University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
THE LEVEE AT SATCHELL'S.

The expression of the lawyer's face did not alter upon seeing
who his visitor was, so that it could not be guessed whether he
were glad or sorry to behold him. His countenance neither bore
the bland aspect of a welcome, nor the stern look of repulse. If
there was any peculiarity of expression to his dark features, it was
a slight ludicrous twist to them, caused by a feeling of lingering
pain in the palm of the hand, burned by the hot handle of the tea-kettle.

“Good afternoon, or rather good evening, squire,” said the man
in the olive-tinted gloves, lifting his hat with an air of respectful
consideration, as if his better spirit were awed by the spirit of the
lawyer. “You see I am here to my appointment. Always keep
punctual time! Punctuality is the greatest human virtue that can
adorn humanity in my humble estimation!”

“Humph,” ejaculated Satchell, with something like contempt
for him. “Sit down, and let me hear what you have done?”

And locking the door he returned to his chair, and resting his
arm upon the corner of the table and dropping his chin into the
hollow of his hand, he fixed his eyes steadfastly upon the delicate
red and white cheeks and small pale eyes of the gentleman in
olives.

“Well, I have found a store,—a capital store! I had not the
least difficulty in the world!”

“In what street?”

“—street, No. 34.”

“Who is the landlord?”

“Mr. Wells,—Mr. George Wells,” added the speaker, refreshing
his memory by glancing at a paper in the top of his hat which
rested on his knees.

“I know him! He is a good sort of a man for our purpose.”

“So I hope. But you are sure there is no danger, squire?” inquired
rather anxiously Mr. Peter Pindle, for this was the name of
the prim gentleman.

“I have closely examined the law, and can assure you there is
none whatever. You cannot be touched by a criminal prosecution,
that is if you are guided by me in all points.”

“That we shall be, sir. We place the utmost confidence in your
judgment, sir, and knowledge of the laws. You know if we make
ourselves liable it will be a bad job, a very bad job.”

“The worst that can come against you will be a civil suit; but
I have satisfied your senior partner, Mr. Swindle, on that score.”

“Oh, ah, I dare say. If he is satisfied, I am.”

“I should suppose so; for Mr. Swindle is a man of experience
and sense. I mean no insinuations, Mr. Pindle,” added Satchell,
with a sardonic expression about the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, not the least, sir—not the least,” answered Mr. Pindle, in
a quick, satisfied way. “You seem to have just been about taking
tea, hey? Don't let me interrupt you. I can amuse myself till
Swindle comes in, looking over your books or the papers. Bless
me, what a lot of odds and ends though! I wonder how you find
any thing. Now I keep every thing in place. I am called a very
neat man, Mr. Satchell. I confess I am something so—a little precise
as it were. You see I have the bump of order marvellously
large! (Here Mister Pindle raised his fore-finger, and placed it
delicately so as not to disturb the nice arrangement of his hair, upon
the organ of self-esteem!) It is large you see, squire. The ladies
call me a pink, indeed they do! Now do you know, Switchell—”

“My name is Satchell, sir,” interrupted the lawyer, who did not
seem to be at all noticing him, being busily putting some tea into a
tea-pot.

“'Pon word, so 'tis. Beg pardon. I do confess I'm forgetful at
times. Now do you—”

“What time will Mr. Swindle be here?” interrupted the lawyer,

snapping him up with a sort of surly growl, something as an
old cross mastiff receives the annoyances of a pert puppy.

“At seven precise, Mr. Satchell,—'pon word I like to said
Switchell!”

“And the other parties, are they to be here?”

“That I can't positively say; but Swindle knows. He keeps
every thing to himself like a Plomatician.”

“It is now ten minutes to seven,” said the lawyer, looking at a
large silver watch that lay upon the table, with a long steel chain
and smooth gold seal appended.

“Prezactly, Mr. Satchell,” repeated Mister Pindle, taking from
his vest pocket a very small ladies' gold lepine, and looking at it
with an air and in a way to make the most display of it. “'Pon
word, you must find it exceedingly dull living here alone; do your
own cooking too!”

“My housekeeping suits me, Mr. Pindle,” responded Satchell,
sticking a piece of bread upon a fork and setting it down to the fire,
before which he had previously put his tea to steep on a few coals.
“I am a plain liver, and a plain eater.”

“But it's so odd! People say you are so rich too! But it looks
awfully poor to live so!” Here the precise pinky gentleman looked
about the room, and then rested his eyes upon the culinary operations
with a slight shudder of delicate abhorrence.

The lawyer having toasted his bread very deliberately, quite as
deliberately as if his visitor had been a shadow, and made his tea,
poured out a cup of it, to which he added milk and brown sugar
from a pewter bowl, and pitcher which he took from the cupboard
over the mantel-piece. He then buttered his toast, and with a piece
of smoked herring as a relish, proceeded very composedly to eat his
supper on the corner of his table, his cup resting on Chitty's Pleadings,
his saucer on a copy of the Revised Statues, and his plate
upon the open volume of the Records of the Court of Sessions, while
his sugar bowl and cream-pot found a clear place of the table for
their accommodation.

Mr. Satchell ate and Mister Peter Pindle gazed in silence, as if he
thought it dangerous to interrupt the lion at his food. At length,
the lawyer rose up, after having drank four cups of tea, eaten four
slices of toast, and consumed a herring and a half, bones and all,
greatly to the amazement and curiosity of his spectator, who, with
his feet placed sharp up to supply the want of a fourth leg to the
chair, and his body bending forward, never took his eyes from
him until he had done.

The lawyer rose up to put away his dishes and light his pipe,
which when he had done it and re-seated himself, he began to
smoke with an air of the most enviable composure and utter contempt
of the presence of Mr. Peter Pindle, thereby showing that he
was a very independent man, or else that Mr. Peter Pindle, spite of
his olive-tinted gloves and pants and blue cloak, dapper hat and
fashionable toed boots, was nobody.

And Mr. Prindle was not much of any body. His history up to

this time can be told in a few sentences. He was the son of a tallow
chandler in a thriving town not far from Plymouth Rock, and
being by nature of a fair complexion and delicate personal appearance,
he had been put behind a man-milliner's store, to sell tape,
silk ribbons, and other articles usually sold by females. If possible
his occupation rendered him still more effeminate than before.—
Finally, he got to be a junior partner in a retail thread and needle
store, and being smart, ambitious, and wholly destitute of principle,
using truth and falsehood indiscriminately, just as they would serve
his purpose, he made money and got credit. By and by his partner
died, and he took into copartnership a fashionable dry goods dealer,
and combined the two kinds of business. In a year or two he
dropped the thread and needle part of the business, and moving
into a fashionable store, devoted himself to the retail dry goods
selling. His credit increased. He filled the papers with his long,
flashy advertisement, till Peter Pindle's name, though he was but
a dapper, kid-glove little man, made a great show and as often met
the eyes as Brandreth's.

But Mr. Pindle lived very expensively, boarding at the most
stylish hotel, and spending money very lavishly upon enjoyments.
He got into debt, and times becoming hard, even so that fashionable
ladies saved their money and let their last fashions go another season;
he was forced to close his mahogany doors and plate-glass
windows, the landlord placing upon them a placard, “To Let.”

Mr. Pindle, however, was still Mr. Pindle, though he was in debt
and could not pay twenty cents in the dollar. He succeeded in
getting credit again and stocking anew, and in six months sold out
“at cost,” and failed a second time.

It was impossible for him to get credit again, though he had impudence
enough to try it. He was known and marked. He at
length left his hotel and took lodgings less conspicuous, and his circumstances
growing desperate, he began to cast about in his mind
how he should retrieve his circumstances. There chanced to board
at the same house with him a broken speculator by the name of
Swindle, a man about forty years of age, who had been at one time
in his life worth a hundred thousand dollars, but now was in debt
for his last quarter's board, without means to meet it.

There is always a secret sympathy and instinctive understanding
between the minds of unprincipled men, even before they speak
with each other. They seem at a glance to measure one another,
and to recognize a likeness to themselves.

Pindle had not been three days in his new quarters when he saw
that Swindle was a man after his own heart; and Swindle saw
that Pindle was quite as desperate a character as himself. The
two men came together naturally without introduction, and soon
formed an intimacy based upon similarity of characters, condition,
and hopes.

The result of their growing amity was a determination to combine
in some way so as to bring about a change in their circumstances
for the better. Mr. Swindle was a cautious man. He did not

wish to commit himself so as to be amenable to the law. He wished
to retain the outward form of a character, however he might be
destitute of its substance. He wished to act in whatever he did so
that the law could not take hold of him. He impressed his friend
Pindle with the cautious action.

“Now what can we do, Swindle?” said Pindle, after they had
so far interchanged sentiments as to understand that each were
prepared to do any thing however fraudulent, provided they could
steer within the letter of the law. “Something must be done; I
am run dry; I have not twenty dollars in the world, and this suit
of clothes shabby enough. You have not but the two dollars I lent
you this morning; though your clothes are more decent than mine.
I am ready to do any thing!”

“Suppose we consult Satchell,” observed Swindle.

“And who is Satchell, pray?” asked Pindle.

“Softly—don't talk quite so loud,” said Mr. Swindle; “we must
be cautious, for I would not like to be overheard. The partitions
are there, and key-holes are made expressly to convey sounds to listeners'
ears.”

This conversation took place in Mr. Swindle's room, a small upper
chamber in a fourth rate boarding house in Court Street, over a
confectioner's, where they boarded.

“Satchell is a lawyer who was once one of the most talented
members of the bar, but he was degraded, I believe for a forgery,
and imprisoned a year, and now devotes his talents to giving advice
to rogues!”

“But we are not rogues, dear Swindle,” remarked Pindle, looking
very virtuous. “I am a gentleman, sir.”

“Very well, you are a gentleman; I am willing. Satchell is a
man who knows every crook and turn of the criminal law, and just
how far to a hair a man can encroach upon it, without incurring
its penalties. I know some men he has done service to, and the
more I think of it the more I am satisfied he is the man to see, before
we do any thing.”

“But what are you thinking of doing?”

“Of establishing a house and going into business.”

“Without capital?”

“Yes.”

“Without credit?”

“Yes.”

“'Pon word, I don't understand it,” exclaimed Mr. Pindle, with
very great amazement manifested on his inexpressive pink and
white face.

“Well, you shall know if you will call with me on Satchell.”

The visit was paid to Mr. “Rogues' Lawyer,” and advice given
accordingly by the unconscientious Satchell. This interview took
place about ten days prior to the opening of this story, and in the
interval affairs had been progressing to a point from which bold
and resolute action was to begin. The nature of the business, and
the character of the others engaged in it besides Swindle and Pindle,

will be revealed by the interview now about to occur between
all the parties in Satchell's office, Pindle being the first comer.

Satchell having, as we have seen, completed his supper and
taken his pipe, had not smoked but a few minutes before a person
was heard stumbling up the stairs.

“That is Swindle,” said Pindle, jumping up and going to the
loor.

“Don't be in a hurry, Mr. Pindle,” cried the lawyer; “I can let
in my own visiters.”

Mr. Pindle slunk back, coloring, and the attorney turning the
key looked carefully before opening the door. He then admitted a
stout built man, about five feet and a half high, with a full, red
face, and a look of respectability. He took off his hat, and exhibited
a round bald head shining like glass. His eyes were small hazel
orbs that sparkled with a quick, lively light, yet the expression of
his face was shrinking and hidden, as if he feared to trust his countenance
too freely to be the index of his soul. He wore a brown
surtout and a white beaver hat, and carried an India cane. His
appearance altogether was that of a middle-aged commercial gentlemen,
of a fair reputation and independent circumstances. It
was, however, no other than James Swindle, who had not a dollar
of his own on earth, and whose reputation was worthless, except in
roguedom, where it stood high. Like Satchell in law, he had in
the mercantile world been dishonored, and now used his commercial
talents and experience to further the basest of frauds.

“Ah, Mr. Swindle,” said Satchell; “glad to see you!” but the
lawyer did not shake hands with him, for it was Satchell's principle
never to shake hands with any body.

“I am here in time,” said Mr. Swindle, looking round to see who
was there. “Ah, Mr. Pindle, so you are on the spot!”

“Yes, sir, always punctual,” answered Pindle, in his usual flippant,
quick, self-satisfied way; for Pindle was a most self-approving
individual, for such a thorough faced rogue as he was. It is
not certain whether Pindle was villain enough to commit a murder.
It is likely he would have failed in the courage to do such a deed.
But all other crimes less than murder he was ready to do, so that
he could escape the law. For such a delicate complexioned gentleman,
he was quite as great a villain as Satchell. In fact, the
three men were very well matched in the internals, though in externals
they appeared like very opposite sort of persons, and such as
would not be likely to have any interests in common. By and by
other knocks were heard at the door, and in less than a quarter of
an hour after Mr. Swindle's entrance Satchell admitted into his
dark den seven other persons of various sizes, ages, and dress, but
all one in roguery.