University of Virginia Library

1. MEMOIRS OF A PREACHER.
PART TWO. THE SEQUEL.

1. CHAPTER FIRST.
“SQUASHAHOGANY.”

At this moment let us change the scene.
Passing through the thick walls which divide
the rooms of Brother Caleb's house, let us
enter yonder large chamber, on the first floor,
where the light of wax candles falls upon the
faces of Brother Caleb and his midnight
guests.

After a while we will trace the fate of poor
Ralph, whom we left hanging on the lattice,
with the tin box under his arm.

For the present our history calls us to the
large chamber on the first floor — the chamber
which is connected by folding doors, with
the room described by Fanny, in her Magnetic
Revelation.

A single thought should be borne in mind,
while you peruse the scene which follows.
Do not blame us, if you discover that our description
of the personal appearance of these
thirty guests, is vague and sketch-like. We
dare not paint their portraits at full length.
We should be charged with the use of undue
personalities. A hundred gentlemen in Third,
in Chesnut, and in Market streets, would swear
that these thirty guests, so lightly outlined,
were intended as their own personal portraits.

Lift the curtain then, and let us take a hasty
glance at Brother Caleb and his guests.

Brother Caleb sat at the head of the table,
stark and grim in his blue coat and snow-white
vest. One hand grasping a pen, rested upon a
parchment, near an ink-stand. The other held
a long necked glass, glittering with amber-colored
wine.

And Brother Caleb's protruding eyes, lighted
with faint lustre, as he surveyed the faces of
his midnight guests. Twenty or thirty persons
were there, seated in black mahogany
chairs, around a table, covered with a white
cloth. And every hand grasped a glass, and
near every glass — starting blackly from the
white cloth — stood a long-necked bottle,
which bore the magic words “Cordon Bleu.”

The orgie drew near its close. The feast
was over. The plates of massive gold glittered
on the side-board in one corner, amid the
broken fragments of the feast. That midnight
festival, in which the guests ate, drank, and
were merry, without the presence of a single
servant, had now attained the period when
lights become double, and walls go spinning
round.

“What do you think of this plan?” said
Brother Caleb, and his eyes ran along the line
of wax lights, which shone dimly upon the
faces of his guests.

“Capital,” said Dicky Bung, making a desperate
effort to fill his glass.

“Good, very good,” said the lean Quaker,
trying to look steadily at the candle before
him.

“Excels everything of the kind,” said a prim
citizen, with demure face and neatly curled
hair — “The Grand Subterranean Squashahogany
Copper Mining Company! Here's
to the President, Caleb Goodleigh, Esquire,
and here's to the thirty original stockholders!”

And the very respectable gentleman emptied
his glass, and arranged his shirt collar, which
was very high and white and stiff.

“It's good — good I say,” said a pompous
gentleman with red whiskers, and scarlet face:
“It'll go ahead o' Multicaulis!'

Sooth to say, the corpulent gentleman was
very drunk. He made a well-intentioned effort

to pour out the candle, and drink from the
silver candle-stick, and then, as if conscious
that something was wrong, gazed sleepily about
him with leaden eyes.

And thus the midnight guests spoke out, one
by one, or in chorus, concerning the Grand
Subterranean Squashahogany Copper Mining
Company, until it was the turn of the last person
at the end of the table. That last person
was a jocund dame, dressed in the heighth of
fashion — with a kind of matronly coquetry
about her — and with a small white hand,
glittering with rings, which kept up a perpetual
motion between her bottle and her glass. Her
eyes grew brighter as she suffered the champagne
to glide over her lips, but her voice was
clear and sweet, and even as a bell.

“What do you think of the plan, Mrs.
North?” asked Brother Caleb, from the head
of the table.

“We have discussed it so long, that I am
really sick of the subject. Our names are
signed; that is sufficient. We will make
money. What those who come into the company
after us will make, is another question.
By the bye, Mr. Goodleigh, I would like to resume
that little argument with you, concerning
a First Cause. Do you really believe in a
First Cause? You remember the remark of
Baron Holbach —”

Mrs. North's white teeth smiled between
her red lips, as the amber-colored liquor glided
down her throat. Mrs. North was a widow,
a lady of property, and a Philosopher. Some
people were so queer as to believe in a God
— as for her own part, she couldn't. Mrs.
North was a learned woman.

“I will not argue with you, my dear
Madam, as to a First Cause,” said Brother
Caleb, while his thin lips were agitated by a
smile — “But you must not deny the existence
of a Devil. Any one conversant with mankind
(for your sake I will not add woman-kind)
must believe in a Devil at all events. By the
bye, where's Scissleby?”

At this query a general clamor rose. The
name of Scissleby was shouted by twenty
voices at once. But no Scissleby appeared.

“He was to puff our copper stock in his
paper,” said Dicky Bung, with a hiccup —
“And now he's cut us! It isn't the fair
thing.”

And twenty other voices said that it was not
the fair thing. The prim gentleman, the lean
Quaker, the rotund gentleman, and seventeen
others.

“Here I am,” said an unearthly voice from
under the table — “What—do — you — want?
Copy, always copy? I say, is the Steamer
in?”

Poor Scissleby! Prostrate beneath the
table, his long limbs entangled somewhere
under Bung's chair, his mind was roaming in
the fairy world of the Daily Copper. Even
amid the delirium of champagne he heard an
imaginary “Devil” crying for copy: with his
head swimming like a humming top, he still
had sense enough to ask the oft-repeated question
— Is the steamer in?

“Good for Slinkum,” remarked Bung, as
he spilled the contents of a glass over his blue
scarf: “Make an item somebody for the Daily
Copper. `Drunk, but still attentive to business.
Who? Slinkum Scissleby.”'

Scissleby groaned beneath the table.

“What do you think of the plan, sir?” said
Brother Caleb, turning to a portly gentleman
by his side — “You are connected with the
police department of this great city. Of course
you have many opportunities of studying human
nature. You can estimate the amount of
interest which the mass of people will take in
this scheme; you can measure the —”

“Amount o' pop'lar gullability,” said the
portly gentleman, whose red neckchief looked
pale beside his scarlet face: “Why s-i-r-r, in
the course o' ten years exper'ence, I have
come to the conclusion that the Public is an
animal remarkable for the size of its throat,
and the magnitude of its swallow. Stands to
reason, sir, that a Public as swallows our Poleese
system, must have a throat like Mount
Wesooveus in the polar regions, or my name
ain't Stewel Pydgeon, Esquire, 'Special P.
O.!”

Stewel was slightly affected with the bottle;
very slightly. In his sober moments his geography
was not of the most accurate character:
you might measure his phases of his inebriety
by that word “Mount Vesuvius.” When
quite sober he located it in the gulf of Mexico;
slightly elevated he placed it in the Polar Regions;
pretty far gone, and he spoke of it as a

celebrated volcano somewhere in “Asia, or
Rooshe-a.”

“Here is the plan,” murmured Brother
Caleb fixing his large blue eyes on the sheet
of parchment: “And here are thirty names
each signed opposite from fifty to a hundred
shares. This will give us thirty thousand dollars
to begin upon. We can commence working
the mines with that. Can we friend?”

The question was addressed to the prim
Quaker gentleman.

“Even so,” was the reply: “Twenty-seven
of the present company will give thee their
checks for a $1000 each, to-morrow morning.”

“I'm to have a $1000 worth in it, as `Borer
General' 'afore the 'Legislature,” interrupted
Bung: “Stewel have the same for his services
as “Puffer along the streets” in Fildelfy; and
Slinkum, (now under the table,) ditto for his
services in the Daily Copper. Mind that. Us
three are on the free list.”

“Next week” resumed the Quaker, “thee
will buy the farm in New Jersey, where this
copper ore is located?”

“I am now in treaty for it,” replied Brother
Caleb. “The ground once bought, we can
issue Certificates of stock and —”

“There are plenty of workmen, servant
girls and such like, who will invest their little
carnings in the `stock' of the grand Squashahogany
Copper Mining Company. If the Company
fails they will loose of course. If it succeeds,
we gain. Capital always does.”

“Really you are a philosopher,” smiled
Brother Caleb — smiled all over his pyramidal
face, from his square chin to his flat crown —
“But there is no danger of failure. The ore
yields ninety per cent. Should you like to
see it?”

A chorus of twenty voices, said Yes! and
Brother Caleb rose from his seat. His tall
lean form, attired in the blue coat and white vest,
was strongly relieved by the dark mahogany
of the folding doors at his back.

His singular face, with its hollow cheeks
and great blue eyes, protruding from their
sockets, attracted even the drunken gaze of the
midnight guests.

For a moment he surveyed the company,
who were gathered in that spacious and luxurious
chamber. His thin lips were agitated by
a peculiar smile. The dull surface of his blue
eyes flashed with momentary light.

“Indeed, my dear Goodleigh,” laughed Mrs.
North from the end of the table: “A poetical
mind would compare you at the present moment,
to Milton's Satan surveying his dupes
in Pandemonium” — the lady seemed to lose
the thread of her thought, for without a moment's
pause she continued; “Ar'nt they so
very drunk.”

Brother Caleb smiled pleasantly, uttered
some colloquial compliment, and then exclaimed
in a voice that reached every ear:

“That specimen of the Squashahogany Copper
ore is up-stairs. I will bring it to you.
Excuse me for a single moment.”

Twenty voices and more excused him, and
Brother Caleb opened the folding doors and
disappeared into the next room.

“Copy! Steamer in,” cried Scissleby from
beneath the table.

No sooner had the door closed behind the
tall form of Brother Caleb, than the thirty
original stockholders of the Squashanogany
Copper Mining Company commenced an irregular
and whispering conversation, concerning
their mysterious President.

“Rich as Crœsus or Astor!” said the prim
gentleman.

“Where did he reside before he bought this
house?” asked the Quaker.

“A singular man,” exclaimed the peculiarly
corpulent person near Mrs. North: “Has rich
connections in Europe. Duke of Wellington
his second cousin.”

“Keeps good champagne,” was the emphatic
remark of Bung.

“Tell the foreman to send up proof of the
leader,” groaned Scissleby under the table.

“What does thee think of friend Goodleigh,
friend Stewel?” asked the Quaker, looking
across the table toward the Police Officer.

But the Police Officer had disappeared.

And as the champagne made the circuit of
the table the talented Mrs. North commenced
a general discussion upon some abstruse point
in Baron Holbach's “System of Nature.”