University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

THE new firm commenced business under as favorable
prospects, perhaps, as any firm that ever has been established
in the commercial emporium. With a large capital,
an established correspondence, a good name and multitudes
of friends, success could hardly be considered within the possibility
of doubt. But it is not every ship that sails on a fair
day that arrives safely in port; and we have known more
than one to set sail in a storm and arrive at her haven in sun-shiney
weather. We shall know all before long. Let us
hope for the best.

We have already seen taht Tom and John were provided
with desks, but no mention was made of Fred who, although
older than Tremlett, had to take rank as the junior partner,
a position which caused his proud and chivalrous heart to
swell in his bosom, and determined him to make up in externals
for his lack of consequence in position. He therefore
had a costly and magnificent desk made for his own accommodation,
with a great number of drawers, for novels, segars, perfumery
and brushes, visiting cards, a small mirror, and a great
variety of other articles equally necessary in a merchant's
counting room; it was manufactured of rose-wood and inlaid
with box and ivory in a very ingenious manner, and the
whole was enclosed by a curtain of violet colored silk, so that

he could pursue his important and abstruse calculations without
being annoyed by his partners or casual visitors. His
chair was a face simile of the senatorial chairs at Washington,
excepting only that the seat was covered with scarlet morocco,
that had been imported from Paris for a Wall Street Broker,
who had the misfortune to run away before it arrived. When
his brother saw this elegant adornment of the counting room
brought in, he ripped out an oath in his coarse manner, but
John barely smiled, and continued writing his letter. The truth
is they were neither much versed in æsthetics as Fred told
them, and for which reason he held them both in very hearty
contempt. Most of the clerks of the old firm were retained
by the new one, although, for reasons well known to himself,
Tom had contrived that no one should retain his original
position except the book-keeper, Mr. Bates, and the foreign
corresponding clerk Mr. Keckschnipen, who was quite a
miracle of a linguist, being able to write French like a German,
and English like a Frenchman, and Spanish like a
Swede, and Swedish like a Spaniard, and as they had correspondents
in all those languages, his services were indispensable,
and he received a round salary for them. Tom assumed
the financial department, his fitness for which no body ventured
to question; John was to superintend the purchases and
sales and go on `change' Fred had the agreeable duty,
generally assigned to junior partners in large houses, of entertaining
the foreign correspondents who might visit the city,
and doing the agreeable to bearers of letters of introduction;
generally gentlemen of a distingué air with moustachios
and dirty linen, and a great profusion of diamond bosom studs
and prodigious finger rings. Jeremiah at first held on to the
cash-book, but a circumstance, which our candor as an impartial
historian will not allow us to keep from the reader,
caused him to be removed from that important station, and the
domestic correspondence was placed in his charge. The
very morning after the partnership was formed, the porter
brought in a large number of letters from the post office, mostly
addressed to the old firm, and among them was one for
John, with the Charleston post mark, directed in a strange
unmercantile hand, and sealed with a very broad seal, bearing
a great profusion of heraldic scrolls and figures, and a latin
motto. Jeremiah's curiosity was so strongly excited by this
strange looking missive, that he was tempted to take it up, and
endeavor, by holding it up to the light and peeping in between
the folds, to discover who it was from, and while he was
engaged in this very wicked and disreputable act, Mr. T. Jefferson
Tuck came in. Jeremiah blushed at being caught in
such an act, and hastily threw the letter on John's desk and
was about to withdraw to hide his confusion, when Mr. Tuck
called him back.

“So, Mr. Jernegan,” said the upright financier, with a
frown of indignant honesty, “you open other people's letters,
do you sir?”

“I never did such a thing,” said Jeremiah, while a blush
of shame suffused his pale cheek.

“You never did such a thing!” repeated the financier, with
a sneer, “how dare you say so to me, sir, when I saw you
trying to peep into that letter, sir; trying to steal a secret, sir,
which you must have known was never intended for you.”

“I did not suppose there could be anything wrong in it.”

“You did not? Well, sir, that aggravates your fault.
What security have I that my letters will not be opened, with
a man who does not think it wrong to do such things, about
me. You don't think it wrong, sir, at which of your
churches did you hear that doctrine preached, sir?”

“I frankly confess that it was wrong, and that I am very
sorry for it; it was thoughtlessly done, but it was not your
letter, and I will take the consequences from Mr. Tremlett,
who alone has any right to speak to me about it; the letter
was for him—” said Jeremiah.

“Gracious God,” exclaimed the financiering partner in

amazement, “how dare you make use of such language to
your employer; you reprobate, I will have you turned into the
street for your audacity, and I will see that you enter no counting
house in this city. You have not got energy enough to
do a bold deed of villany like a a man, but you must go prowling
about like a mousing cat prying into other people's secrets,
you feline scamp. Give me your cash-book, sir, and close
the door.”

Jeremiah did as he was ordered, and had the pleasure of
being sneered at and hissed by the other clerks in the outer
office, who were not only shocked at his want of moral rectitude
but absolutely and thoroughly disgusted at his want of courage
two qualities so peculiar to the whole human race, and particularly
to clerks in counting rooms, that they well might be
indignant; but they did, nevertheless, out of pure good nature
and kindly regard, one and all advise him to go in and give
Mr. Tuck a flogging and then resign his situation. This
they considered more incumbent upon him to do, because
the financier was tall, stout, and active, and he was himself
extremely weak and slightly built, and altogether a stranger
to the noble art of flogging. As for Mr. Bates, it made him
really sick to see such a craven spirit as Jeremiah manifested,
and he felt in a hurry to get home to tell his wife about it.
Jeremiah did not exactly enjoy the thing, although he said
nothing to the contrary, but he bit his lip until the blood
trickled down upon his shirt-bosom. He had resolved not to
open his mouth until he saw John, and it was a great effort
not to do so.

The financier felt extremely pleasant at having had so
good an opportunity to show the clerks, and Jeremiah in particular,
what kind of materials he was composed of, that they
might know what their fate would be if either of them should
ever presume to cross his inclinations. He took up the letter
that had excited Jeremiah's curiosity so strongly, and tried to
decipher the motto on the seal, but he could only make out

one word “libertas” and something like “cara” or “caria,”
or both; the crest was a bunch of feathers, and some other
device peculiarly democratic which he thought too lightly of
to inspect closely. It was evidently not a business letter and
there was something about it strangely stimulating to his
curiosity. He locked the door of the office on the inside and
very ingeniously by means of an ivory paper cutter turned
the letter inside out without breaking the wax or tearing it in
the smallest manner. It was an art that required great practice
to enable one to reach perfection, and by long practice
he had become very expert. As the letter contained no secrets,
we give it to the reader, although it will scarcely repay
a perusal, as it relates solely to private matters in no manner
essential to the advancement of our history.

It read thus:

We should be extremely sorry to encumber our page with
the coarse expletives of Tom Tuck as he refolded this pious
letter and threw it upon John's desk. What he could have
discovered in the feeling and respectful letter of the good doctor,
to cause him to apply to that excellent divine such terms
as the “old sinner,” “the beast,” and many infinitely worse
epithets is in truth a matter of mystery to us. But it appeared
to be a peculiarity of the financier's mind, to apply to all
who were elevated by virtue or piety above him, the terms
which should of right have been applied to himself. It may,
perhaps, be proper to state in this place, that, for some reason
of which we are ignorant, John never answered this letter,
and whether or no the wench were called after Julia, we
have never been able to learn. If any of the doctor's children
are living, and will inform us of the facts, we will state them
in our next edition.

Tom Tuck having satisfied his curiosity, proceeded to tear
open the business letters which lay upon his desk, and before
he had finished reading them, John came in. The financier
told him in part what had occurred between Jeremiah and
himself, and added that either he or Jeremiah must quit the
concern.

“Very well,” replied John, “if that is your will, the firm
is dissolved. I will have no part or lot in the business unless
he is employed.” And he said this in so firm and positive a
manner, that Tom was confounded, and fearing to persist lest

his partner should carry his threat into execution, he at last
compromised, after some sharp words, by agreeing that Jeremiah
should take the sole charge of the domestic correspondence
of the firm, and that he would himself, to save the expense
of another clerk, assume the duties of cash-keeper. But
this was, in fact, all he had aimed at in the first place; like
the majority of smart fellows from the days of the somewhat
noted treasurer of the twelve, down to the present time, he
aimed at the possession of the bag, and he obtained it. But
he did not, therefore, forgive Jeremiah for the offence he had
committed, because he had himself gained his point, and he
concentrated his wrath and kept it close, so that when an opportunity
should occur for pouring it out, it might descend
with greater bitterness and force. His brother was full as
hostile to Jeremiah although for different reasons; he hated
him because he never read novels, because he had no spirit,
because he never smoked, and he despised him for his ugly
face, his low connexions, his want of taste, and because he
had no appreciation of the beautiful, and knew nothing about
æsthetics, not so much as the meaning of the word. Fred
Tuck was a great patron of the arts, and a very great favorite
with artists, he had in fact been elected an honorary member
of “the Academy,” and it was one of the finest things
imaginable to hear him talk of the old masters, and the antique.
He had even written critical notices of pictures for the
papers, and had, therefore, almost as good a claim to be ranked
among the literati as among the cognoscenti. That a person
of his superior taste and critical acumen, should have a
thorough and hearty contempt for such a low-minded being
as Jeremiah was not only perfectly natural, but almost unavoidable.
The first letter that Jeremiah wrote was criticized
in a very severe manner by the Junior partner, he discovered
several t's that were not crossed and more than one i that was
destitute of its most essential feature, a dot, besides a redundant
preposition; but the greatest error of all, one that he swore
he never would forgive to his dying day was the omission of
an s in the last name of the firm, for Jeremiah signed p. p.
(per procuration) and he could not convince the offended gentleman
that he had not omitted the letter on purpose. It happened,
unfortunately, that John was not present, or the matter
would have been very soon disposed of; and the corresponding
clerk after enduring a torrent of abuse, was dismissed to
his desk with a caution to be careful in future.

Having thus seen the new firm in operation, we will leave
the partners to conduct their business while we look after
those matters which in the out-door life of a man are supposed
to be of no possible consequence, but which are, in reality, the
only things in life worth the serious notice of human beings
—we mean the issues of the affections.