 | JACK SPRATTE'S REVENGE.
A PISCATORIAL EPISODE. Peter Ploddy, and other oddities |  |
9. JACK SPRATTE'S REVENGE.
A PISCATORIAL EPISODE.
Do you know Mrs. Brownstout? Everybody ought
to know Mrs. Brownstout; for Mrs. Brownstout is in the
market—not for sale—matrimonially speaking, her market
was made long ago, and thence was derived the
hearty appellation in which she rejoices. But, as she
occupies a conspicuous stand in the Fish Market, it is
therefore presumed that everybody knows Mrs. Brownstout,
who presides over the eventful destinies of shad
and “pearch” and rockfish. That is, they know her
“superfishally,” if we may be allowed the expression—
in her commodities and in her outward appearance.
When she passes by, they possess that degree of acquaintance
with her exterior, to enable them to say “there goes
Mrs. Brownstout;” and when she is seated at her stand—
strange perversity of human nature, that it is always sure
to sit at its stand!—people are positive that it is really
Mrs. Brownstout. They recognise her by her gait, or
by her costume, or by the piscatorial circumstances that
surround her, which is about as much as the world in
general knows of any body. But the moral Mrs. Brownstout—the
historical Mrs. Brownstout—the metaphysical
Mrs. Brownstout—in short, the spiritual Mrs. Brownstout,
as contra-distinguished from the apparent Mrs. Brownstout,
who merely sells her fishes and takes your money,
why, what does society at large know of her? To the
popular eye, she counts one in the sum total of humanity
—a particle, and nothing more, in the vast conglomeration
of the breathing universe. There is no perception
of her mental identity—her intellectual idiosyncrasy
into—the Mrs. Brownstout retrospective, and the
Mrs. Brownstout prospective, are equally disregarded, so
that those ambitious of shad may find her to be the Mrs.
Brownstout present; and thus the life of this estimable
lady, like the lives of most of us, is narrowed down to
the single point of immediate action—she and we are
important only when it happens that our services are
wanted. Our story—who has not got a story?—all our
beings, doings and sufferings—our loves, hopes, successes
and disappointments—all the trouble we have taken—the
vexations we have endured—the triumphs we have
achieved—who that encounters us in the street, ever thinks
of them, or reflects that each of us, as we pass on our
winding way, is a volume of exquisite experiences, bound
in calf, and well worthy of the closet perusal? Not one,
of all the vast multitude which throngs the path; and
hence it is that the world, collectively considered, is more
distinguished by folly than by wisdom, learning nothing
from the problems that have already been solved, but
preferring to stumble onward, from the beginning to the
end, without borrowing a ray of light from the lanterns of
those who have gone before.
But it has been resolved that Mrs. Brownstout shall not
be sacrificed in this unceremonious manner—that some
passages of her existence shall be snatched from oblivion,
to amuse or instruct, as the case may be, at least a portion
of those into whose hands our pages may be destined
to fall. For Mrs. Brownstout, notwithstanding the energetic
expression of the outward woman, has had her
share of the disasters which seem inevitable to the susceptible
temperament. She, too, has had her “trials of the
heart,” and has felt that though the poets seem to think
that the sphere of young love's gambols is chiefly located
“among the roses,” he may yet exercise much potency
against the darts of Cupid, and, however steeled against
such impressions the fair one may be, it is found, sooner
or later, that she falls a prey to the tender passion.
It is an admitted fact, made evident by repeated observation,
that this world is full of people—men people and
women people—and that there are some among both,
who set out and travel to a considerable distance on their
earthly journey, upon the self-sustaining principle of
celibacy, in a heroic effort not to be bothered with appendages,
forgetting that, by a singular provision of
nature, their proper condition is that of being bothered,
and that, though they cannot see it, they must be bothered,
to be at all comfortable. When we are alone, we are not
bothered; yet who likes to be alone?
Than reign in this horrible place,”
wife's “alarms,” and Selkirk had learned that stagnation
is a tiresome piece of work. A few of those, to whom
reference is made, protract their restless and uneasy experiment
of trying to live a quiet unperplexed life, in
which they are unquiet, and very much perplexed, until
the period for all human experiment is over. But the
great majority fail for lack of nerve, and retract, from a
late discovery of the truth. Your Benedicks and Beatrices
are almost sure to participate in the lot of those delineated
by the first of dramatists—they are certain, somehow or
other, to sink into the very calamity against which they
formerly protested, and, in an unguarded hour, malignant
fate delights to betray them to the common weakness.
To some extent, it was the fortune of Mrs. Brownstout
to be a living illustration of the truth of this principle. In
her maiden days, Miss Felicia Phinney laughed at the
importunities of her numerous admirers. Having early
resources, and felt but little disposed to sink to a secondary
place in the firm; and, therefore, “the gentlemen in
waiting” each experienced a rebuff, so sharply administered,
that they were but little disposed to put themselves
again in the way of being similarly astonished—as she
had a method of conducting herself little calculated to
mollify the disappointment experienced upon such occasions.
One night—it was a lovely night, during a warm spell
which succeeded a “cold snap,” in the early part of the
spring—shad were selling at seventy-five cents, and were
scarce at that—the moon shone sweetly upon the chimney-tops—the
fire-plugs, which were lucky enough to be on
the north side of the street, were tinged and tinted with
lines of fairy silver, and the beams of softened light played
with romantic effect upon the craggy sides and rough
fastnesses of the curb-stones. A balmy southern breeze
sighed through the streets and loitered round the corners
in lazy luxury, whispering soft nonsense in the ears of
the somnolent Charleys, as they dreamily indulged in
beatific visions of hot coffee and buckwheat cakes. All
nature, including the brickbats and paving-stones, seemed
to be wrapped in happy repose. The dogs barked not;
even the cats had ceased to be vocal, and when any of
these nocturnal wanderers appeared, it was plain from
their stealthy step and subdued deportment, that they, too,
felt the influence of the hour, and were unwilling to disturb
the magnificent but tranquil harmony of the picture.
It was, in short, a very fine night, particularly for the
season, and, though used by the undiscriminating many
for the mere domestic purposes of snoring slumber, for
which the coarser kind of night would answer just as well,
yet this especial night was worthy of a more elevated
fate; and it may be regarded as a great pity that such
would be better seen and more thoroughly admired—as
sleep, for the most part, is imperative, and as there are but
few of us who can manage its performance with our eyes
open.
The main object of nights of this description, taking it
for granted that every thing has its purpose, is to soften
the heart—to render it flexible, malleable, and susceptible
to the softer impressions. The sun, for instance, melts
the ice, and gives plasticity to many descriptions of candy;
but its warmest rays are ineffective, so far as the sympathies
of the soul are concerned. No one is apt to fall in
love at mid-day, or is much disposed to a declaration of
passion, at three o'clock of a sunny afternoon. Existence,
at these periods, is, in the main, altogether practical
and unimaginative—good enough, no doubt, for buying
and selling, and the eating of dinners; but not at all calculated
to elicit the poetry of the affections. Whereas
your moonlight evenings, when the frost is out of the
ground, play Prometheus to sentiment, and, when the
patient is not addicted to cigars and politics, both of which
are antagonistical to this species of refinement, are sure
to induce the bachelor to think that his condition is incomplete,
and that there are means by which he might
be made considerably happier. Thus it is that “our life
is twofold”—that before tea we are one person, and that
after this interesting event, we are somebody else.
It was on such an evening as we have attempted somewhat
elaborately to describe, and it was under such a
state of circumstances as we have incidentally alluded to,
that Jack Spratte escorted Miss Felicia Phinney home
from a tea party, given among themselves by the fish-merchants.
Jack Spratte had been as merry as a “grigge”
throughout the entertainment. He had danced and he
had sung—he had played “pawns” and “Copenhagen”
with a “C,” because she was “curious,” “crusty” or
“crooked,” and so forth; but still Jack Spratte was
heartwhole—sound as a roach, and as gracefully playful
as an eel. Jack Spratte, in that blind confidence for
which some men are remarkable, thought that the hook
had not yet been baited which was destined to discompose
the serenity of his gills, and that he was no catfish in a
pool, devoted to an early fry. He little dreamed that
celibacy is very “unsartin,” and that the cork lines and
the lay-out lines, together with the dipsies, to say nothing
of the gilling seines, the floats and the scoop-nets, are
always about, and that the most innocent nibble may
result in a captivation.
Jack Spratte was strong in spirit when he stepped forth
from the festive hall, and crooked his dexter arm for the
accommodation of Miss Felicia Phinney. He was jocose
in his criticisms and observations for a square or two, and
he reviewed the sports of the evening with a degree of
humour which entitled him to rank with the wits of the
time. But the night was one not to be resisted, even by
Jack Spratte. He soon found that his chest—the chest
enclosing his susceptibilities—was not a safety chest,
not a fireproof asbestos chest, such as they roast under
cords of blazing hickory, and submit without damage to
vast conflagrations—but, on the contrary, though he
never suspected it before, rather a weak chest—he had
an oppression at the chest—in short, an affection of the
chest, resulting in a palpitation of the heart—and his
tongue became hard and dry, while there was a peculiar
whizzing in his ears, as if the “Ice-breaker” were suddenly
letting off steam. He stammered and he trembled.
“It can't be the punch,” observed Jack Spratte, internally
to himself; “it can't be the punch that makes
me such a Judy. I didn't take enough of it for that—
of Cayenne pepper and mustard on 'em.”
No, Jack Spratte; it was neither the punch nor the
oysters. They are wronged by the suspicion. It was
the moonlight, chiefly, and Miss Felicia Phinney in the
second place. Amid the oysters, the punch and the
blazing lamps—amid the joke, the laugh and the song—
yea, even in the romp and in the redemption of pawns,
Jack Spratte was safe. But a walk into the air proved
fatal to him. The contrast was too much for his constitution,
like an icy draught on an August day. Mirth
often reacts into sensibility, and the liveliest strain easily
modulates into tenderness; just as extreme jocundity in a
child is but the prelude to a flood of tears.
Jack Spratte acted without premeditation, and instinctively
thought it wiser to begin afar off, and to approach
the subject by circumvallation. His first parallel was laid
as follows:
“Miss Phinney,” said he, and his voice faltered as he
spoke, “Miss Phinney, don't you think that pearches is
good, but that rockfishes is nicer—better nor sunnies?”
“Why, every goose knows that,” replied the lady,
forgetting, in her dislike to the professional allusion of
Spratte's remark, that geese are not particularly addicted
to fish—“but what are you talking about sich things now
for? We're not setting on the end of the wharf, I'd like
to know—are we?”
“No, we're not,” hastily ejaculated Jack Spratte, who
felt that the crisis of his fate was at hand; “but oh, Miss
Phinney!—oh, Miss Felicia Phinney!—don't trifle with
my dearest affekshins—don't keep me a danglin' and a
kickin', with a big hook right through the gristle of my
nose!”
The figurative style in which passion is apt to indulge,
was strikingly manifest in Mr. Spratte's mode of expression;
a way likely to promote his cause.
“Well, if ever I heerd of sich a tarnal fool!” was Miss
Phinney's unkind response; “Jack Spratte, I've not got
hold of your nose yet, whatever I may do if you keep
a cuttin' up in this crazy sort of way; and as for your
affekshins, take care there isn't kicks about your other
shins, which might hurt worse. Why—what—do—you
—mean—anyhow?” continued she, with great emphasis
and deliberation.
“I mean,” gasped Jack Spratte, so overcome by the
contending emotions of love and fear, that he was constrained
to catch hold of a lamp-post with his disengaged
hand, to prevent himself from falling; “what I mean is
this—you've got a nibble—yes, you've got a bite!—haul
me up quick, thou loveliest of sitters in the Jarsey market—haul
me up quick, and stow me away in your basket.
I'm hook'd and I am cotch'd—I'm your `catty' forvermore.
String me on a willow switch, and lug me right
away home!”
And Jack Spratte came near fainting upon the spot.
His heart was laid open—a feat of amatory surgery which
almost proved fatal to the daring lover.
Miss Felicia Phinney stepped back and gazed at him
in undisguised amazement.
“You, Jack!” said she, “you'd better jine the teeto-tallers
to-morrow, when you've got the headache. You
must be snapt now—any man that acts so queer, must be
blue.”
“No, no, no!—I thought it was the punch myself,
at first—but it's not—it's love—nothing but love—love,
without no water, no sugar, nor no nutmeg. They
couldn't make punch so strong—not even with racky-fortus,
stirred up with lignum-witey! Take pity on me,
do! Mayn't I hope, Phinney, mayn't I hope? If you
yes, wait a hopin'.”
“You're much more likely to be sent a hoppin', Mr.
Jack Spratte.”
“I only want to be on an understandin' now—sort of
engaged, and sort of not engaged—just to know who I
belong to.”
“Well, once for all, you wont belong to me, Jack
Spratte, no how it could be fixed,” and Miss Felicia
Phinney began to look enchantingly savage.
“Ah, now, don't—the cork's under—pull me up—
ah, do!”
Jack Spratte sank upon his knees, with mouth open
and upturned, as if he expected to be taken in hand immediately,
and to have the hook gently and scientifically
extracted, after the fashion of the experienced angler;
but he was doomed to disappointment; and, to continue
the metaphor, he may be regarded as a trout that broke
the snood, and was left among the bulrushes, to pine away,
with the barb deep in its gullet—an image, to express
this peculiar state of things, which is quite as poetical,
true and striking as if allusion were had to the “stricken
deer,” or to the “arrow-wounded dove.” Birds and
quadrupeds have had a monopoly in this matter quite too
long, and original sentiment must now prepare to dive
among the fishes, for the sake of novel illustration.
“Jack Spratte,” said the “scornful ladye,” “quit
lookin' like a sturgeon with the mumps—I've done with
you—get up and tortle home the straightest way there is,
and think yourself confounded lucky that you didn't get
spanked this very night. Marry you, indeed!—why, I
wouldn't marry a decent man, or a good-lookin' man, or a
man with some sort of sense in his head; and nobody
would ever tell so big a whacker as to say you are sich a
one. Now, do you hooey home, and don't try to follow
the “scornful ladye” walked disdainfully away, with an
air like Juno in her tantrums.
Jack Spratte remained upon his knees, as if converted
into a perfect petrifaction. His eyelids never twinkled—
he seemed not even to breathe—to all intents and purposes,
he was, for the time being, a defunct Spratte, and
it is presumed that, to this day, he would still have been
found upon the same spot, like a spratte done in salt, if
the watchman had not threatened to arrest him for being
non com.
“Where is she?” exclaimed he wildly, as he started
to his feet.
“Where is what?” said the nocturnal perambulator.
“Mrs. Spratte!” cried Jack, with a bewildered air,
“Mrs. Jack Spratte, that is to be. I'm goin' to be married,
aint I?”
“I don't know whether you're going to be married
or not,” was the petulant reply; “but, if you don't go
away, you'll be like to spend the rest of the evening with
the capun, at the watch'us. It's not my business to tell
people when they're goin' to be married, whether they're
sprattes or gudgeons.”
“Yes, that's it—I am—I am a gudgeon!” said Spratte,
smiting his forehead and then darting away.
“A werry flat sort of a fish, that chap is,” said Charley,
with a sage expression.
Jack Spratte went directly home, just as he had been
bid—he went home, not with any definite purpose in
view—he did not want to sleep, he did not want to eat,
he did not want to sit down—he merely experienced an
undefined “want to go home,” peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon
race, when they do not exactly know what to do
with themselves, (all other people go out, under similar
circumstances,) and, therefore, home he went, very much
has been demolished, or the rider left in some friendly
ditch. He came home like a whirlwind; but yet his feelings
were those which may be supposed to belong to the
minor vegetables—the most diminutive of the potato tribe.
He had not been “strung upon a willow switch”—he,
Jack Spratte, was enrolled among the “great rejected”—
a goodly company enough; but he derived no consolation
from the thought.
Jack Spratte vowed vengeance!—Jack Spratte kept
his word!!
Many other lovers shared the fate which had befallen
the unhappy Spratte; and, to the general eye, it certainly
did appear as if Felicia Phinney was to realize her boast,
that “if other gals had to take up with husbands, she, at
least, could do without a master,” though it was perhaps
clear enough that, in any event, the master was likely to
be but a “negative quantity.”
Miss Felicia Phinney waxed onward in years, and, as
her years increased, her energy and her commanding
spirit seemed to gather new strength. She became omnipotent
in the market-house, and wo to those who dared
to undersell, or tried too perseveringly to cheapen her
commodities.
“Why now, aunty, is that the lowest?” was sometimes,
and not unfrequently, the question.
“Sattingly—what d'ye 'spect?—Fishes is fishes now,
and shad is skurse,” would be the tart reply, and the
saleswoman would slap a pair of shad together, until they
resounded through the arches of the market like the report
of a swivel—“skurse enough, and the profits being
small, them as prices, ought to buy—that's the principle
I go upon,” and the fishes would again be brought in
contact, to the great discomposure of all who happened
to be within hearing.
In appeals of this sort, the maiden fish-woman seldom
failed to be successful—especially when the customer
happened to be rather unpractised in the affairs of the
market—for there was something peculiarly imposing in
her tone and attitude, as she held a fish by the gills in each
hand. Mark Antony himself was not more persuasive
over the remains of the slain Cæsar, than was Miss Felicia
Phinney when haranguing over her “skurse shad.”
“Ha! ha! it's well she bought something,” would be
the after remark, “for if there's any thing I hate to do,
it is being obligated and necessiated to flop a customer
over the head with a shad—'specially if it's a lady, with
a bran-new, tearin' fine bonnet—a hard flop with a shad
is sudden death and run for the coroner, on spring fashions.
But when people prices, they've got to buy. I go
for principles, and if they wont buy, why, flopped they
ought to be, and flopped they must be, or our rights will
soon be done for. People are gettin' so sassy now, that
by'm'by, if they're not learnt manners, they'll take our
shad for nothin', and make us carry 'em home to boot.
There certainly appears to be a retributive principle in
nature, which, sooner or later, victimizes us as we have
victimized others—a species of moral lex talionis, which
returns the ingredients of our chalice to our own lips.
No man ever made a greater “bull” than he who manufactured
a brazen representative of the animal, that
Phalaris might roast his victims in it, and hear their bellowing
cries—for the ingenious artificer was himself the
earliest victim, and roared like a calf. The original
hangman does not live in story. It is but fair, however,
to infer that he died by the rope, and either strangled
himself, or had that friendly office performed for him by
another. All who introduced refinements in the application
of the axe—that most aristocratic of executive
process of “shortening” from any set down in Miss
Leslie's “Domestic Cookery;” and probably the inventor
of solitary confinement and the “Pennsylvania system of
prison discipline,” was she of the “mistleto bough”—the
identical lady of the “old oak chest.” The retributive
principle goes even further than this. There are retributive
husbands and retributive wives—such, at least, do
they seem to be—whose office appears to consist in being
a penance for previous jiltings, previous flirtations, and
antecedent insults of all kinds, to the blind little gentleman
who primitively sports with bow and arrow, disdaining
recourse to the use of fire-arms. In this sense, Mr.
Brownstout was a retribution—a retribution for all the
past offences of Miss Felicia Phinney. He had been
ambushed far onward in her course through time; so
that when she thought the past forgotten, and when she
had measurably forgotten the past, the retributive husband
might, like a steel trap, be sprung upon her.
Whether Brownstout—Mr. Brownstout—had been created
and trained for this especial purpose, does not appear.
He was but a little fellow, it is true—in this respect, his
person and his name were in evident contradiction to
each other; but he was an ample sufficiency to bring
about the purposes for which he was intended.
There is, they say, such a thing as love at first sight—
an instantaneous attack, resembling somewhat the unexpected
assault of cholera, in Calcutta or thereabouts, where
the victim, doubled up, at once falls to the ground. This
spontaneous combustion is not perhaps so frequent in
modern days, as when the world was younger. Time and
change, atmospherical or otherwise, modify all disorders,
and by these influences, love, like the lightning, has, to
a considerable extent, fallen under the control of science,
and has ceased to be so rash, sudden, and explosive as it
imminent and dangerous. Young gentlemen now-a-days
are not nearly so apt, according to the popular phrase, to
be “struck all of a heap,” as their grandfathers and their
paternal predecessors are represented to have been. The
Fire-King thought little of remaining in the oven until the
dinner was baked—a feat at which precedent ages would
have looked aghast—but experiment has since proved
that the generality of our kind are salamanders to the
same extent, and a similar truth appears to have been
demonstrated, as to the capacity existing in the present
era, to withstand the fire of the brightest eyes that ever
beamed from a side-box at the opera. Who ever hears
that Orlando has shot himself for love with a percussion
pistol, or with one of your six barrelled, repeating detonators?
No—that fashion expired before the flint lock
was superseded, and when the steam engine came roaring
along, the lover ceased to sigh,—instead of suffering
himself to be pale and disheveled, he looks in the mirror
and brushes his whiskers; and, as hearts are not
knocked about so violently as they were at the period of
small swords and chapeaus, it follows as a natural consequence,
that they are very rarely broken past repair.
Miss Felicia Phinney, it may be, from having so long
evaded the “soft impeachment,” was finally afflicted
somewhat after the fashion of our ancestors. Her constitution,
not being accustomed—perhaps we should say
seasoned—to such shocks, “took it hard.” An individual
of her “timber” could not be expected to “pine;”
but when Mr. Brownstout first insinuatingly and delicately
asked the price of a shad—in those very tones which
cause lovers' words to sound “so silver sweet by night”
—she felt that her hour had come—and that her “unhoused
free condition must be put in circumscription and
confine.” Whether she was affected by the force of
taken occasion to remark, “lieth love's delight,” or whether
Mr. Brownstout only chanced to present himself at
the propitious moment, is a problem which the parties
themselves, unaccustomed as they are to such analysis,
could not undertake to solve. It is true that Felicia
Phinney was somewhat tall and not a little muscular, and
that Mr. Brownstout had no pretensions either to length,
or to any unusual degree of latitude in form. She was
bold, determined, and rather Stentorian in her vocalities
—he was mild, submissive and plausible, when it was
necessary—being both serpentine and dovelike.
Brownstout saw that he had made an impression.—
Every one intuitively knows when he has been thus fortunate;
and he justly thought that if he had been so successful
when only asking the price of a fish, results must
ensue proportionably greater, if he were actually to become
the purchaser of the article; for, if a mere tap at the door
is productive of notable consequences, a regular peal with
the knocker cannot fail to rouse the entire household.
Now Brownstout, who at that period was “a tailor by
trade,” but one who had a soul so much above buttons
that he could but rarely be persuaded to sew any of them
on, had a tolerably clear perception of the fact, that it
would be rather a comfortable thing—a nice thing, indeed—to
hang up his hat in a house of his own, and to
possess a wife gifted with the faculty of making money—
a sublunary arrangement of surpassing loveliness, provided
the wife be duly impressed with a sense of its symmetrical
proportions, and has the good taste not to recur
to the subject too often. On the one hand, he saw—“in
his mind's eye, Horatio”—enchanting visions of ninepins,
shuffleboard and other exercises of that sort, made still more
agreeable by proper allowances of ale and tobacco—while,
on the other hand, a sufficient basis—“a specie basis”—
the mart piscatorial, femininely attended. There was a
beautiful harmony in this aspect of the case, that came
straight home to his bosom. It combined dignity with
utility—poetry with practice—the sweet with the useful,
in such architectural grace, that it was not in his nature
to abandon the prospect. He had what few men have—
a scheme of life before him, which dove-tailed into all his
peculiarities of disposition, and might be pronounced
perfect. It is not then to be wondered at that Thais at
Alexander's side, on the memorable evening when the
mail brought the election returns from Persia, was not
more soul-subduing than Miss Felicia Phinney seemed in
the eyes of the enraptured Brownstout.
It was not in his way, to be sure. He was not altogether
accustomed to such matters; but as he was aware
of the truth of the axiom, “nothing venture, nothing
have,” he ultimately made the desperate resolve to buy a
fish, and—reckless man!—to pay for it!—to buy, if
necessary to the completion of his great design, several
successive fishes and to pay for them, and he saw but one
difficulty in the way. His road was clear enough so far
as the mere purchase was involved; but it was the second
clause in the programme of the operation which somewhat
puzzled Mr. Brownstout, as indeed it often puzzles
financiers of a more elevated range. He might buy, but,
like Macbeth, he did not know how to “trammel up the
consequence,” which was to pay. It is true that a certain
practical philosopher has decided that “base is the
slave who pays;” yet there are times when circumstances
so combine against the principles of “free trade” that to
pay is unavoidable. Mr. Brownstout felt his situation to
be a case in point, and he was sadly puzzled as to the
mode in which this monetary obstacle was to be surmounted,
until he remembered that, in default of assets,
so that they may be “coined to drachmas.” He
resolved to borrow on his personal liability, secured by
the “collateral” of his chances in matrimony, of course
promising a premium proportionate to the risk. For the
means of obtaining a half dollar's worth of fish, he was,
at a future day, to return a full dollar, which is not unreasonable,
considering the shadowy nature of prospective
dollars, dependent on contingencies—dollars, so situated,
are very uncertain dollars—dollars, which are “to be or
not to be,” as the fates may determine. When any one
says “I'll owe you a dollar,” it often requires acute ears
to detect even the approaching jingle thereof.
“A sweet morning, Miss Phinney!—a lovely morning
—quite circumambient and mellifluous, if I may use the
expression. Such mornings as this cause us bachelors
to feel like posts in a flower garden—we may look on, to
be sure, but no rosies and posies are blooming for us—we
are nothing but interlopers and don't belong to the family
—solitary and forlorn in the middle of the crowd. More
juvenile people, such as you, Miss Phinney, don't realize
those things; but for me!”—and Brownstout assumed an
expression peculiarly plaintive, as he stood in the market-house
vis-à-vis to the shad basket.
“I minds my own business, Mr. Brownstout, and never
trades in rosies and posies,” was the gentle reply; “the
beautifulest mornings, to my thinking, is them when people
bites sharp and are hungry for fish. Hyperflutenations
and dictionary things are not in my way;” but Miss
Phinney was evidently pleased with Brownstout's “hyper-flutenations
and dictionary things,” and liked them none
the worse probably because they were not very clearly
understood.
“You are right, madam—perfectly right. When
people have a taste for fish, they are generally fond of fish,
I'm very much attached to fish myself. How are fish
to-day?”
“Why, pretty well, I thank you, Mr. Brownstout;
how do you find yourself?”
This being the first attempt at a joke ever essayed by
Miss Felicia Phinney, she was quite pleased with the
darling, and she laughed—rather rustily, it must be confessed,
but she did laugh; and Brownstout, not being
deficient in tact, he laughed too. If you desire to win
people's hearts, always laugh at their jokes, whether good,
bad, or indifferent—more heartily, in fact, at those which
are bad and indifferent than at the good ones. It proves
your benevolence. The good joke can take care of itself
and walk alone, while the others are rickety and require
cherishing, and are also, on this account, the greater
favourites with the author of their being.
Brownstout laughed—“ha—ha—hugh!” and Miss
Phinney laughed—“he—he—haw!” Pretty well on
both sides. This intermingling of laughs often leads to
an intermingling of sighs, if care be taken not to laugh too
much; for a lover habitually jocose seldom prospers with
the fair, however deep the undertow of his sentimentality.
Brownstout was aware of this, and subsided betimes into
a more amiable 'haviour of the visage.
He finally bought his fish, and, as they dangled from
his hand, so did he dangle after Miss Phinney, and the
combined perseverance of dangling and purchasing at
last brought him to the haven of his hopes. They were
married, and Miss Felicia Phinney was duly metamorphosed
into Mrs. Brownstout.
But who had urged this ill-starred attachment to so dire
a catastrophe!—who but Jack Spratte—the Varney Spratte
—the Iago Spratte—the worse than Schedoni Spratte!—
Spratte, the rejected—Spratte, the despised!! He had
to his tender emotions on that memorable night of
“Copenhagen and fried oysters”—of love and despair—
when the expression of his lacerated feelings had been
imputed to the effects of punch—when, in spite of assurances
that “the hook was through the gristle of his nose,”
the obdurate fair had refused to “pull him up.” Had
Jack Spratte been oblivious of his wrongs? No—they
had lain within his bosom as icy as a cold potato, while
the sweet cider of his affections had passed through all
the grades of fermentation—acetous and so forth—until
they had become vinegar, sharper than the north wind—
pepper vinegar, to which “picalillies” are not a circumstance.
The merry Spratte, in a single night, had been
converted into a pike of the fiercest description. He
frequented the shuffleboard—he early discovered the
secret of Mr. Brownstout's attachment—he treated to
slings and egg nog, until he ascertained the relative position
of parties, and all necessary particulars—he confirmed
Brownstout's wavering resolution—he lent him the
money to buy shad—and he, even he, stood groomsman
at the ceremony, covering his procrastinated triumph in
deceptive smiles, and eating cake as if his heart were filled
with sympathetic emotions.
Why did Jack Spratte do this?—why?—because he
knew Mr. Brownstout's sordid views—his nefarious designs—his
intention to frequent the ninepin alley and the
shuffleboard, while his wife sold fish in the market—his
resolution never to work again. It was Jack Spratte's
Revenge!! Diabolical Spratte!!!
The results which Jack Spratte had anticipated, as
some compensation for his sufferings, were not of slow
development. “Domestic uneasiness” gathered like a
cloud around the hearth-stone of the Brownstouts; for
Brownstout, being busily engaged in the pursuit of happiness,
but rarely made his appearance at all until one or two
o'clock in the morning; and, when he did come, his first
visitation was to his wife's professional check apron, to
obtain an additional supply of the sinews of war.
“Husbands are luxuries, my dear, and must be paid
for accordingly,” was his only reply to words of remonstrance;
and when the aforesaid pocket was put out of
sight, he broke things by way of demonstration, until it
was again brought within reach.
Mrs. Brownstout, in the warmth of her affection, for a
time tried kindness as a means of reform—she winked at
her husband's idleness and made him a weekly allowance;
but his ideas on the subject of gentlemanly expenditure,
developed themselves too rapidly to be confined within
the bounds of such limits, and he had secret recourse to
the pocket, until the deficiencies thus occasioned became
too palpable to be concealed. The cash would not balance,
and, naturally enough, the patience of Mrs. Brownstout
then kicked the beam. She “flopped” her little
husband—not with a shad, as might be expected, but
with a shovel applied in its latitude, “broadside on.”
The next morning, silence reigned through the hapless
domicile of the Brownstouts. The masculine owner of
that name had disappeared, and with him the pocket,
check apron and all. Night after night he came not, and
Mrs. Brownstout grew meagre and dejected.
“I'm a lone widder feller,” sighed she, “or just as
bad. When you aint got your husband, it's pretty near
the same thing as if you hadn't none. But men is men
all the world over, and you can't help it no how. When
Brownstout fust came a courtin' to me, you'd a thought
butter wouldn't a melted in his mouth, he pretended to
be so sniptious. He swore he loved me; but now, just
because of a little difficulty about the shovel, he's shinned
all the spoons he could lay his hands on.”
And so Mrs. Brownstout one evening sallied forth in
search of the delinquent.
The bar was in full practice—clients and “cases”
flocked around it in abundance. Four “hands,” with
their sleeves rolled up, could scarcely, with all their quickness,
mix the “fancy drinks” fast enough to supply the
demand, so numerous were the applications for refreshment.
Corks were popping—the bottles gurgled—clouds
of cigar smoke were “rolling dun,” and men had to
speak at the very stretch of their voices, to be heard over
the thunder of the balls, as they went trolling along the
board and crashing among the ninepins, anon booming
back adown the trough. There, amidst the crowd, divested
of his coat and waistcoat, to give free play to muscular
action, was Brownstout!—the faithless Brownstout!—in
his glory. His cigar and his half-empty tumbler stood
upon an adjacent ledge—in the enthusiasm of the hour, he
had not only bared his arms, but likewise girt his body with
a bandana, and tucked his trowsers into his boots. There
was a streak of chalk upon his face, which gave its general
flush of excitement a still more ruddy tinge.
It was his throw!
Nicely did Brownstout poise the ponderous ball, which
rested on his right hand, while the forefinger of the left
remained for an instant upon its upper hemisphere. He
paused a moment for an inspiring sip and a preliminary
puff—and then—the living statues never displayed more
grace in attitude—every head projected, as if their owners
would penetrate into futurity, and see results before they
were accomplished. Brownstout bowed himself to the
task, scanning the interval with that eye of skill which
so surely betokens victory, and then, with a slide like
boom!—bump!—smash!!—crash!!!
“Another set-up!” is the general cry, and Brownstout,
with a back-handed sweep across his countenance, which
scarcely concealed the half-suppressed smile of conscious
genius beaming in every feature—though he would have
looked indifferent, had that been possible—turned himself
once more to his tumbler and to his cigar, like one
who felt that “he had done the state some service and
they knew it.” He had reason to be proud. Not only
had he achieved victory for his “pard'ners” and gained
the refreshment tickets—good for a drink and trimmings—
consequent thereon—but he had also secured several bets,
couched under the mysterious phrase of being for “something
all round.” Indeed, it is not certain that an “oyster
supper for six” was not also dependent on the result,
which Brownstout had mentally resolved should be an
oyster supper for one, on each of six specified nights, and
not an oyster supper for six, on one night; the last being
a common arrangement, but regarded by him as at war
with true economy, and as most “wasteful and ridiculous
excess.”
After the first burst of exultation was over, the victors
seemed suddenly to become athirst—they smacked their
lips, and made many other conventional signs expressive
of that condition, jogging the elbows of the defeated, and
asking, very significantly, “what shall it be?”—a sound
which awakened the smiles of “the bar,” the members
whereof began scientifically to handle the decanters
chiefly affected by Mr. Brownstout's “brave associates—
partners of his toil”—for had he not gained the decisive
“set-up?”
“Set-up!”—unlucky words! Well said Napoleon to
the Abbe De Pradt, that from the sublime to the ridiculous
there is but one step. It was so with the emperor.
gained a “set-up,” we are nearest to a “set-down.”
“Out of the way!” shrieked a well-known voice, the
owner of which was endeavouring to force a passage
through the crowd—“I'm sure he's here—he's always
here, and I'm come to fetch him!”
“The old woman!” exclaimed Brownstout, in trembling
dismay, as the tumbler slipped from his nerveless
hand, and the cigar rolled into the folds of his bosom.
“And old woman!” repeated the gentlemen of the bar,
letting fall their “muddlers.”
“His old woman!” re-echoed the ninepin players,
aghast.
“Brownstout's old woman!” was the general chorus.
“Run, Brown!”
“Hop, Stout!!”
“Make yourself scarce!”
Too late, alas! were these kindly hints from those who
would have saved their beloved friend from the infliction
of domestic discipline. Brownstout saw that retreat was
impossible. His wife's broad hand was upon him. He
fell back breathless with terror—it is presumed that reminiscences
of the shovel danced athwart his brain.
Like another Mephistophiles, Jack Spratte appeared
upon the scene. The author of mischief is always in at
the catastrophe.
“You are a precious set of warmint!” said Mrs. Brownstout,
as she glared fiercely around—“who am I to thank
for deludin' my old man to sich places as this, to waste
his time and my money on fools and foolery?”
“Thank me!” exclaimed Jack Spratte, hysterically,
“me!—me! to whom you guv' the mitten!—me, who
got the bag to hold!—me, whose nose was put out of
jint!—me, whose young hopes was drownded in cold
water almost before their eyes was opened!”
The “adsum qui feci” of the Latin poet was never
more finely “done into English,” though it may well be
questioned whether the atrocious Spratte had ever heard
of Nisus and Euryalus.
The excitement became intense—the crowd huddled
around—the boys rushed from the pins to listen to the
denouement—and one thirsty soul at the bar showed his
interest in the matter, by hastily swallowing the contents
of three other gentlemen's glasses, to fortify himself for
the occasion, after which he also hurried to the centre.
“It was me that done it all!” continued Spratte, gesticulating
spasmodically—“I know'd he'd break your
heart!—I know'd he'd hook your money!—I know'd he'd
keep always goin' out and never comin' home agin! If
it hadn't been for me, he'd not have married you—but
now I'm revenged—now I'm happy—now I'm—ha! ha!
hugh!” and Jack Spratte sprung high into the air, and,
on his return to earth, spun round three times, and, exhausted
by emotion, fell prostrate, upsetting a table upon
which stood three “brandies” and one whisky punch.
Mrs. Brownstout dropped her hands, and suffered the
almost inanimate form of her husband to go lumbering to
the earth, while she stood petrified with despair at this
terrible revelation. Her heart was congealed, and every
bystander was stricken with horror at Spratte's having
been been such a “debaushed fish”—all were moved
inwardly, except the utilitarian who had imbibed the
other gentlemen's liquor, and he seized on the chance to
move outwardly, that he might sneak away without discharging
the dues for that which he had ordered himself.
There were no more ninepins that night—the moral influence
was such that the boys put out the lights without
being told to do so—if they had not, indeed, it is probable
the lights would have gone out of themselves. Mr.
and Mrs. Brownstout went home in a cab—they were too
degrees—the three brandies and the whisky punch, in
which he was immersed, probably saved his life—but
Jack Spratte never smiled again, no matter how good the
joke. His bosom was seared—his heart was like a dried
cherry several seasons old, and so he became a drummer
in the marines, delighting only in the beating of tattoo
and reveille, as two of the most misanthropic of employments—the
one sending men to bed, while the other
forces them to get up. He was severe upon these points
of war, and it was noticed that he was always a little before
the time in the performance of each. Such are the
spiteful effects of blighted affections, which give acerbity
even to a musician! But Jack Spratte's revenge had
failed—most signally failed. After the events of the
ninepin alley, Brownstout was an altered man. He
might justly be spoken of as a great moral re-action.
Stung to the quick at having been made an instrument
of revenge—a mere drumstick of malignity—he burnt all
the tickets in his possession, “good,” as they were, “for
refreshments at the bar”—he returned the check apron
pocket to his wife, though probably it would have been
more acceptable if any thing had remained in it. The
spoons, however, were past redemption; but what are
spoons in comparison with matrimonial comfort—what
are spoons, when one's husband works in the daytime
and never goes out in the evenings? Mrs. Brownstout was
a happy woman, and never, in fact, hinted at “spoons,” unless
she had cause to suspect that her husband's thoughts
might perhaps be straying towards ninepins. That word
always brought him straight, and she but rarely had occasion
to say “spoons,” except on the Fourth of July or about
the Christmas holidays. As for the bibulous individual
before alluded to, the poetic catastrophe to which he was
an accidental witness, made him so dry that he has been
He thinks of hiring himself out as a dam to any moderate
sized river, and would do so, if the navigation company
were liberal enough to put a drop of something
in the water, just to take the chill off and to correct its
crudities.
And such is the end of “Jack Spratte's Revenge.”
| JACK SPRATTE'S REVENGE.
A PISCATORIAL EPISODE. Peter Ploddy, and other oddities | |