University of Virginia Library

3. ORSON DABBS, THE HITTITE.

It has been said, and truly, that it takes all sorts of
people to make a world. He who complains of the lights
and shades of character which are eternally flitting before
him, and of the diversity of opposing interests
which at times cross his path, has but an illiberal, contracted
view of the subject; and though the Emperor
Charles the Fifth, in his retirement at Estremadura, had
some reason for being a little annoyed when he could not
cause two or three score of watches to go together, yet
he was wrong in sighing over his previous ineffectual
efforts to make men think alike. It is, to speak figuratively,
the clashing which constitutes the music. The
harmony of the whole movement is produced by the
fusion into each other of an infinite variety of petty discords;
as a glass of punch depends for its excellence upon
the skilful commingling of opposing flavours and antagonising
materials. Were the passengers in a wherry to
be of one mind, they would probably all sit upon the
same side, and hence, naturally, pay a visit to the Davy
Jones of the river; and if all the men of a nation thought
alike, it is perfectly evident that the ship of state must
lose her trim. The system of checks and balances pervades
both the moral and the physical world, and without
it, affairs would soon hasten to their end. It is, therefore,
clear that we must have all sorts of people,—some to prevent
stagnation, and others to act as ballast to an excess

of animation. The steam engines of humanity must have
their breaks and their safety valves, and the dead weights
of society require the whip and the spur.

Orson Dabbs certainly is entitled to a place among the
stimulants of the world, and it is probable that in exercising
his impulses, he produces beneficial effects. But it
would puzzle a philosopher to designate the wholesome
results which follow from his turbulent movements, or
to show, either by synthesis or analysis, wherein he is
a good. At all events, Orson Dabbs has the reputation
of being a troublesome fellow in the circles upon which
he inflicts himself; and, judging from the evidence elicited
upon the subject, there is little reason to doubt the
fact. He is dogmatical, and to a certain extent fond of
argument; but when a few sharp words will not make
converts, he abandons those windy weapons with contempt,
and has recourse to more forcible persuaders—a
pair of fists, each of which looks like a shoulder of
mutton.

“If people are so obstinate that they won't, or so
stupid that they can't understand you,” observed Dabbs,
in one of his confidential moments—for Orson Dabbs
will sometimes unbend, and suffer those abstruse maxims
which govern his conduct to escape—“if either for one
reason or the other,” continued he, with that impressive
iteration which at once gives time to collect and marshal
one's thoughts, and lets the listener know that something
of moment is coming—“if they won't be convinced—
easily and genteelly convinced—you must knock it into
'em short hand; if they can't comprehend, neither by
due course of mail, nor yet by express, you must make
'em understand by telegraph. That's the way I learnt
ciphering at school, and manners and genteel behaviour
at home. All I know was walloped into me. I took

larnin' through the skin, and sometimes they made a good
many holes to get it in.”

“And,” timidly interjected an humble admirer of this
great man, hazarding a joke, with an insinuating smile;
“and I s'pose you're so wise now because the hide
growed over it, and the larnin' couldn't get out, like Ingey
ink in a sailor's arm.”

“Jeames,” replied Orson Dabbs, relaxing into a grim
smile, like that of the griffin face of a knocker, and
shaking his “bunch of fives” sportively, as one snaps an
unloaded gun—Napoleon tweaked the ears of his courtiers—why
should not Dabbs shake his fist at his satellites?—“Jeames,
if you don't bequit poking fun at me,
I'll break your mouth, Jeames, as sure as you sit there.
But, to talk sensible, walloping is the only way—it's a
panacea for differences of opinion. You'll find it in history
books, that one nation teaches another what it didn't
know before by walloping it; that's the method of civilizing
savages—the Romans put the whole world to rights
that way; and what's right on the big figger must be
right on the small scale. In short, there's nothing like
walloping for taking the conceit out of fellows who think
they know more than their betters. Put it to 'em strong,
and make 'em see out of their eyes.”

Orson Dabbs acts up to these golden maxims. Seeing
that, from disputes between dogs up to quarrels between
nations, fighting is the grand umpire and regulator, he
resolves all power into that of the fist,—treating bribery,
reason, and persuasion as the means only of those
unfortunate individuals to whom nature has denied the
stronger attributes of humanity. Nay, he even turns up
his nose at betting as a means of discovering truth.
Instead of stumping an antagonist by launching out his
cash, Dabbs shakes a portentous fist under his nose, and

the affair is settled; the recusant must either knock under
or be knocked down, which, according to our hero, is all
the same in Dutch. In this way, when politics ran
high, he used to decide who was to be elected to any
specified office; and he has often boasted that he once, in
less than five minutes too, scared a man into giving the
Dabbs candidate a large majority, when the unfortunate
stranger did not at first believe that the said candidate
would be elected at all.

Some people believe that the fist is the poorest of
arguments, and that it, therefore, should be the last.
Here they are completely at issue with Dabbs, and it is
well that they do not fall in his way, or he would soon
show them the difference. With him it is what action
was to the ancient orator, the first, the middle, and the
last. Being himself, in a great measure, fist proof, he
is very successful in the good work of proselytism, and
has quite a reputation as a straightforward reasoner and
a forcible dialectitian.

Misfortunes, however, will sometimes happen to the
most successful. The loftiest nose may be brought to
the grindstone, and the most scornful dog may be obliged
to lunch upon dirty pudding. Who can control his fate?
One night Mr. Dabbs came home from his “loafing”
place—for he “loafs” of an evening, like the generality
of people—that being the most popular and the cheapest
amusement extant; and, from the way he blurted open
the door of the Goose and Gridiron, where he resides,
and from the more unequivocal manner in which he slammed
it after him, no doubt existed in the minds of his
fellow boarders that the well of his good spirits had been
“riled;” or, in more familiar phrase, that he was
“spotty on the back.” His hat was pitched forward,
with a bloodthirsty, piratical rakishness, and almost

covered his eyes, which gleamed like ignited charcoal
under a jeweller's blowpipe. His cheeks were flushed
with an angry spot, and his nose—always a quarrelsome
pug—curled more fiercely upward, as if the demon wrath
had turned archer, and was using it for a bow to draw
an arrow to its head. His mouth had set in opposition
to his nasal promontory, and savagely curved downward,
like a half-moon battery. Dabbs was decidedly out of
sorts—perhaps beery, as well as wolfy; in short, in that
unenviable state in which a man feels disposed to divide
himself, and go to buffets—to kick himself with his own
foot—to beat himself with his own fist, and to throw his
own dinner out of the window.

The company were assembled round the fire to discuss
politics, literature, men, and things. Dabbs looked
not at them, but, slinging Tommy Timid's bull terrier
Oseola out of the arm-chair in the corner, by the small
stump of a tail which fashion and the hatchet had left the
animal, he sat himself moodily down, with a force that
made the timbers creak. The conversation was turning
upon a recent brilliant display of the aurora borealis,
which the more philosophical of the party supposed to
arise from the north pole having become red-hot for
want of grease; while they all joined in deriding the popular
fallacy that it was caused by the high price of flour.

“Humph!” said Dabbs, with a grunt, “any fool
might know that it was a sign of war.”

“War!” ejaculated the party; “oh, your granny!”

“Yes, war!” roared Dabbs, kicking the bull terrier
Oseola in the ribs, and striking the table a tremendous
blow with his fist, as, with clenched teeth and out-poked
head, he repeated, “War! war! war!”

Now the Goose and Gridiron fraternity set up for
knowing geniuses, and will not publicly acknowledge

faith in the doctrines on meterology broached by their
grandmothers, whatever they may think in private. So
they quietly remarked, confiding in their numbers against
the Orson Dabbs method of conversion, that the aurora
was not a sign of war, but an evidence of friction and
of no grease on the axle of the world.

“That's a lie!” shouted Dabbs; “my story's the true
one, for I read it in an almanac; and to prove it true,
I'll lick anybody here that don't believe it, in two cracks
of a cow's thumb. Yes,” added he, in reply to the looks
bent upon him; “I'll not only wallop them that don't
believe it, but I'll wallop you all, whether you do or
not!”

This, however, was a stretch of benevolence to which
the company were not prepared to submit. As Dabbs
squared off to proceed secundum artem, according to the
approved method of the schools, the watchful astrologer
might have seen his star grow pale. He had reached
his Waterloo—that winter night was his 18th of June.
He fell, as many have fallen before him, by that implicit
reliance on his own powers which made him forgetful
of the risk of encountering the long odds. The threat
was too comprehensive, and the attempt at execution
was a failure. The company cuffed him heartily, and
in the fray the bull terrier Oseola vented its cherished
wrath by biting a piece out of the fleshiest portion of his
frame. Dabbs was ousted by a summary process, but
his heart did not fail him. He thundered at the door,
sometimes with his fists, and again with whatever missiles
were within reach. The barking of the dog and the
laughter from within, as was once remarked of certain
military heroes, did not “intimate him in the least,
it only estimated him.”

The noise at last became so great that a watchman

finally summoned up resolution enough to come near,
and to take Dabbs by the arm.

“Let go, watchy!—let go, my cauliflower! Your
cocoa is very near a sledge-hammer. If it isn't hard, it
may get cracked.”

“Pooh! pooh! don't be onasy, my darlint—my
cocoa is a corporation cocoa—it belongs to the city, and
they'll get me a new one. Besides, my jewel, there's
two cocoas standing here, you know. Don't be onasy—
it mayn't be mine that will get cracked.”

“I ain't onasy,” said Dabbs, bitterly, as he turned
fiercely round. “I ain't onasy. I only want to caution
you, or I'll upset your apple cart, and spill your peaches.”

“I'm not in the wegetable way, my own-self, Mr.
Horse-radish. You must make less noise.”

“Now, look here—look at me well,” said Dabbs, striking
his fist hard upon his own bosom; “I'm a real nine
foot breast of a fellow—stub twisted and made of horse-shoe
nails—the rest of me is cast iron with steel springs.
I'll stave my fist right through you, and carry you on
my elbow, as easily as if you were an empty market
basket—I will—bile me up for soap if I don't!”

“Ah, indeed! why, you must be a real Calcutta-from-Canting,
warranted not to cut in the eye. Snakes is no
touch to you; but I'm sorry to say you must knuckle
down close. You must surrender; there's no help for
it—none in the world.”

“Square yourself then, for I'm coming! Don't you
hear the clockvorks!” exclaimed Dabbs, as he shook
off the grip of the officer, and struck an attitude.

He stood beautifully; feet well set; guard well up;
admirable science, yet fearful to look upon. Like the
Adriatic, Dabbs was “lovelily dreadful” on this exciting
occasion. But when “Greek meets Greek,” fierce looks

and appalling circumstances amount to nothing. The
opponent of our hero, after regarding him coolly for a
moment, whistled with great contempt, and with provoking
composure, beat down his guard with a smart blow
from a heavy mace, saying,—

“'Taint no use, no how—you're all used up for bait.”

“Ouch!” shrieked Dabbs; “my eye, how it hurts!
Don't hit me again. Ah, good man, but you're a bruiser.
One, two, three, from you would make a person believe
any thing, even if he was sure it wasn't true.”

“Very well,” remarked the macerator, “all I want
of you is to behave nice and genteel, and believe you're
going to the watch'us, for it's true; and if you don't
believe it yet, why (shaking his mace) I shall feel
obligated to conwince you again.”

As this was arguing with him after his own method,
and as Dabbs had distinct impressions of the force of
the reasoning, he shrugged his shoulders, and then
rubbing his arms, muttered, “Enough said.”

He trotted off quietly for the first time in his life.
Since the affair and its consequences have passed away,
he has been somewhat chary of entering into the field of
argument, and particularly careful not to drink too much
cold water, for fear the bull terrier before referred to was
mad, and dreading hydrophobic convulsions.