 | A PAIR OF SLIPPERS;
OR, FALLING WEATHER. Charcoal sketches, or, Scenes in a metropolis |  |
7. A PAIR OF SLIPPERS;
OR, FALLING WEATHER.
“Then I, and you, and all of us fell down.”
Whenever we look upon the crowded thoroughfare,
or regard the large assembly, we are compelled to admit
that the infinite variety of form in the human race contributes
largely to the picturesque. The eye travels over
the diversity of shape and size without fatigue, and renews
its strength by turning from one figure to another,
when, at each remove, it is sure to find a difference.
Satiated with gazing at rotundity, it is refreshed by a
glance at lathiness; and, tired with stooping to the lowly,
it can mount like a bird to the aspiring head which tops
a maypole. But, while the potency of these pictorial
beauties is admitted, it must be conceded that the variations
from the true standard, although good for the eye-sight,
are productive of much inconvenience; and that, to
consider the subject like a Benthamite, utility and the
general advantage would be promoted if the total amount
of flesh, blood, bone, and muscle were more equally distributed.
As affairs are at present arranged, it is almost
impossible to find a “ready made coat” that will answer
one's purpose, and a man may stroll through half the
shops in town without being able to purchase a pair of
boots which he can wear with any degree of comfort. In
knows that it is a very troublesome matter so to swing
it, that, while the short can see the commodities, the tall
will not demolish the glass. If an abbreviated “turnippy”
man, in the goodness of his heart and in articulo mortis,
bequeaths his wardrobe to a long and gaunt friend, of
what service is the posthumous present? It is available
merely as new clothing for the juveniles, or as something
toward another kitchen carpet. Many a martial spirit is
obliged to content himself with civic employment, although
a mere bottle of fire and wrath, because heroism
is enlisted by inches, and not by degree. If under “five
foot six,” Cæsar himself could find no favour in the eye
of the recruiting sergeant, and Alexander the Great
would be allowed to bestride no Bucephalus in a dragoon
regiment of modern times. Thus, both they who get too
much, and they who get too little, in Dame Nature's apportionment
bill, as well as those who, though abundantly
endowed, are not well made up, have divers reasons for
grumbling, and for wishing that a more perfect uniformity
prevailed.
Some of the troubles which arise from giving a man
more than his share in altitude, find illustration in the
subjoined narrative:—
Linkum Langcale is a subject in extenso. He is, to
use the words of the poet, suggested by his name,
“Of linked sweetness long drawn out:”
is entirely too long for his own comfort—something
short—if the word short may be used in this connexion
—something short of the height of the Titans of old, who
pelted Saturn with brickbats; but how much has never
sufficiently acquainted with trigonometry to determine
the fact. He is one of those men who, like the gentle
Marcia, “tower above their sex,” and must always be
called down to their dinner, as no information can be
imparted to them unless it be hallooed up; and in conversing
with whom, it is always necessary to begin by
hailing the maintop. There is not, however, more
material in Linkum than enough for a man of ordinary
length. The fault is in his not being properly made up.
He is abominably wire drawn—stretched out, as Shakspeare
says, almost to the crack of doom. It is clear
that there has been an attempt to make too much of
him, but the frame of the idea has not been well filled
out. He is the streak of a Colossus, and he resembles
the willow wand at which Locksley shot his gray goose
shaft in the lists of Ashby de la Zouche. The consequence
is, that Linkum is a crank vessel. If he wore a
feather in his cap, he would be capsized at every corner;
and as it is, he finds it very difficult to get along on a
windy day, without a paving stone in each coat pocket
to preserve the balance of power. He is, however, of a
convivial nature, and will not refuse his glass, notwithstanding
the aptitude of alcohol to ascend into the brain,
and so to encumber it as to render a perpendicular
position troublesome to men shorter than himself. When
in this condition, his troubles are numberless, and among
other matters, he finds it very difficult to get a clear fall,
there being in compact cities very little room to spare
for the accommodation of long men tumbling down in
the world.
One evening Linkum walked forth to a convivial
meeting, and supped with a set of jolly companions.
Late at night a rain came on, which froze as it fell, and
“glip” for all purposes, without the aid of saw-dust.
Of Linkum's sayings and doings at the social board, no
record is preserved; but it is inferred that his amusements
were not of a nature to qualify him for the safe
performance of a journey so slippery as that which it
was necessary to undertake to reach home. No lamps
were lighted, they who were abroad being under the
necessity of supposing the moonshine, and of seeing
their way as they walked, or of gathering themselves up
when they fell, by the lantern of imagination.
“Good night, fellers,” said Linkum, at the top of the
steps, as the door closed after him. He pulled his hat
over his eyes determinedly, buttoned his coat with
resolution, and sucked at his cigar with that iron energy
peculiar to men about to set forth on their way home on a
cold, stormy night. The fire of the cigar reflected from
his nose was the only illumination to be seen; and
Linkum, putting his hands deep into his pockets, kept
his position on the first step of the six which were
between him and the pavement.
“I've no doubt,” said he, as he puffed forth volumes
of smoke, and seemed to cogitate deeply—“I've not the
slightest doubt that this is as beautiful a night as ever
was; only it's so dark you can't see the pattern of it.
One night is pretty much like another night in the dark;
but it's a great advantage to a good looking evening, if
the lamps are lit, so you can twig the stars and the
moonshine. The fact is, that in this 'ere city, we do
grow the blackest moons, and the hardest moons to find,
I ever did see. Sometimes I'm most disposed to send
the bellman after 'em—or get a full blooded pinter to
pint 'em out, while I hold a candle to see which way he
pints. It wouldn't be a bad notion on sich occasions to
is. Lamps is lamps, and moons is moons, in a business
pint of view, but practically they ain't much if the
wicks ain't afire. When the luminaries are, as I may
say, in the raw, it's bad for me. I can't see the ground
as perforately as little fellers, and every dark night I'm
sure to get a hyst—either a forrerd hyst, or a backerd
hyst, or some sort of a hyst—but more backerds than
forrerds, 'specially in winter. One of the most unfeeling
tricks I know of, is the way some folks have
got of laughing out, yaw-haw! when they see a gentleman
ketching a riggler hyst—a long gentleman,
for instance, with his legs in the air, and his noddle
splat down upon the cold bricks. A hyst of itself is
bad enough, without being sniggered at: first, your
sconce gets a crack; then, you see all sorts of stars,
and have free admission to the fireworks; then, you
scramble up, feeling as if you had no head on your
shoulders, and as if it wasn't you, but some confounded
disagreeable feller in your clothes; yet the jacksnipes
all grin, as if the misfortunes of human nature was only
a poppet show. I wouldn't mind it, if you could get up
and look as if you didn't care. But a man can't rise,
after a royal hyst, without letting on he feels flat. In
such cases, however, sympathy is all gammon; and as
for sensibility of a winter's day, people keep it all for
their own noses, and can't be coaxed to retail it by the
small.”
Linkum paused in his prophetic dissertation upon
“hysts”—the popular pronunciation, in these parts, of
the word hoist, which is used—quasi lucus a non
lucendo—to convey the idea of the most complete tumble
which man can experience. A fall, for instance, is
indeterminate. It may be an easy slip down—a gentle
performance, which may be done, as Linkum observes,
either backward or forward, but of necessity with such
violence as to knock the breath out of the body, or it is
unworthy of the noble appellation of hyst. It is an apt,
but figurative mode of expression, and it is often carried
still further; for people sometimes say, “lower him up,
and hyst him down.”
Our hero held on firmly to the railing, and peered
keenly into the darkness, without discovering any object
on which his vision could rest. The gloom was substantial.
It required sharper eyes than his to bore a
hole in it. The wind was up, and the storm continued
to coat the steps and pavements with a sheet of ice.
“It's raining friz potatoes,” observed Linkum; “I
feel 'em, though I can't see 'em, bumping the end of my
nose; so I must hurry home as fast as I can.”
Heedless and hapless youth! He made a vain attempt
to descend, but, slipping, he came in a sitting posture
upon the top step, and, in that attitude, flew down like
lightning—bump! bump! bump! The impetus he had
acquired prevented him from stopping on the sidewalk,
notwithstanding his convulsive efforts to clutch the icy
bricks, and he skuted into the gutter, whizzing over the
curbstone, and splashing into the water, like a young
Niagara.
A deep silence ensued, broken solely by the pattering
of the rain and the howling of the wind. Linkum was
an exhausted receiver; the hyst was perfect, the breath
being completely knocked out of him.
“Laws-a-massy!” at length he panted, “ketching”
breath at intervals, and twisting about as if in pain; “my
eyes! sich a hyst! Sich a quantity of hysts all in one!
The life's almost bumped out of me, and I'm jammed
was before. I'm druv' up and clinched, and I'll have to
get tucks in my trousers.”
Linkum sat still, ruminating on the curtailment of
his fair proportions, and made no effort to rise. The
door soon opened again, and Mr. Broad Brevis came
forth, at which a low, suppressed chuckle was uttered
by Linkum, as he looked over his shoulder, anticipating
“a quantity of hysts all in one” for the new comer,
whose figure, however,—short and stout,—was much
better calculated for the operation than Linkum's. But
Brevis seemed to suspect that the sliding was good, and
the skating magnificent.
“No, you don't!” quoth he, as he tried the step with
one foot, and recovered himself; “I haven't seen the
Alleghany Portage and inclined planes for nothing. It
takes me to diminish the friction, and save the wear and
tear.”
So saying, he quietly tucked up his coat tails, and
sitting down upon the mat, which he grasped with both
hands, gave himself a gentle impulse, crying “All aboard!”
and slid slowly but majestically down. As he came to
the plain sailing across the pavement, he twanged forth
“Ta-ra-ta-ra-ta-ra-tra-a-a!” in excellent imitation of the
post horn, and brought up against Linkum. “Clear the
course for the express mail, or I'll report you to the
department!” roared Brevis, trumpeting the “alarum,”
so well known to all who have seen a tragedy—“Tra-tretra-ta-ra-tra-a-a!”
That's queer fun, anyhow,” said a careful wayfarer,
turning the corner, with lantern in hand, and sock on
foot, who, after a short parley, was induced to set the
gentlemen on their pins. First planting Brevis against
the pump, who sang “Let me lean on thee,” from the
Linkum.
“Well,” observed the stranger, “this is a chap without
no end to him—he'd be pretty long a drowning, any
how. If there was many more like him in the gutters,
it would be better to get a windlass, and wind 'em up.
I never see'd a man with so much slack. The corporation
ought to buy him, starch him up stiff, cut a hole for
a clock in his hat, and use him for a steeple; only
Downing wouldn't like to trust himself on the top of
such a ricketty concern.—Neighbour, shall I fetch the
Humane Society's apparatus?”
“No—I ain't drownded, only bumped severe. The
curbstones have touched my feelings. I'm all over like
a map—red, blue, and green.”
“Now,” said their friendly assistant, grinning at the
joke, and at the recompense he had received for the job,
“now, you two hook on to one another like Siameses,
and mosey. You've only got to tumble one a top of
t'other, and it won't hurt. Tortle off—it's slick going—
'specially if you're going down. Push ahead!” continued
he, as he hitched them together; and away they
went, a pair of slippers, arm in arm. Many were their
tumbles and many their mischances before they reached
their selected resting place.
“I can't stand this,” said Linkum to his companion,
as they were slipping and falling; “but it's mostly owing
to my being so tall. I wish I was razee'd, and then it
wouldn't happen. The awning posts almost knock the
head off me; I'm always tumbling over wheelbarrows,
dogs, and children, because, if I look down, I'm certain
to knock my noddle against something above. It's a complete
nuisance to be so tall. Beds are too short; if you
go to a tea-fight, the people are always tumbling over
young ladies ain't partial to; and if you tipple too much
toddy of a slippery night—about as easy a thing to do as
you'd wish to try—you're sure to get a hyst a square long
—just such a one as I've had. If I'd thought of it, I
could have said the multiplication table while I was going
the figure. Stumpy chaps, such as you, ain't got no
troubles in this world.”
“That's all you know about it,” puffed Brevis, as
Linkum alternately jerked him from his feet, and then
caused him to slide in the opposite direction, with his
heels ploughing the ice, like a shaft horse holding back:
“phew! That's all you know about it—stumpies have
troubles.”
“I can't borrow coats,” added Linkum, soliloquizing,
“because I don't like cuffs at the elbows. I can't
borrow pants, because it isn't the fashion to wear knee-breeches,
and all my stockings are socks. I can't hide
when anybody owes me a lambasting. You can see me
a mile. When I sit by the fire, I can't get near enough
to warm my body, without burning my knees; and in a
stage-coach, there's no room between the benches, and
the way you get the cramp—don't mention it.”
“I don't know nothing about all these things; but to
imagine I was a tall chap—”
“Don't try; you'll hurt yourself, for it's a great stretch
of imagination for a little feller to do that.”
After which amicable colloquy, nothing more was
heard of them, except that, before retiring to rest, they
chuckled over the idea that the coming spring would
sweat the ice to death for the annoyance it had caused
them. But ever while they live, will they remember
“the night of hysts.”
| A PAIR OF SLIPPERS;
OR, FALLING WEATHER. Charcoal sketches, or, Scenes in a metropolis | |