Samuel Wilkins, Esq.,
and is relieved from his tormentors.
Let the reader judge of the effect of such an
announcement upon my tormentors and myself. I
had an uncle, then, and he had arrived—nay, he
had paid me a visit, and was in the house; I could
hear him stumping up the stairs! My debtors were
struck dumb, and so was I; and at that moment of
confusion he stepped into the room. I looked at
the gentleman, and, upon my soul, I was somewhat
disappointed. His appearance was scarce genteel
enough for my uncle; he looked like a country
squire of low degree, who might pass for a man of
quality better in an unsophisticated village of the
backwoods than anywhere else; and he had an
atrocious white fur hat, with a big brim all puckered
and twisted like the outer casing of a cabbage.
There was a vulgar vivacity and good-nature about
his visage, an air of presumption and familiarity in
his motions, and his nose turned up. On the whole,
I did not like his appearance, and my first impulse
was to give him a look of contempt; but I recollected
he was my uncle, and had come in a carriage;
and seeing him stand staring about in great
astonishment, as not knowing what to make of such
a rout of ragamuffins as I had about me, nor how
up to him, and taking him by the hand, said,—
“My dear saw, ah! looking for me? What!
my uncle Wiggins?”
“Wiggins!” said he; “ods bobs, don't you
know the name of your own uncle Wilkins?”
“Wiggins?” said I; “ged, 'twas a mere slip of
the tongue.”
“Ods bobs!” said he, “and is this you, Ikey, my
boy? The very picture of your aunt, poor Mrs.
Wilkins! but, ods bless her, she's dead. Ha'n't
seen you since you was a baby; do declare, you're
as big as Sammy. Come to live in your town,
Ikey, my dear; tired of living among the clodhoppers;
have plenty of money, and mean to be a
gentleman now. Glad to see you, Ikey; but I
say, Ikey, who is all these here people? Always
heard you was a great gentleman; but don't much
like your acquaintance, Ikey.”
This was pronounced in an under voice, much to
my satisfaction; for the liberty the old gentleman
took with my name was not grateful to my feelings.
Ikey, indeed! None but a vulgarian would have
made so free with me.
But he was my uncle, he said he was rich, and
I perceived he might be made serviceable.
I shook him by the hand a dozen times over,
swore “I was so glad to see him he could not conceive;”
assured him—in his ear—the fellows he
saw were ambitious cobblers and stitchers, who had
come to beg my favour and recommendation to the
and the rascals would persecute me; declared
my friend Tickle, who stood enjoying the scene
from a corner, was a young blood and intimate, who
had just lent me a thousand dollars to pay a poor
fellow who was in distress; and concluded by assuring
him, that as I did not like being obliged to a
man not a near kinsman, I would hand the sum
back again, and borrow it of him if he had brought
so much to town with him.
The warm welcome with which I began my
speech greatly delighted my uncle's heart, as I
saw; my apology for the appearance of the duns,
it was evident, caused him to look upon me as a
young fellow of great importance and distinction;
the reference to the young blood who had just
lent me a thousand dollars, confirmed his opinion
of my lofty stand among the rich and fashionable;
and to all these members of my discourse he
hearkened with respect and satisfaction; but when
I arrived at my climax, and professed a readiness
to borrow that sum of himself, I thought his
eyes would drop out of his head, they stared
out so far. In a word, I perceived that, let him
be as rich as he might, he was not the man to lend
me money; for which reason I despised the relationship
more than ever, and resolved to disown it
as soon as my convenience would permit. But it
was proper to make it useful at the present moment.
I turned round upon my duns, who were yet in
of dismission, “I will remember your claims; you
may depend upon me; but at present, as you see,
I must attend to those of my excellent uncle. You
understand me, ehem.”
“Ehem,” said they all; and I thought they
would have all turned somersets, so profound were
their congees, as, one by one, they sneaked out of
the room. The only ones who hesitated were
my landlord, Nora Magee, and Snip the tailor.
The first was probably overcome by a sense of
having dunned me too hard, and despair of forgiveness;
on which supposition I gave him a frown,
and waved my hand, and he retired. As for Nora,
she perhaps loitered to feast her eyes with the
spectacle of the rich man, from whose pockets
were to be drawn her ten dollars; but I gave her
a wink (a very vulgar way of conveying a hint, I
confess—but one can't be genteel with one's creditors),
and she rolled smiling away. What kept
the tailor I could not say; till, having given him
divers significant looks and gestures, he began to
drawl out, “Can't controvert no gentleman, but—”
when I stepped up to him, took him by the arm,
and led him from the apartment.
“What, you dog,” said I, in a familiar, affectionate
sort of way, as soon as I had him out of
my uncle's hearing, “do you want to raise a hubbub,
and put the old fellow in a passion? Come,
you rogue, your fortune's made:—seven grown
sons—seven broadcloth suits a year (extravagant
my honour: can twist the young apes round my
finger, and you shall have'em. Seven times seven
is forty-nine, seven fifties is three thousand and
odd; 'ged and demmee, you'll make a fortune out
of them!”
With that I pushed the giggling cormorant
down stairs, and ran back to my uncle.
10. CHAPTER X.
Some account of Sheppard Lee's country kinsmen.
“Adieu!” said Tickle, giving me a nod, as much
as to say, “Make the most of the old gentleman;”
he then imitated the duns, and left me; a circumstance
for which I was not sorry, for I was somewhat
ashamed of my uncle.
“Fine-looking young fellow that,” said Mr.
Wilkins; “must be a rich dog to lend you a thousand
dollars. But I say, Ikey—”
“Uncle Wiggins—that is, Wilkins,” said I, “I
beg you won't call me by any such vulgar nickname
as Ikey. I can't abide nicknames; they
are horrid plebeian.”
“Ods bobs,” said my uncle, “I call my son
Sammy, Sammy and Sam too—”
“What,” said I, “have you a son?”
“Ods bobs!” said he; “why, didn't you know?
friends; proud as a turkey-cock—thought me a
democrat and no great shakes, but I snapped up his
sister though; and so there was never no love lost
between us: never knew much about one another,
especially him. But I say, nevvy, ods bobs, don't
be a fool, and despise like your dad; could buy
him six times over if he was alive, and don't suppose
you're much richer; and don't value you a
new pin. Don't pretend you didn't know I had a
son; might as well say you didn't know I had a
daughter.”
The old gentleman looked somewhat incensed:
I hastened to pacify him, by assuring him I had
had a violent fit of sickness and lost my memory.
I then drew from him without difficulty as much
of his history and affairs as I cared to know.
Although of a vulgar stock, his face had, somehow
or other, captivated the fancy of my father's
sister, who very ungenteelly ran off with him, and
accompanied him to some interior village of the
state, where the happy swain sold tapes and
sugar, that being his profession. Here, although
discountenanced and despised by his wife's family,
he gradually amassed wealth, and in course of
time mightily increased it, by laying his hands on
those four great staples of the Susquehanna, iron,
lumber, coal, and whiskey. In fine, having scraped
together enough for his purpose, he yielded to a
design which his wife had first put into his plebeian
head, and which his children, as they grew up,
exchange his village for the metropolis, his musty
warehouses for elegant saloons, and live, during
the remainder of his life, a nabob and gentleman;
and in this design, as I discovered, he expected to
derive no little aid from my humble self, who,
being, as he said, a gentleman cut and dried, and
knowing to all such matters, could give him a hint
or two about high life, and help his children, the
hopeful Sammy and the interesting Pattie (for
such were their horrid names), into good society.
The first step of his design he had already taken,
having wound up his business and got him to
Philadelphia, with his brats, both of whom were
now safely lodged in a hotel, burning to make the
acquaintance of their fashionable cousin, my distinguished
self; and to these worthy kinsfolk he
proposed to carry me forthwith.
I debated the matter in my mind: Should I acknowledge
the claims of a brace of rustics with
two such names? Sammy Wilkins! Pattie Wilkins!
I felt that an old coat or a patched shoe
could not more endanger my reputation, than two
cousins named Sammy and Pattie. But the old
man was rich, and some good might arise from my
condescension. I agreed to go with him, and asked
him at what hotel he had put up.
“Oh,” said he, “at a mighty fine place—the
What-d'-ye-call-it, in Market-street.”
“In Market-street!” said I, and I thought his
nose looked more democratic than ever. “Horrible!
to stop in such a low place? Can't expect any decent
man to go nigh you. Must carry you to
Head's without a moment's delay, or you'll be ruined
for ever.”
“Ods bobs,” said my uncle, “it's a very good
tavern, with eating and drinking for a king; but if
it's not fashionable, sha'n't stay there no longer;
shall go with us, nevvy, and show us the way to
What-d'-ye-call-it's. The hack will just hold four.”
I go to a tavern in Market-street? The idea
was offensive; and ride thither, and afterward, my
three country kinsfolk with me, to Head's, in a
hackney-coach! The Market-street tavern and the
hackney-coach finished my uncle Wilkins. I suddenly
recollected a highly important engagement,
which would deprive me of the pleasure of going
round with my excellent uncle that moment, to
make the acquaintance of my worthy cousins; nay,
I feared it would occupy me all that evening, being
an engagement of a very peculiar nature. I would
see them the next day, when they were safely
lodged at Head's, whither I recommended Mr.
Wilkins to proceed, bag and baggage, instanter.
My uncle accepted my excuses, and agreed to follow
my advice, with a ready docility that might
have pleased me, seeing that it showed the respect
in which he held me; but I perceived in it nothing
more than a willingness to be put into leading-strings,
arising from his consciousness of inferiority.
I got rid of him, and resolved I would consider
by any public acknowledgment of relationship.
Then, being vastly tired by the varied business
of the day, I threw myself on my bed, where I
slept during the remainder of the day very soundly
and agreeably.
11. CHAPTER XI.
Containing a morsel of metaphysics, with a short account of the
Author's experience in good society.
I was roused about nine o'clock in the evening
by Tickle, who came, according to promise, to squire
me to Mrs. Pickup's and the Misses Oldstyle's;
and dressing myself in Mr. Dawkin's best, I accompanied
him forthwith to the mansion of the
former.
It was yet summer, and the season of gayety
was therefore afar off. All genteel people were,
or were supposed to be, out of town, according to
the rule which, at this season, drives the gentry of
London to their country-seats. The few of Philadelphia
who could imitate the lords and ladies in this
particular, were now catching agues on the Schuylkill;
while the mass, consisting of those whose
revenues did not allow any rustication on their
own lands, were killing sand-flies on the seashore,
or gnawing tough beef and grumbling over bad
butter at some fashionable watering-place in the
always are, who considered themselves genteel,
and who stayed at home, either because they were
tired of agues, sand-flies, tough beef, and bad butter,
as they freely professed; because they really
believed they were better off at home; or because
they were, like me and my friend Tickle, not rich
enough to squander their money on vanities, and so
stayed at home from necessity.
Of such persons one can always, even in summer-time,
assemble enough to make a party of
some kind or other, where the contented guests
can be uncommonly sociable, eat ices, and pity
their friends, who may be at the moment roasting
in a ball-room at Saratoga.
It was undoubtedly a great misfortune that I
should make my first introduction to good society
at a time when it was to be seen only in its minimum
of splendour; whereby I lost the opportunity
of being dazzled to the same degree in which I
found myself capable of dazzling others. Nevertheless,
I was vastly captivated by what I saw,
and for the few brief weeks that my destiny permitted
me to live among the refined and exclusive,
I considered myself an uncommonly happy individual.
The reception I met at Mrs. Pickup's convinced
me that, in entering Mr. Dawkins's body, I had done
the wisest thing in the world; for, however much
it endangered me with the tailors, it proved the
best recommendation to the ladies. I found myself
furnished and lighted, and not so over crowded (for
the season was taken into consideration) but that
the moschetoes had room to exercise their talents.
I thought I should be devoured by Mrs. Pickup,
she was so amazingly glad to see me; but
I perceived, by a sort of instinct I had acquired
along with Dawkins's body, that there was something
plebeian about her, although a very fine woman
as far as appearances went; and, indeed, Tickle
assured me she was a mere parvenue, or upstart,
whom everybody despised, and whom no one would
come nigh, were it not for her wealth, and the
resolution she avowed to give six different balls of
the most splendid character in the course of the
season. She had a daughter, who was very handsome,
and a decided speculation; but I did not
think much of her, especially as I found she was
already engaged to be married.
I found here that I knew everybody, or, what was
the same thing, that everybody knew me; and,
with Tickle's help, I soon found myself as much at
home with Mr. I. D. Dawkins's fair acquaintances
as if I had known them all my life. It was still,
as it had been before, a virtue and peculiarity of my
recollections, that they were always roused by a
few words of conversation with any one known to
my prototype; from which I infer, that the associations
of the mind, as well as many of its other
qualities, are more dependant upon causes in the
body than metaphysicians are disposed to allow.
feel more extensively, perhaps, than any other man
that ever lived. The spirit of Sheppard Lee was
widely different from those of John H. Higginson
and I. D. Dawkins, as, I think, the reader must
have already seen; and yet, no sooner had it entered
the bodies of these two individuals, than the
distinction was almost altogether lost. Certain it
is, that in stepping into each, I found myself invested
with new feelings, passions, and propensities—
as it were, with a new mind—and retaining so little
of my original character, that I was perhaps
only a little better able to judge and reason on the
actions performed in my new body, without being
able to avoid them, even when sensible of their
absurdity.
I do verily believe that much of the evil and
good of man's nature arises from causes and influences
purely physical; that valour and ambition
are as often caused by a bad stomach as ill-humour
by bad teeth; that Socrates, in Bonaparte's body,
could scarce have been Socrates, although the combination
might have produced a Timoleon or Washington;
and, finally, that those sages who labour
to improve the moral nature of their species, will
effect their purpose only when they have physically
improved the stock. Strong minds may be indeed
operated upon without regard to bodily bias, and
rendered independent of it; but ordinary spirits lie
in their bodies like water in sponges, diffused
through every part, affected by the part's affections,
with the fleshly matrix, that the mere cutting off of
a leg, as I believe, will, in some cases, leave the
spirit limping for life.
But, as I said before, I am not writing a dissertation
on metaphysics, nor on morals either; and as
my adventures will suggest such reflections to all
who care to indulge them, I will omit them for the
present, and hasten on with my story.
And here the reader may expect of me a description
of those scenes and persons in fashionable life
to which and whom I was now introduced; and if
I valued the reader's approbation at a higher price
than my own conscience and reputation, I should
undoubtedly gratify him, by putting my imagination
in requisition, and painting at once some dozen or
two of such fanciful pictures as are found in novels
of fashionable life, though never, I opine, in fashionable
life itself. In such I should have occasion
to represent gentlemen more elegant and witty, and
ladies more charming and ethereal, than are to be
found in any of the ordinary circles of society;
but, as I am writing truth and not fiction, and represent
things as I found, not as I imagined them, I
declare that the ladies and gentlemen of the exclusive
circles to which I was admitted, were very
much like the ladies and gentlemen of other circles
—that is, as elegant and witty as they could be,
and as charming and celestial as it pleased Heaven:
—and that, after due exercise of judgment and
memory, I cannot, in the adventures of three whole
or thing worth describing. For which reason I
will pass on to more important matters.
12. CHAPTER XII.
Sheppard Lee makes the acquaintance of his cousin, Miss Pattie
Wilkins.
Although I now look upon those three weeks
of my life as three weeks of existence out of
which I cheated myself, I was nevertheless so
greatly delighted at first by the way in which I
spent them, that I had almost forgotten my uncle
Wilkins; and when I did think of him, it was only
with renewed contempt and indifference. Finding,
however, that the old fellow had called upon me
three or four times during my absence from my
lodgings, on as many different days, and remembering
what he had said of his riches, it occurred
to me that I might as well pay him a visit, were it
only to satisfy Mr. Sniggles and Nora Magee, both
of whom manifested great uneasiness at my undutiful
conduct. It occurred to me, moreover, that
although my uncle Wilkins was not a lending man,
my cousin Sammy might be; and as I had now
existed four different days without a single sixpence
in my pocket, and began to be heartily
ashamed of such a state of things, I thought it
would be as well to pay the rustics a visit; and
to seal our reconciliation and secure my seven extravagant
cousins, I started off forthwith.
As my evil luck would have it, I found the old
gentleman on the point of setting out to pay me a
fifth visit, and I had the satisfaction, just as I placed
my foot on the porch of the hotel, in full view of
some half a dozen respectable-looking people who
were congregated there, to receive an embrace from
Mr. Samuel Wilkins, with the old white fur hat,
accompanied by a vocal salutation of, “Oho! Ikey,
my boy, and so you have come, have you? Ods
bobs, but I began to think you was ashamed of
your relations.!”
“Not I,” said I; “I am never ashamed of my
relations.” And I looked around me with dignity,
so that all present might perceive I was condescending.
I supposed I should find some of the
spectators giggling, but was agreeably surprised
when I beheld among them nothing but grave looks
of respect. Indeed, two or three old gentlemen
that I knew by sight, and who were what you call
“stanch citizens”—that is, rich old fellows, not
very genteel, but highly respected—made me low
bows; and I heard one of them, as I passed with
my uncle into the hotel, whisper to another, “It is
the rich old rascal's nephew; quite a promising
young man.”
I began to feel a greater esteem for my uncle,
for I saw that others respected him. Everybody
seemed to know him and make way for him; seeing
and instantly began to apologize for my seeming
neglect, by pleading that I had been engaged night
and day in preparing the way for the admission of
him and my cousins, Sammy and Pattie, into good
society.
“You want a house in a fashionable quarter,”
said I—
“Ods bobs,” said he, “yes; and I've been looking
all over town, from the glass-works down to
the navy-yard, and seen a power of them.”
“I flatter myself I can suit you,” said I, “and
better than you can yourself. Besides,” said I,
“I have been looking for carriages and horses.”
“Why,” said my uncle, “it's expensive keeping
horses in a city; and I was against it; but there's
Pattie says we can't do without 'em.”
“Exactly so,” said I: “you must live like a
gentleman, or there's no getting or keeping in society.
And, besides, I have been stirring up the
beaux and belles to come and see my cousin, the
fair—I say, uncle, eged, has she no other name than
Pattie?”
“Yes,” said my uncle Wilkins, “there's Abby,
—that's Abigail—Martha Abigail Wilkins; called
her after her grandmother and aunt, and hoped
aunt Abby would leave her something; but she
didn't.”
Martha Abigail Wilkins! Worse and worse;
I despaired of doing any thing, if I even wished it,
for a creature with such a name.
But what I had done—that is, what I said I had
done (for I had done nothing), had produced a
great effect on my uncle, and put him into such a
good-humour with me, that he seized me by the
hand, swore I was the right sort of a dog after all,
and, reaching the door of his private parlour, where
the fair Martha Abigail was sitting, he kicked it
open, crying aloud,
“Here, Pattie, you puss, here's your cousin
Ikey, the dandy—as fine a whole-hog fellow as
ever you saw—ods bobs, give 'm a buss.”
I looked upon the unsophisticated rustic who
was called upon to manifest her breeding in such
an agricultural style; and, upon my soul, I was
quite surprised to find in her, the aforesaid Pattie
Abigail, one of the nicest little creatures I had ever
laid eyes on, of a most genteel figure, tolerably
well dressed, considering she had been brought up
in the country, and with a sweet, prudish face, that
was quite agreeable to look on.
She smiled and she blushed, then laughed and
blushed again; but, without waiting to be bidden
a second time, tripped up to me, gave me both her
hands, and saying, “Cousin Ikey, how do you do?”
with a voice that was charming in every word save
one—the infernal “Ikey”—she very innocently
turned her cheek up to be saluted.
I felt myself called upon to give her a lesson in
politeness, and therefore put my lips to her hand,
saying, “Cousin P—P—Pattie—ehem, the girls
will all call her petty-patty—Petty-patty Wilkins
vulgar to kiss a lady; that is to say, in common
cases. But—” As I spoke, I admired her beauty
the more, and began to think the etiquette in such
cases was absurd—“But, as we are cousins, I
think that alters the case entirely.”
And with that I paid my respects to her cheek,
and, upon my soul, was rather gratified than otherwise.
Nay, and upon an instinct which I know
not whether I owed to my soul or body, I made an
offer to repeat the ceremony, that I might be as
condescending as possible; when the little minx,
to my surprise and indignation, lifted up one of the
hands I had dropped, and absolutely boxed me on
the ear, starting away at the same time, and saying,
with a most mischievous look of retaliation,
“I reckon I know manners as well as anybody.”
“Ged, and upon my soul!” said I, and marched
up to the glass to restore my left whisker to its
beauty, for she had knocked it out of its equilibrium,
while my uncle Wilkins fell foul of her, and scolded
her roundly for her bad behaviour.
“It don't signify, pa,” said the amiable Pattie,
bursting into tears, “I served cousin Ikey no worse
than cousin Ikey served me; for when I wanted
him to kiss me he wouldn't; and if he had boxed
my ear it wouldn't have been half so bad; for it
was very rude of him not to kiss me, and say it was
vulgar, and he can't deny it.”
I have mentioned before, I think, the surprising
facility women seem to have of turning the tables
the sexes; for, let a man be never so much
in the right, my head for it, the woman will soon
prove him to be in the wrong.
I found the truth of the maxim on the present
occasion; for there was the pretty Pattie, who had
just shocked my sensibilities, wounded my self-love,
violated my dignity, and disordered my whisker,
by a buffet on the cheek, extremely well laid
on, considering the youth and sex of the bestower,
now weeping and bewailing the injury I had done
her, in moralizing over a kiss before taking it. It
occurred to me she was an uncommon goose; but
she looked so wonderfully handsome, pouting her
lips with such a beautiful pettishness, that I was
convinced I had treated her very badly; for which
reason I stepped up to her, and begged her pardon
so penitently, that she relented and forgave me, and
we were soon in a good-humour with one another.
She seemed to me to be an odd creature, disposed
to be whimsical and funny, and I rather feared
she was, at bottom, witty. I say, I feared she was
witty; and lest the reader should draw wrong inferences
from the expression, I think it right to
inform him, that, while recording my adventures in
the body of Mr. I. D. Dawkins, I feel my old
Dawkins habits revived so strongly in my feelings,
that I cannot avoid giving some of the colouring of
his character to the history of his body. I do not
presume to say what women should be, or what
they should not: in confessing a fear that my cousin
which I, while a dandy, in common with all others
of the class, regarded any of the sex who were
smarter or more sensible than myself.
My cousin Pattie was, then, odd, whimsical, and,
I feared, witty; but that remained to be proved.
She certainly acted in a manner highly unsophisticated,
which arose from her youth (for my uncle
told me she was not yet eighteen), and her country
breeding. She had divers rusticities of speech,
and a frankness of spirit that would at any moment
burst out in weeping and wailing, or a fit of romping;
all which was horridly ungenteel, and a great
objection to genteel people taking notice of her.
But, on the other hand, she was a positive beauty;
and although she slouched about sometimes,
when forgetful, her movements were commonly
graceful and lady-like.
My judgment was therefore favourable: beauty,
grace, good clothes, and a grammatical way of
speaking, were, as far as I knew, the only requisites
for a fine woman, and I thought it was possible
to make her one. The two first requisites she already
possessed: good clothes were to be had of a
good milliner; and as for her conversation, I flattered
myself I could, in a few lessons, teach her to
subdue all redundances; for in that particular she
wanted nothing but pruning.
13. CHAPTER XIII.
A further account of Miss Pattie Wilkins.
Having made these observations in the course
of a ten minutes conversation, I perceived I had no
longer any reason to be ashamed of her; but, on
the contrary, to congratulate myself on the relationship.
Then, permitting myself to be affectionate
and frank, as a near kinsman should, I gave her
freely to understand, that, with a little advice and
training, which I would undertake to give her in a
few lessons, she would be fit to shine in the very
best society: an admission that set my uncle into
an ecstasy of delight and triumph, while it somewhat
discomposed the fair Pattie. She gave me a hearty
stare (a thing I was glad to see, for it looked lady-like),
then coloured (a circumstance I did not approve
so much, since blushing is girlish and ungenteel),
and then burst out a laughing, and concluded
by seizing upon my hand, giving it a yeomanly
shake, and saying,
“Very well, cousin Ikey, you shall be my
schoolmaster, and teach me all you know; and, as
you say, I think you can teach me in a very few
lessons.”
And here she looked as meek, and quiet, and
almost as sanctimonious, as any saint I ever saw
of a Sunday.
“Very good,” said I; “and the first lesson I
will give you is, never to call me `Ikey' again, for
that's vulgar; but always `Mr. Dawkins,' or just
plain `cousin;' or, as we are so nearly related, why,
I don't care if you call me by my middle name,
`Dulmer.' ”
“Wouldn't `Dully' be better?” said she, as
sweetly as could be: “it's more affectionate, and
cousins ought to be affectionate.”
“That's very true,” said I; and, upon my soul,
I thought her mouth was the handsomest I had ever
seen; “it is very true, but it don't do to be too familiar;
and, besides, Dully don't sound a whit better
than Pattie. I wish to ged you had a better
name than that; and yet it is the best of them all,
for `Martha' is kitchen-like, and `Abigail' wash-womanly—”
“And Pat,” said my cousin—
“Pat!” said I, struck with horror—
“Yes, Pat!” said she, looking as if she would
cry again; “it is the most odious of nicknames,
and there's my brother Sam, who calls me so all day
long; and there's pa, who is not much better. But
I say, cousin, I hope you'll take them to schooling
too. I won't say any thing about pa; but I reckon
there's none of us will be the worse for a little rubbing
up.”
“Don't say `reckon,' ” said I, “nor `Sam' neither.
Ged, you have horrid names among you,
but we'll do the best we can. Pattie—Miss Pattie
Wilkins; well, the name is not so very bad. As
occasionally you may say `Wilkins,' and it
will sound aristocratic, as being a family name.
But I say, uncle, we can't do any thing till we
have you in your own house; and, if you mean to
pass for a man of quality, it must be a grand one—
that is, as grand as can be had without building. I
say, uncle, if you please, what do you hold yourself
worth?”
“Ods bobs!” said my uncle, bristling up,
“what's that any man's business? Never blab a
man's capital, for—”
“Oh,” said Pattie, “Pa's always thinking about
trade and shop-keeping; but I'll tell you, for I
know all about it, for he told me six months ago,
and I know. He's worth two—” and here the little
beauty looked as if she designed to make me
her confidant at once, and swell my very soul with
the greatness of her revealment—“he's worth two
hundred and ninety thousand dollars; and when he
dies he is to leave me half. A'n't it grand?”
“To leave you half! one hundred and forty-five
thousand dollars?” said I, so confounded by a sudden
idea that entered my mind that I could not
even conceal it. “Hang it, if that's the case, but
I shall certainly marry you, and snap up that hundred
and forty-five myself.”
“Would you?” said the imp, looking so lovely,
and innocent, and willing that I positively threw
my arms around her neck, as if the matter were
already settled.
“Ods bobs!” said my uncle, “none of your
jokes here, nevvy!”
As for Pattie, she jumped out of my arms, though
apparently more pleased with the rudeness than
with my former want of enthusiasm, and ran laughing
to a chair.
“None of your jokes here, nevvy, I say,” cried
Mr. Wilkins; “and don't talk to Pattie about marrying,
for she has had enough of that already.”
“I ha'n't, pa,” said the daughter, beginning to
cry again; “you're always twitting me with Danny.
But I'm sure, if you're willing, I'd as lief
marry my cousin Ikey—that is, cousin Dulmer—
as anybody.”
“Who's Danny?” said I.
My uncle looked black, but Pattie answered
boldly,
“Why, my sweetheart, to be sure—Danny Baker—one
of the truest sweethearts you ever saw;
and oh, so handsome! But he was nothing but
one of pa's clerks, and so we turned him off between
us; and because I took his part, and said it
was no great harm in him to like me, pa is always
twitting me about him, and I can't abide it. If I
am to be twitted about everybody that likes me, I
should like to know where will be the end of it?”
I perceived that my little cousin had a good opinion
of herself, which was proper enough; but I
reprobated the good-will she extended to her admirer,
telling her that all clodhoppers were to be
despised, and that she must now think of being
I discovered afterward, was peculiarly acceptable
to my uncle, and greatly increased his respect for
me; and as for Pattie, she dried her eyes, and
said “she had as much spirit as anybody, but
Danny Baker was no fool, for all we might say of
him.”
In short, the interview was much more satisfactory
than I had dared to anticipate; and finding my
uncle and cousin were eager to have my instructions
and assistance, so as to begin the world as
soon and with as much eclat as possible, I summoned
my wisdom, and laid down the law to them
forthwith. A house was to be immediately had;
and recollecting the state of Mr. Periwinkle Smith's
affairs, I recommended that my uncle should make
proposals for his dwelling, which was just the house
required, and which I supposed Mr. Smith, or the
sheriff for him, would soon bring to the hammer.
Nay, in the exuberance of my affection, I offered
to begin the negotiation myself, and visit Mr. Periwinkle
Smith that day; whereby I might have an
opportunity to return my thanks for his friendly assistance
at the Schuylkill, without exciting any
false hopes in the bosom of his daughter, which I
feared might be the result if I went without an object.
I then discoursed on the subject of carriages
and horses, furniture, tailors, and mantuamakers,
and with such effect, that I perceived I should
have the control of all my uncle's affairs, directing
I saw would be highly advantageous in reinstating
my credit, even if it led to no better profit.
14. CHAPTER XIV.
A short chapter, containing an account of the Author's cousin,
Samuel Wilkins, Jr.
Having debated these matters to my satisfaction
and theirs, I was about taking my leave, when my
cousin Sammy unexpectedly entered the apartment.
His appearance struck me dumb, and filled me
with mingled terror and despair. What could I do
with such a scarecrow? His appearance was
death to my hopes of making the family fashionable.
He was a raw youth of twenty or twenty-one,
but six feet high, long-legged, lantern-jawed,
and round-shouldered. He wore a white hat, like
his father, but stuck upon his head with a happy
contempt of order and symmetry; and his coat
hung down in a straight line from his shoulders, as
if cut to fit the wall of a house. He walked with
a lazy, grave swagger, indicative of vast serenity
of mind and self-regard, and—until I cured him of
the habit—with both hands in his pockets. There
was not an ounce of brain in his whole head, big as
it was; though, from the gravity with which he
stared and whistled one in the face (for staring and
it might have been supposed otherwise. I will not
say the clown was ugly in visage or deformed in
person; but he was a slouch from head to foot.
One could see at a look that he considered himself
a gentleman, that he lived in the country, and that
the highest exercise of his gentility had been to
stalk about from one mud-hole to another, with his
hands in his pockets.
He did not seem at all daunted by my appearance,
but, having surveyed me with his great staring
eyes, he dragged one of his fists out of his pocket
and gave me a friendly grasp, very much like the
pinch of a bear. “Glad to see you; hope you're
well,” he said, and said no more, but remained observing
me with extreme gravity during the remainder
of the conference. When I got up to depart
he rose also, and, though I could have well dispensed
with such an escort, attended me to the
door. He uttered not a word until we came within
view of the bar, when the great oaf opened his lips,
and said, with an extremely knowing look, “I say,
Ikey, my boy, suppose we take a smaller?”
“A smaller!” said I, indignantly; “gentlemen
in a city never drink smallers.”
“Well, then,” said the goose, “I don't care if we
go the whole gill.”
“Come,” said I, commiserating his ignorance,
“you must never more talk of such things. None
but vulgarians drink strong liquors; slings, cocktails,
never drink any thing but wine.”
“Wine's small stuff,” said my kinsman, with
great equanimity; “but I'm for any thing that's
genteel, and dad says you're the boy for showing
us. But, od rabbit it, it's a hard thing to play the
gentleman in a place where you a'n't up to it; but
I say, now, how do you think we'll do—me and
Pat?”
I could scarce avoid laughing in the booby's face,
he asked his question with such simplicity and
complacency. I perceived that, notwithstanding
his lazy serenity and stolid gravity, he was as anxious
to be made genteel as either of the others, and
quite as ready to submit to my guidance. I told
him I had no doubt he would do very well when I
had polished him a little, which I would soon do;
and I resolved to begin the task without delay. I
carried him to a private apartment, ordered a carriage,
and a bottle of Chateau-Margaux to amuse us
while it was getting ready, and gave him to understand
I would immediately take him to a tailor's;
and this I did in a very short time, to the infinite
delight of my friend Snip, whom I ordered to make
three or four different suits for him, without troubling
myself to ask his opinion about either. I then
carried him in the same way to a hatter, shoemaker,
and man-milliner, leaving the jeweller, watchmaker,
and so on, for a future occasion.
These important matters being accomplished,
greatly to my own advantage, for I took care to
the strongest effect, I ordered the coachman to
drive up to Mr. Periwinkle Smith's, whither I
thought I might as well proceed while I had a
coach to carry me. I gave my gawky cousin to understand
my business was to buy the house for his
father, at which he expressed much satisfaction
(for everybody in Philadelphia knows the house is
a very fine one), and a desire to help me examine
it; but telling him there were many fine ladies
there, who must not see him till he was properly
dressed, I charged him to wait for me in the coach
until I returned.
15. CHAPTER XV.
In which Sheppard Lee visits Mr. Periwinkle Smith and his fair
daughter, and is intrusted with a secret which both astonishes and
afflicts him.
I pulled the bell with a most dignified jerk, and
asked for Mr. Smith. But the servant, who grinned
with approbation as at an old acquaintance, and
doubtless considered that he knew more about the
matter than myself, as Philadelphia servants usually
do, ushered me into the presence of Mr.
Smith's fair daughter.
“Ah!” said I to myself, as I cast my eye around
the apartment, and saw that her levee consisted of
but a single beau—a stranger whom I did not
millionaire from Boston—“the world begins to
suspect the mortgages, and friends are falling away.
Poor dear Miss Smith!”—And I felt great compassion
for her.
She seemed somewhat surprised at my appearance,
and I thought she looked confused. She
was a marvellous fine creature, and I was quite
sorry she was not rich.
I saw she had a sneaking kindness for me yet;
but it was not right to encourage her. I hastened,
therefore, to express my thanks for the sympathy
which I had been informed she had bestowed on
me, on the memorable occasion of my dip in the
Schuylkill; and regretted that the indisposition
consequent upon that disaster had prevented my
calling earlier. I had not met the fair lady at Mrs.
Pickup's or the Misses Oldstyle's, or at the other
two place where I had figured during the last four
evenings; and although it was highly probable
she knew my indisposition had not prevented my
going to these places, yet my not seeing her made
the excuse perfectly genteel and fair. Yet she
looked at me intently—I thought sadly and reproachfully—for
a moment, and then, recovering
herself, expressed her pleasure to see me so well
restored, and ended, with great self-possession, by
presenting me to her new admirer. After this her
manner was cooler, and I thought her pique rendered
her a little neglectful. It was certain she
wished me to observe that she had a high opinion
was not so indifferent as I ought to have been.
But, in truth, she was an elegant soul, and the
more I looked at her the more I regretted she was
not a fortune. I felt myself growing sentimental,
and, to check the feeling, I resolved to proceed to
business.
I had no sooner asked after the old gentleman,
and expressed a desire to see him, than she gave
me a look that bewildered me. It expressed surprise
and inquiry, mingled with what I should
have fancied contempt, could I have believed anybody
could entertain such a feeling for me. She
rang the bell, ordered my desire to be conveyed to
her father, and in a few moments I was requested
to walk up stairs to his study, where I found him
in company with a gentleman of the law and a
broker, whose face I knew, and surrounded with
papers.
“Ah!” said I to myself, “things are now coming
to a crisis; he is making an assignment.”
The gentleman of the law and the broker took
their departure, and Mr. Periwinkle Smith gave
me a hard look. I began to suspect what he was
thinking of; he was perhaps looking for me to
make a declaration in relation to his fair daughter.
That he might not be troubled with such expectation
long, I instantly opened my business,
and gave him to understand I came to make proposals
(he opened his eyes and grinned) for his
house (he looked astounded), which, I had heard,
he was about to dispose of.
“Indeed!” said he, and then fell to musing
a while. “Pray, Mr. Dawkins,” said he, “who
sent you upon this wise errand?”
I did not like his tone, but I answered I came
on the part of my uncle, Samuel Wilkins, of Wilkinsbury
Hall—for I thought it as well to make
my kiusman's name sound lordly.
“Very good,” said he; “but what made you
suppose I intended to sell my property?”
I liked this question still less than the other,
and mumbled out something about “common report,”
and the “general talk of my acquaintance.”
“Ah!” said he, “now I understand,” giving me
a grin which I did not. “Let us be frank with
one another. There was something said about
`mortgages,' was there not?—a heavy weight on
my poor estate?”
Thinking it was useless to mince the matter, I
acknowledged that such was the report.
“And it is from the influence of that report I am
to understand some of the peculiarities of your—
that is to say, it is to that I am to attribute your
present application? Really, Mr. Dawkins, I am
afraid I can't oblige you; my house I like very
well, and— But I'll admit you to a little secret;”
and smiling with great suavity, he laid his hand on
a pile of papers. “Here,” said he, “are mortgages,
and other bonds, to the amount of some seventy
thousand dollars; they are my property, and not
mortgages on my property. The truth is (and, as
you are an old friend, I don't scruple to tell you),
what to do with, I took the advice of a friend, and
invested it in the form in which you now see it,
and I believe it is very safe. The story of the
mortgages was quite true, only it was told the
wrong way.”
I was petrified, and stood staring on the old gentleman
with awe and amazement.
“Some people,” said he, very good-naturedly,
“might doubt the propriety, and even the honourableness,
of a private gentleman investing money
in this way; but stocks are at a high premium,
and many unsafe, and money can't lie idle:—I hope
you are satisfied: I am quite sorry I can't oblige
your uncle. My house, as I said, I like extremely
well; and I have, besides, promised it as a wedding-present
to my daughter.”
Oh, ye gods of Greece and Rome! a wedding-present
to his daughter! I resolved to make her
a proposal without delay, and I thought I might as
well break matters to the old gentleman.
“Your daughter,” said I, “your beloved and excellent
daughter—”
“Will doubtless always be happy to welcome
her old friend and admirer, Mr. Dawkins,” said he;
and I thought he looked beautiful—though I never
thought so before. He could not have spoken
more plainly, I thought, if he had said “marry
her,” at once. I took my leave, intending to make
love to her on the spot.
“I will have the pleasure to see you to the door,”
me. I do not well know how it happened; but
instead of entering the parlour again, I found myself
led to the front door by the courteous Mr.
Smith, and bowed handsomely out, to the great
satisfaction of my cousin Sammy, who regarded
proceedings from the carriage window.
“Good morning,” said Mr. Periwinkle Smith;
“I can't sell my daughter's house, but I should be
glad to have you for a neighbour; and, now I recollect
it, there's Higginson the brewer's house
over the way there advertised for sale, and I am
told it is very well finished.”
“So am I,” said I to myself, as the door closed
on my face—“finished unutterably.” It occurred
to me I was turned out of the house; and the suspicion
was soon very perfectly confirmed. I called
on the fair Miss Smith the next day, and, though
I saw her by accident through the window, I was
met by the cursed fib—“not at home.” The same
thing was told me seven days in succession, and on
the eighth I saw, to my eternal wo and despair,
her marriage with my Boston rival announced in
the papers. He lives in Philadelphia, and can
confirm my story. But this is anticipating my
narrative.
“I say, Dawkins,” cried my cousin Sammy (I
had cured him of the vulgar `Ikey'), “what does
the old codger say?”
These words, bawled by the rustic from the carriage
window, woke me from a trance into which I
the door in my face.
“Didn't he say there was a house over the way?”
I remembered the words,—my own house for
sale! I knew it well; it was just the thing wanted,—an
elegant house, provided genteel people
were in it. I was on the point of running over and
securing it, when I remembered Mrs. Higginson.
A cold sweat bedewed my limbs. “No!” said I,
“I will go to Tim Doolittle—I can face him.”
To make matters short—for I have a long story
to tell—I drove up to Higginson's brewery (it is
now Doolittle and Snagg's, or was, when I heard
last of it), saw my late brother-in-law, whom I
thought a very plebeian body, and made such progress
with him, that in three days' time (for my
Margaret had gone to mourn in the country) the
house changed owners, and my uncle Wilkins
marched into it as master, followed by Sammy and
Pattie.
16. CHAPTER XVI.
Containing much instructive matter in relation to good society,
whereby the ambitious reader can determine what are his prospects
of entering it.
Three days after I had established my uncle in
his new house, the fair Miss Smith was married.
It was a great blow to me, and I mused with
melancholy on the fickleness of the sex, wondering
easily to change from one love to another. I considered
myself very badly used; and the more I
thought of the wedding-present, and the seventy
thousand dollars in bonds and mortgages, the more
deeply did I feel my loss. I read the announcement
of her marriage in the newspaper, cursed her
inconstancy and hard-heartedness, and gave myself
up to grief the whole morning. She had certainly
used me ill, but by dinner-time I remembered I
had served her pretty much in the same way.
Besides, my cousin Pattie (I always dined with
my uncle Wilkins, of course, and intended soon to
live with him altogether) looked uncommonly
handsome, and “Who knows,” said I to myself,
“whether she won't have more than Miss Smith,
after all?” In addition to this great consolation, I
had another in a few days; and the two together
quite comforted me for the loss of Periwinkle's
daughter. But of this in its place.
In three days' time, as I have mentioned, I had
my uncle Wilkins in his new house, and was busy
polishing the family. But the task was harder than
I supposed. The rusticities of my uncle were inveterate;
and as for Sammy, the only change I
could effect in him was such as the tailor effected
for me. I found him a clown, and a clown I left
him. I should have given him up after the first
day, had it not been that his father kept him pretty
well supplied with pocket-money; which was an
advantage to me, for I never could borrow any thing
carried him about to divers places, taking good care,
however, that he should not fall into the hands of
my friend Tickle, or any other poor dandy.
My cousin Pattie was more docile; and I perceived
that as soon as I should cure her of a mischievous
habit she had of playing tricks upon everybody
in the house, and myself too, upon occasions,
she would be fit for any society.
As soon as my uncle had procured a carriage,
(and I took care it should be a good one—I made
an effort to buy my fine old thousand-dollar bays,
but Mr. Doolittle would not part with them), I took
her out airing and shopping, to teach her how
to behave in public; and I contracted with Mrs.
Pickup, who lived close by, and who it was supposed,
on account of her six balls, would make a
favourable sensation, to chaperon her for the season.
I took care to bestow her patronage among
the aunts and sisters of my tradespeople in such a
way as to advance my own credit; and thinking
it would be to my advantage to have such a friend
near her, I recommended Nora Magee to her for a
maid, although Nora was not quite so genteel as I
should have wished.
In short, I did every thing that was proper to
prepare her way for the approaching season; and
as soon as I thought her fit to receive company,
went round among all the leading fashionables, and
requested them to visit her.
It was here that the invaluable nature of my
shown, as I took care to make them understand;
for without me to help them, or some other equally
genteel person, my uncle and cousins might as
well have tried to get into Congress as into good
society. My request was not granted until I had
answered ten thousand different questions, and
removed as many scruples, on the part of the monarchs
of the mode. There were a thousand reasons
why my uncle's family should be denied admission
into that elegant society they were so ambitious
to enter; and nothing but the force of my
recommendations ensured them success.
My labours on this occasion made me familiar
with the principles upon which republican aristocratic
society is founded; and as these principles
are not universally understood, even in America, I
think I can do nothing better than explain them,
for the benefit of all my young and aspiring readers.
The pretensions of any individual to enter the
best society of the republic depend upon his
respectability; and the measure of this is determined
by the character of his profession, if he
have one—if not, by that of his father. I never
knew even the most exclusive and fastidious of
examiners to carry his scrutiny so far back as a
grandfather; for, indeed, all our grandfathers in
America were pretty much alike, and the sooner
we forget them the better.
The first profession in point of dignity is that of
his revenue, if he has one. There are some gentlemen
well received in good society who live upon
their wits; but they are born in it. Poor gentlemen,
not already in society, had better not try to
get into it; for rich men who have romantic daughters
are afraid of them. A gentleman, then, always
stands a fair chance of being admitted; and if his
father was of a respectable profession, he is received
with open arms. The preference accorded to
this class is just, since founded upon nature. All
occupations are more or less disgraceful; a strong
proof of which is found in the fact that all primitive
nations, such as the Hottentots, and North
American Indians, look upon them with contempt,
considering idleness and war as the only business
for gentlemen. Providence, indeed, ordained that
men should live by the sweat of their brows; but
it is horrid ungenteel to do so.
The next profession in point of dignity is law;
and lawyers, as I may say, form the true effective
nobility of America; for though the mere gentlemen
deem themselves higher and purer, they are
pretty generally considered by others as only the
lady-dowagers of society. But the lady-dowagers
sometimes consider the gentility of lawyers doubtful.
The third profession is that of arms, which owes
its consideration mainly to the women; who,
although the ministers of love and mercy to man,
are wondrous fond of those who deal in blood
professions in America.
Divinity, physic, merchandise, agriculture, and
politics, are the only others from which a man is
occasionally allowed to enter good society. But
they are considered low, and it is only peculiar circumstances
which can give any of their followers
a claim to rise.
I have said that the claim of the gentlemen to
consider themselves the highest class is founded
in nature. They form the nucleus of society,
and around them, as they are admitted, the members
of the other professions establish the grand
order of fashion. According to their creed, law is
a respectable profession, because it keeps down
the mob, or people, by keeping them constantly by
the ears, and because it makes money; and arms
they hold to be reputable, because it does the same
thing, and paves the way to the presidency. Divinity
and physic they consider to be naturally low
occupations, since their provinces are only to take
care of dirty souls and bodies. Merchandise is
denounced, since it consists of both buying and
selling, whereas, buying is the only part of traffic
that is fit for a gentleman. Agriculture is contemned,
because there are so many clodhoppers
engaged in it; and politics, because it demands
consociation with the mob.
In these five professions, however, certain fortunate
circumstances may give a claim to notice. Parsons
(who are often doctors of divinity and always
counts in their favour; and the same thing may be
said of politicians, when they rise to be secretaries
of departments or foreign ministers, or become
renowned as orators: great distinction will secure
them favour, for they are then people that people
look at. Merchants are allowed to be respectable
as soon as they are worth a million, provided they
have two or three daughters and no sons, and are
willing to be splendid in their entertainments. An
agriculturist of our own latitudes can never expect
to be made respectable; but a planter of cotton
or tobacco, who owns a hundred negroes, and
puts the name of his farm or the county he lives
in after his own, has as good a chance as any.
All other classes are vulgar and mechanical,
and therefore ineligible. Men of science and genius
are excluded on account of their manners,
which are outlandish, and their arrogant display of
superiority, which is disagreeable; and as for the
actors, dancers, and singers that are sometimes met
with, the two first are admitted, because they are
foreign and famous, and the last, because they bring
good music for nothing.
From this exposition of the code of society, it
will be seen that my uncle Wilkins could boast but
slender claims to an introduction. His occupation
had been vulgar, and he had not made money
enough to ennoble him. I trebled his two hundred
and ninety thousand, as is usual, but I could not
daughter Pattie.
But what spoke highly in his favour was, that
whatever had been his profession, he had now
abandoned it, with the praiseworthy intention of
living a gentleman during the remainder of his life;
and what was also advantageous, he had pursued it
at such a distance from the haunts of fashion that
his new friends might, with the greatest propriety,
affect an entire ignorance of it.
His having a daughter, too, and but one son to
divide with her his eight hundred and seventy thousand—that
is to say, his two hundred and ninety—
was also a strong recommendation to those mammas
who had sons to provide for; and his determination
to indulge the fair Pattie in as many balls and parties
as she desired, was another circumstance to
propitiate favour.
But, to crown all, I countenanced him; and that
settled the matter. In a few days' time there was
such a rattle and trampling at the brewer's door as
had never been known before. The whole square
was in commotion, being choked up with carriages;
and such was the throng of genteel people rushing
into the house, that an unsophisticated dealer in
second-hand furniture, supposing there was an auction
to be held, stalked into the parlour, and electrified
everybody by wondering, in the way of a
question not addressed to any particular person,
“when the sale was to begin?”
In short, the thing was settled; my uncle was
show that in the approaching season his rank would
be confirmed, and his daughter recognised as a
belle by everybody in town.
But before that time a change came o'er the
spirit of my fate, and— But I shall confess the
whole affair to the reader.
17. CHAPTER XVII.
In which Sheppard Lee relates the passion he conceived for his fair
cousin, and his engagement to elope with her.
My uncle Wilkins, it seems, was not merely ambitious
to get into good society; he was ambitious
to have his daughter married, and, as he said, into
the best family in the land: an object not very difficult
to compass, considering the fortune he intended
to leave her. But my uncle was resolved
her husband should be rich as well as distinguished;
and I discovered the old curmudgeon had an
extreme horror of poverty. Perhaps one of the
strongest reasons for his leaving the country was a
fear he had lest his adorable daughter should be
snapped up by that aforesaid Danny Baker, whom
my cousin had pronounced “one of the truest and
handsomest sweethearts I ever saw;” although I
never saw him at all, nor, indeed, any other extremely
true and handsome sweetheart of the male
ugly, and those that are handsome are as uncertain
as politics. I say this was my uncle's fear, and,
indeed, he confessed to me his belief that Pattie
had really a sneaking kindness for the young rustic;
for which reason he was anxious to have her
married as soon as possible.
I may here observe, that if a bachelor is to judge
of the excellence of love by the character of its
vocabulary, he will discover no stirring reason to
lament his insensibility. All the expressions on
the subject go to show that there is something
mean and contemptible in the tender passion, which
men otherwise profess to be the most heavenly of
the passions—as if, indeed, heaven had any thing
to do with any of them. The moment a man begins
to think a woman uncommonly charming, he
is said to cast “a sheep's eye” on her; when he
feels a friendship for her, it becomes “a sneaking
kindness;” and the moment his heart is in a hubbub,
he is “deep in the mire.” From these terms,
and others that might be mentioned, it results as I
have said, namely—that men and women who have
experienced the tender passion, are, notwithstanding
their pretences to the contrary, really ashamed
of it; that a lover is a sheep and a sneaking fellow,
ordained to grovel in the mud at the feet of his
mistress; and, finally, that a bachelor has no good
reason to execrate his stars for keeping him single.
But I had other notions when I was in Mr. I. D.
Dawkins's body.
I was entirely of my uncle's way of thinking, and
proposed to take her myself; to which my uncle
replied, in some perturbation, “None of your jokes
there, Ikey, my boy;” and gave me plainly to understand
that was a thing he would never think of.
Nay, the proposition seemed to him so unpalatable,
that I was compelled to pretend I had made it entirely
in jest; though I demanded, supposing I had
been serious, what objection he could have to me.
“Oh, none in the world,” said he, “except your being
so near of blood; for a cousin-german is almost
the same as a brother.”
I understood the old hunks better than he
thought; he had, somehow or other, found out that
I had spent my fortune, and was therefore, in that
particular, no better off than Mr. Danny Baker. I
saw, too, clearly enough, that he only valued me
as a sort of stepping-stone into society; and that,
having once had all the advantage of me he could,
he would be ready to forget all my benefits. The
curmudgeon! he had found out I had been borrowing
money of his son Sammy, and he was already
longing for the time to come when he might safely
discard me.
I resolved to marry Pattie in spite of him; and
began to cast about for some device by which to
secure her share of his two hundred and ninety
thousand, which it was more than probable he
would withhold, in the event of her marrying against
his will. This device I soon hit upon.
I told him there was, among all my acquaintance,
as a husband for Pattie; for though there were
dozens of genteel young fellows, fortunes were by
no means so plentiful. My friend Tickle, I assured
him, was just the man,—a little gay, to be sure; indeed,
quite dissipated; and, what was worse, an
enemy to matrimony; which was the more extraordinary,
as by marrying he might come at once
into possession of a splendid fortune. And thereupon
I told him that Jack's father, who was a saint
in his way, and a bigot, to reclaim him, had, by will
(for I assured him the poor man was dead), bequeathed
his superb estate to him only upon
condition that he married before the expiration of
five years; failing in which, the whole property,
now in the hands of trustees, would revert to other
persons, with the exception of a shabby annuity of
a thousand a year. The five years, I told my
uncle Wilkins, were now nearly expired, and Jack,
being in some alarm, was already expressing an
inclination to seek a spouse; but she must be a
rich one, otherwise he would never think of her.
This story, which I fabricated for the purpose,
produced a strong effect upon my uncle Wilkins;
and I concluded it by recommending he should
without delay settle half his fortune upon Pattie, by
legal grant of dedi et concessi, as the lawyers call
it, and register the same; in which event, I would
do all I could to bring the marriage about, not
doubting that we should succeed, since Pattie was,
as I averred, just the sort of girl that Tickle liked.
My uncle was rather dumbfounded at the last
proposal, and swore he would do no such thing.
“He was not going,” he said, “to bribe anybody
to take his girl off his hands, not he; she should
have her share when he was dead, and if she married
to his liking, why she should have something
before. I might bring my friend Tickle to see her
if I would, and he would see what he thought of
him.”
My uncle put a bold face upon the matter, but I
perceived he was eager to make the acquaintance
of my friend Tickle, and would be soon brought to
reason. And, indeed, after having seen the intended
son-in-law, and listened some half a dozen times
over to my arguments, he opened his heart so far
as to settle the sum of forty thousand dollars upon
Pattie, which—or rather the yearly interest of that
sum, for the crafty old sly-boots took care to constitute
himself trustee for the girl, and retain the
principal in his own hands—he conditioned to pay
her after her marriage.
I was provoked at his stinginess; but as no better
terms could be had, I thought I might as well
bring the matter to a conclusion, trusting that something
better would turn up after my marriage.
I say my marriage, for I had no thoughts of bestowing
forty thousand dollars, or the interest thereof,
upon my friend Tickle. I made him my confidant
in the matter, and easily prevailed upon him
to assist me in deceiving my uncle Wilkins, by appearing
to Pattie in the light of a wooer. As for
love with me at first sight, I made her a declaration,
which diverted and delighted her beyond expression;
and revealing to her also my project to secure
her an independence, she agreed to do her
part in the play, pretend a great fancy for Mr.
Tickle, and run away with me, the moment her father
should make her the grant in question.
The grant was made, as I mentioned before;
but by that time I was in a dilemma, having made
an engagement to elope with another lady, who was
in some respects highly attractive, and had fallen
devouringly in love with me. Indeed, I may say,
she made me the first offer, though it was not leap-year;
but her situation excused her, especially as
it was I she made love to. She was, the reader
will be surprised to learn, the daughter of old Skinner,
or Goldfist, the usurer; and she was rather
handsome than otherwise. The engagement was
brought about as will be shown in the next chapter.
18. CHAPTER XVIII.
In which Sheppard Lee recounts an engagement of a similar nature
which he formed with the fair Alicia.
My creditors, looking with great certainty for
their money, now that my long-talked-of uncle had
got to town, having waited a couple of weeks for
importunate way; and as no assistance was to be
had of my uncle, and Sammy's purse was not so
well filled as I could have wished, I was reduced
to great straits.
Conversing on this subject with my friend Tickle,
he advised me to visit old Goldfist, as I (that is,
my prototype, the true Dawkins) had often done
before, and see what could be had out of him on
the strength of my projected nuptials.
The advice being as good as could be had (for
Tickle's pockets were as empty as my own), I proceeded
to the old fellow's house after nightfall—
for I did not care to be observed.
Having knocked at the door, it was opened by no
less a person than Skinner's fair daughter herself,
as I soon discovered; and, in fact, I had some faint
recollection of having seen her before. There was
a lamp on the pavement before the door, by which
I could see her very plainly. She blushed, and
smiled, and looked confused, and when I asked for
her father, made me some answer which I did not
understand; but, as she invited me to enter, I followed
her into the house, expecting to be led to the
money-lender. She conducted me, however, to a
parlour, not over and above well furnished, for
Skinner was a notorious skinflint, when, having
vouchsafed to converse with her a while, I again
asked after her father.
She told me he was not at home; but seeing me
rise to depart, she stammered out an assurance
resume my seat, evidently to her great pleasure.
Seeing this, I condescended to make myself
agreeable, and with such effect, that the simple-hearted
foolish creature began to tell me how often
she had seen me at her father's house a year or
two before, when she was a little school-girl, as
she said, and how glad she was to see me back
again; as if, a year or two before, we had been intimate
acquaintances; when, on the contrary, as my
associations assured me, I (or my original) had
never taken the slightest notice of her—as, in truth,
why should I, her father being so much beneath me?
I believe I rather gave her a stare; but she
looked so admiringly at me, I could do no less than
continue to be agreeable; and, to tell the truth, I
was afterward amazed at my condescension.
By-and-by there dropped in one of her brothers,
a very fine looking young man for one of his rank
in life, but of a dissipated, under-the-table look,
and, I thought, somewhat julapized—which is a
word that, among certain classes, signifies that one
is not sober. However, he behaved with great decorum,
and instead of taking a seat, as I expected,
to make my acquaintance, he gave me a nod and a
laugh, as much as to say, “I know what you're
after, my boy,” and went stumbling into the back
part of the house.
In a few moments after there came another
equally good looking, but not so obliging; for he
helped himself to a seat without any ceremony,
supposed I was after dad; but dad was fast on an
arbitration, and would not be home for at least
three hours.”
Poor Alicia, for that was her name (and in this
particular she was better provided than my cousin
Pattie), gave her brother an angry look; for at this
announcement I got up and took my leave. She
followed me, however, to the door, and told me if
I would come at about eight o'clock on the following
evening, I would find her papa at home; and
she added, softly, that she would be glad to see
me.—She glad to see me! poor soul!
I went, though, according to appointment; and,
poor soul, she was glad to see me, as was plain
enough, but “sorry that papa had not yet got
through with that arbitration; and so I could not
see him, unless I would be so good as to wait until
he came home; and, if I would, it would be charity,
for there was nobody in the house with her
except old Barbara, the housekeeper, who was but
poor company,—and, indeed, she had but poor
company always, living a very lonesome life of it,”
&c. &c.; and she concluded by promising, if I
would sit down, to play me a tune upon the piano!
She played me a tune accordingly, and horrid
work she made of it; but, as she did her best, I
praised her, and that pleased her. She then, to
show me that she was accomplished, introduced me
to divers bits of paper with colours on them, which
she told me were drawings, and, as I knew but little
which she exhibited some two or three dozen handsome-looking
volumes in French and Italian, of
which languages I knew no more than dandies in
general; and for that reason I told her such things
were now considered bores, and left to children and
schoolmasters.
I perceived we were to have a tête-à-tête of it,
and I began to suspect the lassie knew so when
she invited me. When this idea entered my mind,
I felt a little indignant; yet it was diverting to think
of her simplicity. I thought I would amuse myself
with her a little while, and unbend from the
austerity of dignity, which seemed to gratify her
most.
In this humour I permitted myself to be merry
and easy; and having romped with her one way
and another, much to her delight, I at last seized
upon her, and gave her a buss; whereupon she
acted pretty much as my cousin Pattie had done
before her,—that is, she laughed, and blushed, and
cried “Oh la!” but looking all the time any thing
but incensed.
In short, my condescension affected her to that
degree, that she began to treat me as her most undoubted
friend; and, in the height of her confidence,
informed me that she was just eighteen
years old, minus two months (the very age of my
cousin Pattie); that she was her father's favourite
(as far as any one could be the favourite of such a
curmudgeon); and that besides her fine expectations
of twenty thousand dollars—a bequest from some
old aunt or other—which she would come into
possession of as soon as the aforesaid two months
and a few odd days had expired.
This was news that affected me very strongly;
and had her father been a gentleman, all things
considered, I believe I should have made her a declaration
on the spot.
As it was, I felt my soul growing tender towards
her; for though twenty thousand dollars was but a
small sum, it was, if I could take her word for it,
certain; which was not yet the case with any of
my cousin Pattie's expectations. However, before
I could digest the information, we were surprised
by the turning of a dead-latch key in the front door,
and Alicia cried, with a tone of disappointment,
“Oh la! it is papa!”—And so it was.
The old gentleman looked upon the open piano,
and the books and drawings upon the table, with
surprise, and then upon me with uneasiness.
“Mr. Dawkins has been waiting, papa,” said
Alicia.
“Humph!” said old Goldfist, and pointed her to
the door. She stole me a look, and, as she passed
out, raised her hand archly to her lips. She was
rather free, I confess; but she had lived a secluded
life, and knew no better.
The old fellow gave me a sharp look, coughed
phthisically twice or thrice, and then, with but
little superfluous ceremony, asked me what I
wanted.
“Money,” said I.
“Oh, ay, always money. Who is to pay it?
What's your security?”
“My uncle Wilkins,” said I.
“Very good name, don't doubt,” growled the
bear; “the banks will take it. Don't do any business
of that sort.”
“Ged, faith, no,” said I; “I don't come for
money at six per cent., but on the old terms of
usury. You know my uncle Wilkins, eh? Only
two children—a fortune of eight hundred and
seventy thousand dollars.”
“Bah!” said the bull, “that will do for the girls
and boys. Know all about him; one hundred and
twenty, and half of it in railroads—good for nothing.”
“Two hundred and ninety, bona fide,” said I,
“and half of it in bank-stock.”
“Know all about it,” said Mr. Skinner; “but
what's that to you? Has a son of his own.”
“And a daughter,” said I, giving him a nod,
which brought a Christian look into his face, and,
doubtless, a Christian feeling into his hearts. I
took advantage of it to inform him that she and I
were about to elope, and wanted a thousand dollars
to bear our expenses; assuring him also that her
father was on the eve of making her a grant of
fifty thousand dollars, as soon as which was done,
we should be off at a moment's warning. To be
brief, I told the old fellow all that was necessary
for my purpose, and made so good a story of it,
out of him, had not my evil genius suddenly
prompted me to refer to his own daughter Alicia,
and ask him what he intended to give her, over
and above her own twenty thousand?
He looked as black as midnight, and asked “who
told me she had such a sum?”
I saw I had alarmed him, and said I had it of a
friend of mine, a very fine fellow, who thought of
taking her off his hands, provided he would add
twenty more to it.
“Want no fine fellows, and no friends of yours,”
said he, gruffly; “won't give her a cent, and has
nothing of her own; all a fool's story—told you so
herself—a jade's trick; never told a truth in her
life.”
The old miser's soul was up in arms; the prospect
of being called upon in two months' space to
render up the girl's portion to a son-in-law, was so
much Scotch snuff thrown into his eyes; if it did
not blind, it at least distracted him: and the reward
I had for conjuring up the vision was my own
dismissal, notwithstanding all my arguments to the
contrary, with my pockets as empty as when I
entered, a rude assurance that he had closed accounts
with me, and a highly impertinent request
that I would avoid troubling him for the future.
So I got no money of him, but his daughter fell
in love with me; and the next day she sent me
by the post a very tender and romantic billetdoux,
in which she lamented her father's harshness and
venturing upon an apology, and concluded by informing
me, with agreeable simplicity, that her
father was never at home between eight and nine
o'clock in the evening, when the weather was
clear. From all which I understood, that she was
as ready to run away with me as my cousin Pattie.
Having pondered over the matter for a while, it
appeared to me proper to encourage her enthusiasm;
so that, in the event of my uncle Wilkins
refusing to make Pattie independent, I might be
certain of a wife who could bring me something.
I had many objections, indeed, to the lady's family
and relations; but the latter I could easily cut
in case of necessity, and the other I considered
scarce worth thinking of. Her twenty thousand
dollars was a strong recommendation; and there
was no telling what her father might leave her, if
reconciled after her marriage. I liked my cousin
Pattie best; but, upon the whole, I considered it
advisable to have a second string to my bow.
With this impression on my mind, I took occasion
to drop in upon her the first clear evening,
repeating the visit now and then, as suited my
convenience, and promised to run away with her
upon the first fitting occasion. And this promise
I resolved to keep, provided my affairs with my
cousin Pattie should render it advisable.
19. CHAPTER XIX.
The ingenious devices with which Sheppard Lee prepared the way
for the elopement.
I had scarce brought my friend Tickle upon the
stage, and introduced him into my uncle's family,
before my mind began to misgive me. I suspected
that, instead of being content to play the stalking-horse
for my sole advantage, he would take the
opportunity to advance his own interest, and gain,
if he could, my cousin Pattie for himself.
To remove all temptation, and bind him more
closely to be faithful, I told him of my adventure
with Alicia (taking care, however, to conceal her
name, for I did not wish to forego my advantages in
that quarter until convinced I could do so without
loss), described her claim to the sixty thousand dollars
(for, of course, I trebled her inheritance), and
concluded by engaging to make her over to him the
moment I was myself secure of Pattie, which
would be the moment Pattie was secure of an independence.
Upon this promise Tickle made me a thousand
protestations of friendship and disinterestedness,
and I felt my mind more easy.
He acted his part, assisted by Pattie, who at
my suggestion feigned suddenly to be violently
in love with him, and besieged her father to the
plied, and actually executed the deed of gift which
I mentioned before; by which he secured to her
the revenue accruing upon a sum of forty thousand
dollars, the principal, which he retained in his own
hands in trust, to revert to her at his death; and to
this deed I was myself made a witness.
With these terms, as it seemed there were no
better to be had, I allowed myself to be satisfied;
and trusting to a final reconciliation with my uncle
Wilkins to augment the dowry, I ran to my cousin
Pattie and informed her of her good fortune.
She was filled with repture, and began fairly to
dance with joy; she told me I was the best and
sweetest of cousins, and vowed she would love me
to her dying day. Her joyous spirits fired my
own, and I answered in terms equally ecstatic. In
short, we agreed to elope that very night, and arranged
our plan accordingly. It was agreed I
should have a carriage in waiting at the corner of
the street during the evening, and that Pattie, who
was to feign herself unwell, as an excuse for not
going to Mrs. Pickup's first ball, which was to take
place that evening, should find some means to get
her father out of the way; immediately after which
I, having disposed of the redoubtable Sammy, by
depositing him in the aforesaid Mrs. Pickup's drawing-room,
was to make my appearance, and bear
her in triumph to a reverend divine, previously secured
for the ceremony.
Having settled all these things, and sealed our engagement
me to a secret which nearly froze my blood with
horror.
She informed me that my friend Tickle, disregarding
all his vows of fidelity, had been busy ever
since I brought him into the house besieging her on
his own account; that he had taken every occasion
to undermine me in her affections, by disparaging
my good qualities both of soul and mind, and especially
by assuring her I was “a great ass and fortune-hunter”
(those were his very words); and,
finally, that he had so used the power his knowledge
of our secret had given him, by occasional
threats of betraying it to her father, that she had
been compelled to accept his addresses, and make
him the same promise she had just made me—that
is, to elope with him. The perfidious fellow had
by some means got wind of the deed of gift; and
while I was engaged in signing it, he had paid my
cousin a visit with the same object as myself, and
she had promised to decamp with him. Nay, at
this moment the villain was engaged in securing
his carriage and his parson, with the prospect of
chousing me out of my wife and fortune!
My horror was, however, soon dissipated. My
cousin Pattie had made the engagement only in
self-defence, and she looked upon the whole affair
as the best joke in the world. “How we will cheat
him,” said she; “the base fellow!” and she danced
about, smiling, and laughing, and crying together,
so that it was a delight to see her. “Yes,” said
for I'm sure he deserves no better; for I'm sure
he's just as much of a goose and fortune-hunter as
he said you were; and I'm sure I despise a goose
and fortune-hunter above all things; and I'm sure I
know how to treat a goose and fortune-hunter as
well as anybody. How we'll laugh at him to-morrow!
How he'll stare when he finds I'm gone!
how papa will stare too! How Sammy will stare,
and how he'll whistle! Oh dear! I do love to
cheat people of all things; I do, cousin Ikey; and,
ods fishes, I'm almost half minded to cheat you
too!”
And with that she flung her arms round my neck,
gave me a kiss, and ran laughing away to prepare
for the hour of elopement.
There was an extraordinary coincidence between
the situation of my cousin Pattie and myself. She
had agreed to run away with two different people
at the same moment; and so had I. The day before
my uncle proved unusually crusty and self-willed,
and I began to think I should never effect my point
with him; and, what was equally dispiriting, I fell
among duns, who persecuted me with astonishing
rancour; my uncle's appearance, as it seemed,
serving rather to sharpen than to allay their appetites
for payment. Being thus goaded on by doubt
and dunning, I resolved to make sure of Goldfist's
daughter; which I did by visiting her as soon as
night came, and proposing an elopement on the following
evening; and this it was the more easy to
was fast in bed with a sciatica, or some such vulgar
disorder.
No one could be more willing and delighted than
the fair Alicia; and it appeared that, in anticipation
of the happy event, she had already made all her
preparations, having, as she assured me, arranged
with a friend of hers, at whose house she designed
the ceremony to be performed, ordered secretly a
whole trunk full of bride's clothes, and notified an
old schoolmate whom she had engaged to wait
upon her.
I thought, upon my soul, she was taking matters
pretty easily, and acting somewhat independently;
but she was ignorant of the world, as I said before,
and knew no better. I was still more disgusted with
the thought of being shown off among her friends,
and told her a bridemaid was wholly superfluous;
but she had made her mind up as to what was
right on such an occasion, and I judged it proper
to submit. It was agreed I should meet her at her
friend's house, at nine o'clock in the evening; and
“she hoped,” very modestly, I thought, “that I
would bring some nice pretty fellow to wait on me,
that would make a good match with her dear Julia,
who was the nicest dear soul in the world.”
This “nice dear soul,” as I afterward discovered,
and as I think proper to inform the reader now,
that he may understand into what a slough of democracy
I was rushing, was no less a personage
than a cousin-german of Mr. Snip, my tailor; and
bride of the distinguished I. D. Dawkins was productive
of a casualty expected neither by herself
nor by my adored Alicia.
I laughed in my sleeve at that hint of my Alicia;
and yet I did, after all, provide myself with an attendant,
and one who was perhaps better suited
than any other person I could have lighted on, as
an offset and pendent to the “fair Julia.” This
was my cousin, Sammy Wilkins; and the reason
of my appointing him was this. He was, although
the stupidest creature on earth, of a meddling and
prying nature, and had an extraordinary fancy to
go sneaking after me whithersoever I went—from
admiration and affection, perhaps; but of that I was
not certain; and, at all events, he was a great burden
to me. He discovered my repeated visits to
Skinner's house, and was seized with a stupid curiosity
to know the reason; and, what was still
worse, he made so many observations on my attentions
to, and secret conferences with, his sister
Pattie, that it was clear he suspected there was
something in the wind there too. Being kept in
eternal torment lest he should discover more than
I liked, or, by his indiscreet tattling, awake the suspicions
of others, I saw no better means of averting
the mischief, and turning his eyes from his sister,
than by taking him aside, and telling him, with
many injunctions to secrecy, that I was courting
old Skinner's rich daughter, and wished to have
him wait upon me at the wedding.
Such confidence, coupled with the intention to
do him so much honour, entirely overcame his rustic
imaginations. He swore he approved of marrying
rich wives, and was looking out for one himself,
and hoped I would put him on the track of one;
which I promised, and the clownish juvenile was
content. He looked forward to the great event
with a measure of glee I had never seen him roused
to before, and he ordered a new coat of Snip, that
he might do honour to his service.
It is quite true, I never really intended he should
trouble himself in the matter; but when the fated
evening came, when the loving Alicia, arrayed in
satin and white roses, was awaiting her lover, who
was preparing to run away with her rival, I thought
it better to despatch him to my charmer than to
leave him at Mrs. Pickup's, whence he might stray
at a moment's warning, and, indeed, with no warning
at all. It was quite necessary to have him out
of the way; for which reason I sent him to the
house where Alicia was in waiting, with a special
message to the lady, to make his introduction the
more easy, and a thousand instructions in relation
to nothing.
It was fortunate that my cousin Sammy, though
as great a rustic as ever lived, was, as little troubled
with bashfulness as wisdom. Hence I found no difficulty
in despatching him to my inamorata, whom
he had never laid eyes on, and to her friends, with
regard to whom I was in the same predicament. I
to my great joy, succeeded in getting him out of
the way.
20. CHAPTER XX.
The guests that Sheppard Lee invited to his wedding.
The appointed hour drew nigh, and all things
had gone on swimmingly with one single exception.
The persecution I had endured from Messrs.
Sniggles, Snip, & Co. the day before, I was fated
once more to endure; for, going home to my lodgings
about dusk to put on my best shirt, I found my
chief creditors assembled in solemn divan, or rather
in warlike ambush; and such a troop of bears
and wolves as they were was perhaps never seen
by an unfortunate gentleman before. What had
brought them together, especially at such an unlucky
moment, it was impossible to divine; but it
seems they had had in consideration the state of
my affairs and prospects, and had just come to the
conclusion, as I entered, that they were none the
better off for the coming of my uncle Wilkins, who
(for it appeared the villain Sniggles had been
sounding him on the subject) had disavowed all
responsibility for my debts, and all disposition to
discharge them, in terms not to be mistaken. It
had just been resolved, nem. con., as the saying is,
and that I would cheat them as long as I could, and
that terms, therefore, should be kept with me no
longer.
To this moment my flesh creeps when I think
of the yell the villains set up when I stumbled
among them, and the audacity with which
they heaped on my devoted head their upbraidings,
menaces, and maledictions. They used highly uncivil
language, and some laid their defiling fingers
upon my collar, while all, as with one voice, cried
out to carry me before an alderman, and make a
public spectacle of me at once.
I say my flesh yet creeps while I think of their
ferocious conduct, and I shall remember it to my
death-bed; for of all the various woes and grievances
to which flesh is heir, and which I have had
uncommon opportunities to test, there are none
more truly awful in my recollections than a high
case of dunning.
It was several moments before I could utter a
word in defence; and when I did, having nothing
better to say, I assured the rascals I was just on
the eve of running away with my uncle's daughter,
and of course would be soon able to answer all
their scurvy demands. I told them the time was
fixed, the carriage and parson prepared, and my
fair Pattie in waiting; but, as I had told them many
thousand things before which were not always exactly
true, I found my present assurances received
with so little credit, that I was obliged to give them
invited them to follow me to my uncle's door, and
there station themselves until they beheld me come
forth conducting my bride to the carriage; after
which they might, if they would, follow me in like
manner to the parson: and I engaged, in the confidence
of my heart, if I failed to bring out a wife
according to promise, to follow them, without any
further demur, to the alderman, or to old Nick himself,
which was pretty much the same thing.
This proposal, being highly reasonable, was accepted;
and I had the honour of such an escort to
my uncle's doors as was never before enjoyed by a
bridegroom. The only one who did not accompany
me to my uncle's door was Mr. Snip the tailor;
who, passing a house where lived, as he said, a
young lady of his acquaintance, stepped in to show
one of his customer's new coats that he had on,
promising to follow after us in a moment. As my
stars, or the father of sin, would have it, this young
lady was that identical “dear Julia,” his cousin-german,
of whom I spoke before, and whom he
found rustling in satin, just prepared, as she informed
him, to join her dear Alicia Skinner, who
was to be married to the handsome Mr. Dawkins,
at the house of their friend Mrs. Some-one-or-other.
The tailor was thunderstruck, as tailors doubtless
often are; assured the dear Julia she was mistaken,
and acquainted her with the true state of the
case; the result of which was, as may be understood,
when she had carried her news to the expectant
nature. As for Mr. Snip himself, he rushed out of
the house to bring me to an explanation; but when
he reached the party I had already taken refuge in
my uncle's house.
21. CHAPTER XXI.
Containing a scialogue, or curious conversation with nothing; with
a discovery extremely astonishing to several persons.
I found my cousin Pattie also in her satins, and
Nora Magee, whom she had resolved to take with
her, decked out with extraordinary splendour; and,
what I thought was diverting enough, the creature
had a long bridal veil like her mistress, and as huge
a cloak to conceal her person from observation.
They were prepared to start, with each her bundle
at hand; and they hailed my appearance with delight.
But there was a difficulty before us; my uncle
Wilkins was yet in the house, and so was Sammy.
As for the latter, I soon got rid of him by sending
him to Alicia, as I mentioned before; but my uncle
we could not remove. My cousin's affectation of
sickness (to confirm which, and conceal her nuptial
preparations, she kept aloof in her chamber, or pretended
to do so) concerned him, and he refused to
leave the house; but, being left to himself, we
his rustical propensities.
By-and-by, while we were discoursing upon our
difficulties, we heard a carriage drive by; and just
as it passed the door, the coachman gave three
loud cracks with his whip. It was a sign I had
agreed upon with the fellow, and I knew all was
now in readiness. I proposed that we should instantly
steal down stairs, and—
At that moment I heard the front door softly
open and shut.
“Who's that?” said I.
“Ah! I'm sure I don't know,” said my cousin
Pattie, turning so pale I thought she was going to
fall down in a faint; “perhaps it is Mr. Tickle.
Yes!” she cried, recovering her spirits, and almost
jumping for joy,—“now we'll sort him! I'll show
him how I serve fortune-hunters, I reckon! I'll
lock him up in a closet, I will; and there he shall
kick his heels till morning, and I don't care if the
rats eat him, I don't.—Oh, goody gracious! he's
coming up stairs!” she cried: “was there ever anybody
so impudent? But I'll fix him. Here, cousin
Ikey, do you run in here,”—pointing to her
chamber,—“and don't let him see you.”
“No,” said I, thinking it proper to appear courageous,
“I will face the faithless rascal, and punish
his impertinence on the spot.” I had no idea of
doing any such thing, which, of course, must have
alarmed my uncle, and I intended to yield to Pattie's
fears and importunity, swallow my wrath for
But my display of resistance awoke the indignation
of Nora Magee, who cried, “Och, the divil
take him thin; does he mane to rob us of our husbands?”
and seizing me by the shoulders, she
thrust me towards the chamber.
“Run in, cousin Ikey,” said my cousin, driving
the Irish barbarian away, but seizing me herself,
and urging me into the chamber, while she seemed
dying with suppressed mirth. “You'll see how
Nora will sort him,—you'll hear it. You mustn't
speak a word; and, ods fishes, you must remember
to behave yourself,”—here she seemed more diverted
than ever,—“ods fishes, you must behave yourself
in a lady's chamber.”
At that moment Nora blew out the light, so that
we were left in darkness, and my cousin locked
the door, thus, as I supposed, dividing us from the
enemy. “I say, Pattie, my soul,” said I, whispering
in her ear, “what is Nora going to do with
him?” But she answered me not a word, and I
took that as a hint to hold my own peace. The
next instant I heard a rustling in the next room, and
the voice of Jack Tickle saying softly, and almost
in my own words,
“I say, Pattie, my soul, what did you blow out
the light for? Where are you?—Oh! you divine
creature!” and I heard the smack of a kiss, that
quite astonished me.
“Pattie,” said I, “what the deuse is the meaning
of that?”
But Pattie was as dumb as before. The rustling
was transferred from the antechamber (I had
taught my cousin to call it her boudoir) into the
passage, and I could tell, by the creaking of a step,
that my friend Tickle was going down stairs.
“Pattie,” said I, “what's in the wind now?”
But still Pattie refused to answer me.
While I was wondering at her silence, now that
there was no fear of being overheard, I again distinguished
the sound of the house door softly opened
and shut.
“I say, Pattie,” said I, “what the devil is all
that? and pray why don't you speak?”
It occurred to me that her silence was all owing
to a fit of bashfulness, caused by her having me
locked up in the chamber with her.
“Pattie,” said I, reaching out my hands, but
without being able to reach her, “you shouldn't
be bashful nor nothing, considering we're to be
married in less than half an hour. I say, Pattie,
what are we to do now? where are you?”
While I spoke I heard a carriage again rattle
by the door, and, to my astonishment, the coachman
saluted the house with three such cracks of
his whip as my own had given a few minutes
before.
“Pattie,” said I, while a cold sweat broke over
my limbs, “where are you, and why don't you
speak?”
I felt about the door for her, but felt in vain;
I listened for the sound of her breath, hoping she
but not a breath was to be heard; I went feeling
about the chamber, and with as little effect.
A horrible suspicion seized upon my fancy.
There were two doors to the apartment, one opening
upon the passage, the other into the boudoir;
and both were locked as fast as doors could be.
Where was the key my cousin Pattie turned
when we entered the chamber together? It was
gone. I discovered its absence, and looked round
the chamber in astonishment and dismay.
At that moment some person in Mr. Periwinkle
Smith's house, which was right opposite, entered a
front chamber therein with a light, which streamed
into the windows of Pattie's apartment with a lustre
sufficient to make every object visible. My
cousin Pattie was not to be seen! I looked under
the bed, and into the bed; examined the presses,
and peeped behind the chairs; but no cousin Pattie
was to be found. She had locked me in the
chamber, but not herself! Horror of horrors! she
had played a trick upon me! she had jilted me! and
—ay! there was no doubting it a moment longer—
she had run off with my friend Tickle! “I'll show
you how I serve fortune-hunters,” said she—“lock
him up in a closet—kick his heels till morning—
eaten up by rats—shall hear yourself how I'll serve
your rival Tickle.” Death and destruction! and,
after all, she has run away with him!—eloped in
the very carriage I provided! married by the parson
I engaged! decamped with the forty thousand
I—was the person left kicking my heels in a closet!
The idea filled me with phrensy; and the light
from Mr. Periwinkle Smith's house being removed
at the moment, I tumbled over a chair that lay in
my way, and besides breaking my head and shin,
woke up such a din in the house that the very
servants in the kitchen bounced up in alarm, and
screamed out for assistance.
“What's the matter, Pattie?” said my uncle
Wilkins, turning the key which the faithless creature
had left sticking in the outside of the door, and
entering: “I say, Pattie, ods bobs, what's the—
Lord bless us, cousin Ikey! is that you? what's
the matter? what are you doing in Pattie's chamber?”
I answered my uncle Wilkins only by opening
my mouth as wide as I could, and staring at him
in anguish, horror, and despair.
“Where's Pattie?” said he, in alarm.
The question restored me to my faculties.
“Eloped,” said I; “cheated me beyond all expression,
and run off with my rival Jack Tickle.”
“What a fool!” said my uncle, recovering his
composure; “I'm sure I never opposed her.”
“So much for not giving her to me!” said I.
“To you!” said my uncle.
“Uncle Wilkins,” said I, “from this moment I
shall cut your acquaintance. Pattie has jilted me
so horribly you can't conceive, and has married
Jack Tickle!”
“Well,” said my uncle, “where's the harm?
To be sure, and a'n't he as good now as worth
ten thousand a year?”
“Not worth a cent!” said I, shaking my fists at
the old gentleman—and then drumming on my own
breast—“not worth a cent, and down in every tailor's
books in town, except Snip's, who wouldn't
trust him.”
“Oh, you villain!” said my uncle Wilkins,
“how you've cheated me!”
He ran down stairs, and I after him; he was
bent upon pursuing his daughter—and so was I.
22. CHAPTER XXII.
In which Sheppard Lee finds that he has made the fortune of his
friends, without having greatly advantaged his own.
As we reached the foot of the staircase, the
house door opened, and in came my friend Tickle,
dragged along—not by our dear and faithless Pattie,
as we fondly supposed, but by the raging Nora
Magee.
“Help, murder, help!” cried my friend Tickle.
“Och, murder, and twenty murders more upon
ye, ye chatin crathur! and won't ye marry me?”
cried Nora Magee.
My uncle Wilkins and myself rushed forward,
lost in amazement, and separated the fury from her
where is Pattie?”
“The devil is the matter,” cried Jack, panting
and blowing; “and where Pattie is I know no
more than you. I thought I was running away
with her until I reached the squire's; and then I
found I had this wild Indian under her cloak, who
insisted I should marry her, or else—”
“Ay, ye murderin, faithless villain!” said Nora
Magee, “I'll marry ye, or I'll have the breaches of
promise and the damages out of ye! Och, but I
have the law of ye; for didn't my Missus Pattie
promise ye should marry me? I say, ye ugly-faced,
hin-souled Tickle that they call ye, I have
the law of ye, and I'll be married before the squire,
or I'll have the breaches out of ye!”
“My breeches,” said Jack, “you may have, and
my coat and waistcoat too; for may I be hanged
and quartered if I am not cheated out of my very
skin.”
“Where's my daughter Pattie?” said my uncle
Wilkins. He looked at me, and I looked at him;
it was plain my cousin Pattie had not run away
with my friend Tickle.
Where could she be? I began to recover my
spirits, when they were suddenly put to flight by a
knock at the door, which being opened, a letter was
thrown in, the messenger instantly taking to his
heels, so that no one beheld him. It was a letter
to my uncle Wilkins. He opened it and read the
following words:—
“Dear Papa and honoured Father:
“This is to inform you that I don't like Mr.
Tickle, and so can't marry him; and hope you will
excuse me for following my own fancies, being now
independent, as you have made me, for which I
will remain your dutiful, loving daughter for life
Give my love to cousin Dully, and tell him I con
sider him my best friend next to my dear papa and
my dear husband—for, oh, papa, I'm really married,
and going off travelling to-morrow.
“Hope you'll forgive us, papa, and shall ever
love and pray for you, and rest your loving, dutiful
children,
Pattie and Danny Baker.”
“Danny Baker!” roared my uncle; “Danny
Baker!” groaned I. The clodhopper had got her,
and I had been only toiling in his service!
“Oh, you villain!” said my uncle Wilkins, “this
is all your doings!”
“Sir,” said I, “no hard words.”
“You're a villain!” said my uncle; “you wanted
to steal her yourself, and I a'n't sorry Danny
Baker has choused you out of her; and for that
reason I don't care if I forgive him. Yes, sir, I'll
forgive Danny Baker; but for you, sir, I owe you
a debt—”
“If you do,” said Tickle, “pay him.” But we
took no notice of him—my uncle because he was
enraged, and I because I was devoured by the
greatness of my misfortune. In truth, the loss of
my cousin Pattie was so unexpected, that it had astounded
a mere automaton, conscious, indeed, of being in a
horrible quandary, but incapable of seeing my way
out of it; when I suddenly heard the voice, as I
thought (or some one very like it), of my cousin
Sammy at the door.
This roused me at once; I remembered that at
this moment my Alicia was waiting for me, and I
fell into a rapture.
“Uncle Wilkins,” said I, “you may say what
you please; Jack Tickle, you are a rascal; Nora
Magee, you are a jade; but it is all one to I. D.
Dawkins. I will marry my Miss Skinner.”
As I spoke I looked upon the door, which, opening,
disclosed a sight that petrified me, body and
soul together. It was the apparition of my Alicia,
in bridal array, leaning upon the arm of my cousin
Sammy, and followed by a brace of youthful damsels
decked in white flowers, all of whom stalked
into the door with the solid step of flesh and blood,
and advanced towards my uncle; my Alicia looking
as silly and shame-faced as could be, while Sammy,
on the contrary, held up his head and strutted like
a turbaned Turk in the midst of his harem.
“What the deuse is all this?” said Jack Tickle.
As for me, I could not speak a word, being a hundred
fold more amazed than before. I looked at
my Alicia, who, seeing me, began to blush, and bridle,
and simper, and hold fast to Sammy's arm. As
for Sammy, he looked not a whit the less Turkish,
the head of a regiment.
The old gentleman was as much astonished as
myself, and at last cried out,
“Ods bobs! what's the matter, Sam? have you
been running away, too?”
“No,” said my cousin Sammy, “I reckon I'm
not gone yet; but I've come to get ready: and
first, dad, as in duty bound, let's have a bit of your
blessing, if you've no objection, on me and my
wife.”
“Your wife!!!” said I, and said no more.
“Well,” said my cousin Sammy, “I reckon I
may say so; for you see, Dawkins, my boy, when
I saw 'Lishy here, I liked her; and when July here
came and told us as how you had run off with sister
Pat Wilkins, why, then, said I, I may as well
speak up for myself; and so, as the parson was
ready, and 'Lishy dressed up to be married already,
we made but short work of the courtship; and now,
as the saying is, one and one is one: this here is
my wife, for better and for worse, and I hope neither
you nor father has any objection.”
23. CHAPTER XXIII.
A crisis. Sheppard Lee is reduced to great extremities, and takes
refuge in the house of mourning.
I never knew what my uncle Wilkins replied to
the aforesaid speech, the longest I ever heard my
cousin Sammy utter, nor do I know what reception
he gave to the bride. I made but one jump to
the front door, where my horror was consummated.
My departure was greeted by an uproarious cry;
but it proceeded from the street, not the house. I
found myself among the Philistines, whom, an hour
before, I had myself placed there in wait. I had forgotten
the barbarians, which was natural enough, as
they were my creditors; but they had not forgotten
me. They hailed my appearance on the steps
with some such yell of wrath and hunger as that
with which the beasts of a menagerie express their
joy at the appearance of their daily meal.
That cry was the finisher. I leaped from the
steps and took to my heels, not, however, without
leaving in the hands of my tailor one tail of the last
coat he had made me; which was, I believe, the
only payment I ever made him. My hat flew into
the gutter; and that was perhaps recovered by its
maker; in which case, it was doubtless brushed
up and sold over again as a new one. I fled like
the wind; my creditors followed me. The clatter
threw the street into a tumult. Some persons yelled
“murder!” and others cried “stop thief!” while
the little boys, catching up the cry from a distance,
screamed out “fire!” and ran to the nearest engine-house,
to enjoy their evening amusement.
How long I ran, and whither, it is quite impossible
for me to say. I recollect doubling two
or three times, and diving into alleys, to throw my
pursuers off the track. My efforts were, however,
in vain; I found myself lodged at last in a
vile alley, and hemmed in both on the front and
rear. I made a leap at a garden gate, which I cleared;
then running forward, and perceiving a back
door in a house standing open, I rushed in, scarce
knowing what I did.
I immediately discovered that I was in a sort
of servants' hall, or anteroom to the kitchen, in
which an old woman sat sleeping in an arm-chair.
She was disturbed by the noise of my entrance, and
I dreaded every moment to see her open her eyes,
and by her shrieks draw my pursuers after me. I
was afraid, however, to retreat, for, in the confusion
of my mind, I thought I heard my tormentors
rushing to and fro in the garden.
In this uncertainty, seeing a flight of stairs in one
corner of the room, I darted up them, without reflecting
a moment upon what might be the consequences.
But what evil could happen to me more horrid than
that I was fleeing? I might stumble into a lady's
chamber and throw her into hysterics, or I might
sleeping with a brace of pistols under his pillow,
the contents of which he might transfer to my
body. But such catastrophes had now lost their
terrors: it was all one to I. D. Dawkins, as I had
said to my uncle Wilkins. I could receive no addition
to my woes, go whither and do whatsoever
I might.
I rushed up the stairs, therefore, and entered a
chamber, where a tallow candle, burning all on one
side, stood flaring on a little table, among vials,
gallipots, and other furniture of a sick chamber,
throwing a dim and spectral light on a bed near to
which it stood. I cast my eyes upon the bed, and
perceived I had nothing to fear, either from timorous
ladies or nervous gentlemen.
24. CHAPTER XXIV.
What happened in the dead-chamber.—The dirge of a wealthy
parent.
Upon that couch lay the ghastly spectacle of a
human corse, stiff and cold. It was that of an
old man, and I thought at first that he slept; but,
upon looking closer, I perceived that he had been
dead for at least an hour; and it appeared as if he
had died untended by friend or servant, for the
bedclothes had been nearly tossed from the bed in
his last convulsion, and now lay tumbled about his
features were greatly distorted, having an expression
of rage upon them that was highly disagreeable
to look on; yet I had a vague feeling that I had
seen him before.
While I was wondering who he could be, I perceived
a paper clutched in his right hand; and,
taking it to the light, the secret was at once revealed.
It was a letter from my adorable Alicia to her
father, dated that very evening, in which she gave
him to understand, in the most romantic language
in the world, that his opposition to her wishes in
relation to her beloved Dawkins had broken her
heart—that she could never think of marrying any
one else (as if, indeed, the old gentleman ever
wished her)—that she could not live without her
Dawkins, and accordingly had made up her mind
to fly with him afar from parental severity; and
concluded by assuring him that “when he read
those lines, penned by a grieved and determined,
but still dutifully loving heart” (she said nothing
of her fingers), “she would be in the arms of a
lawful husband.” There was appended a postscript,
in which she expressed much contrition, hoped he
would forgive her, and hinted that she would be
of age in two months.
I looked at the old man again, and wondered I
had not known him before. It was old Skinner,
sure enough, and the secret of his death was readily
explained. He had been sick before, and this
necessity, so romantically hinted at in the conclusion,
of settling, two months thereafter, his guardian's
account with her husband, had done his business.
I did not suppose the wound in his parental
feelings had done him much hurt; but there was
more, perhaps, in that, than any one would have
thought that knew the old miser.
And there he lay, then the owner of thousands
and hundreds of thousands, with none to mourn
him—nay, with not even a hand to smooth the bed-robe
over his neglected body. He had squandered
health, happiness, good name, and perhaps self-approbation,
the true riches of man, in the pursuit
of the lucre which cannot purchase back again one
of these treasures; and notwithstanding which lucre
he was now, and indeed had been at his death-hour,
no better off than the beggar in his coffin of
deal. He had heaped up gold for his children,
that they might begrudge him the breath drawn in
pain and infirmity, and rejoice in the moment of
his death. He had— But why should I moralize
over a subject worn just as threadbare as any other.
The old fellow was a miser, and met the miser's
fate. Nobody accused even his children of loving
him; and while I stood by his side, I had a stronger
proof of their regard than spoke in the neglected
appearance of his deathbed. I had scarce entered
the room before I heard, from some of the apartments
below, the sounds of mirth and festivity.
They were not to be mistaken; it was plain that
one of the old fellow's parlours; and I doubted not
they were his two sons, Ralph and Abbot, both of
whom had very bad characters, the latter in particular,
who was a notorious profligate. They were
young men of promise, I had heard; but the avarice
of the parent had ruined them. Their education
neglected from indifference, or a miserable
spirit of parsimony, their minds and morals uncultivated,—the
consciousness of their father's wealth
and their own golden prospects at his decease
stimulated them to excesses, which were perhaps
rendered still more agreeable to their imaginations,
and certainly more destructive to their weal, by
the difficulty of indulging in them, resulting from
the niggardliness of their father.
But the reign of denial was now over; the rattle
and crash of glasses and vessels in the room below,
the tumbling down of chairs and tables, with the
sounds of singing, shouting, and laughter, proclaimed
with what a lusty lyke-wake the abandoned sons
were honouring the memory of their father—with
what orgies of Bacchus they were celebrating their
own deliverance from restraint. Suddenly the sound
of the singing grew louder, as if some door between
the revellers and the dead had been opened; and
a moment after I perceived, from the increase and
direction of the uproar, that the sots were ascending
the stairs, and perhaps approaching the chamber
of death.
An idea seized upon my mind. I was heartily
that moment to exchange it for a dog's, and I was
incensed at the heartless and brutal rejoicings of
the young Skinners. It occurred to me, if I could
get my spirit into old Goldfist's body, I should
avoid all dunning for the future, and give these two
reprobate sons of his such a lesson as would last
them to their dying day.
The idea came to me like a blaze of sunshine; I
remembered in a moment the vast wealth of the deceased,
and I pictured to my imagination the glorious
use I should make of it. I had always hated
and despised the old villain; but a sudden affection
for him now seized upon my soul. I had a strong
persuasion in me, resulting from my two former
adventures, that I possessed the power of entering
any human body which I found to my liking; and I
resolved to exercise it, or, at the worst, to make
proof of its existence, for a third time. Of the
manner of exercising the power I knew but little; I
remembered, however, that, on the former occasions,
I had merely uttered a wish, and the transformation
was instantly completed. I stepped up to the body,
and chuckling with the idea of chousing the unnatural
sons out of their expected inheritance, I said,
“Old Goldfist, if you please, I wish to be in
your body!”
In less than a second of time I found myself
starting up from the bed, as if I had just been roused
from sleep by the noise of some falling body,
and exclaiming “What's that?”
I looked over the side of the bed, and saw the
body of I. D. Dawkins lying on the floor on its face.
The transformation was complete, and had been so
instantaneous, that my spirit heard, through the organs
of its new tenement, the downfall of its old. I
felt a little bewildered, indeed posed, and remained
upon my elbow staring about the room; and I may
add, that I was more disconcerted by the bacchanalian
voices now at the chamber door, than by any
thing else.
The door opened, and the young Skinners entered;
I shall remember them to my dying day; they
were both royally drunk, and each armed with a
candle, with which, scattering the tallow over the
floor as they advanced, they came staggering and
hiccoughing into the chamber.
“I say, bravo, dad, and no offence,” said the foremost,
“but don't feel so sorry as I ought; and
here's Ralph a'n't sorry neither.”
“Led us a devilish hard life of it,” grumbled the
other, “but shall have something done for his soul
by the Catholics. I say, Abby, shall buy that black
horse and the buggie.”
“And a tombstone for dad,” said the worthy
Abbot, laying his candle upon the table, and striking
an attitude like a dancing-master, which, however,
he could not keep. “I say, Ralph,” he went
on, “it isn't right to say so, but don't you feel good?
Three hundred thousand apiece, dammee! I say,
Ralph, let us dance.”
And the villains took hands, and attempted a pas
old woman, who had been sleeping below, and was
roused by the fall of my late body, came running
into the room, to see what was the matter. By
this time the dogs had chassé'd up so nigh to the
bed, that, for the first time, they laid their eyes upon
the reanimated countenance of their father.
The effect was prodigious; the moment before
their faces were all drunkenness and triumph—now
they were all drunkenness and horror. The light
of the candle held by Ralph flashed over my visage;
but Abbot was the first to observe me resting
on my elbow, and staring at him with looks of
wrath and indignation.
“Lord love us, Ralph,” said he, “dad's coming
to!”
“Yes, you villains!” said I, “I am coming to;
you unnatural, undutiful rascals, I have come to!”
They looked upon me, and upon one another,
unutterably confounded, and I wondered myself
that I did not laugh at them. Their confusion,
however, only filled me with rage, and I railed at
them with as much emphasis and sincerity as if I
had been their father in earnest.
They dropped on their knees; but their rueful
appearance only added to my fury. I stormed and
I scolded, until, being quite exhausted with the effort,
a film came over my eyes, and I fell back in
a swoon.
| Sheppard Lee | |