 | CORNER LOUNGERS. Peter Ploddy, and other oddities |  |
10. CORNER LOUNGERS.
There are men—many men—whose mental callipers
grasp only a single idea—the sun of whose thought revolves
about, warms and enlightens but one little world,
that world being the contracted universe (for universe it
is to them) of their own personal affairs and individual
interests. From some congenital defect in their intellectual
optics—as spectacles for the mind remain to be
invented, and as the concave lens has not yet been adjusted
to rectify the imperfect vision of the soul—they
live within a narrow horizon, and browse, as it were,
with a tether, having a certain circumference of grass,
without the ability to take a mouthful beyond its limits.
Nor, indeed, have they any desire for such epicurean adventure.
They do not so much as wish to glance into any
field which is not peculiarly their own. The clover which
belongs to them, satisfies all their wants, and to disturb
themselves at all, as to how other people make hay, is a
stretch of ambition to which they never aspire. Armies
may devour each other—navies may go down and submit
their Paixhans artillery to the investigation of the grampus
and other martial fishes,—empires may rock and reel, like
Fourth of July revellers, in the days when the evidence
of patriotism was to make the head heavier than the heels;
but the species to which we refer, still open their shops
with unshaken nerves, take their breakfast with undiminished
appetite, and go about their business with no thought
but that of making both ends meet. To bear a hand in
the grand work of ameliorating the condition of the human
race, is a matter, in their opinion, which qualifies one for
the first vacancy in the lunatic asylum. They belong to
no philanthropic associations to regulate the price of soap
organization to compel the employing shoemakers of the
moon to give their apprentices half-holiday once a week.
They are sure that “Convention” must be something
relative to Bedlam, and that those who wish to reform
everybody else, must stand greatly in need of some such
operation themselves. An election, to them, is an annual
nuisance—a periodical eruption, made necessary by
a defective constitution, and all the meetings which go
before, are, in their eyes, merely the premonitory symptom
that disease is reaching a crisis. Processions and
parades move their pity, and when they think at all about
the turmoil of the outer world, it is only to wonder when
the fools will have it “fixed” to their liking.
Far different from these is that disinterested body of
men and boys who lounge at the corners of the way in a
great metropolis; members of the human family who may
be said to be always on hand and continually in circulation.
They literally are the pillars of the state. They
prop up lamp-posts—patronise fire-plugs, and encourage
the lindens of the street in their unpractised efforts to
grow. The luxuriant trees, which adorn the front of Independence
Hall, outstrip all others in umbrageous beauty,
because they, beyond all others, have been sustained by
the kindness of loungers; and they now strive to return
the compliment, by affording a canopy to intercept the rays
of the sun, and to avert the falling shower, from the
beloved friends who stand by them, have stood by them,
and will continue to stand by them, in every sort of
weather.
In ancient Rome, whenever that respectable republic
got itself into a difficulty with those unreasonable people
who were foolish enough to wish to regulate their own
affairs, and when the storm grew loud and threatening, it
was sometimes found necessary to intrust all things to the
care that the republic received no detriment.” But,
without the provisions of law—without the troubles and
dangers which flowed from the Roman practice, we are
happy in the possession of a host of such officers, unrecognised,
it is true, but not the less efficient, whose
chief employment and whose main delight it is, reckless
of honour and emolument, to take care that nothing
detrimental happens to the republic. Their regards are
always upon it, in jealous supervision. They are no
speculative overseers, who imperfectly attend to exterior
affairs, by lounging in slippered ease in luxurious offices,
disporting themselves over the newspapers of the day.
They are not influenced by the mere report of scouts, or
the sinister assertions of the interested; but make it their
daily practice to hear with their own ears and to see with
their own eyes. Nay, they push their zealous watchfulness
so far, that they may often be seen in the exercise
of their high functions, when other mortals, less gifted
with discrimination, can discover nothing to excite their
notice. When the pavier is at work in the highway,
heaving the weighty rammer with most emphatic groan,
not a pebble is driven to its place, that the genuine
lounger has not marked in every stage of its progress. No
gas-pipe is adjusted, without undergoing a similar scrutiny,
and the sanctified spot where the pig was killed or the
hound was run over, acquires such mysterious and fascinating
importance in the lounger's estimation, that he
will stand whole days in sombre contemplation of so distinguished
a locality. Even the base of Pompey's statue,
where great Cæsar fell, could not prove more attractive;
and Rizzio's blood, which stains the floor of Holyrood,
is not more dear to the antiquary than are the marks left
by an overturned wagon, to the non-commissioned superintendents
of the city. Indeed, they have been seen
tenants moved on the previous night, without complying
with the vexatious ceremony of paying the rent—a feudal
exaction perpetuated by landlords for the perplexity of
the people. Should a masterless hat be found, or a drop
of blood be discovered in the street, it forms a nucleus
for a gathering. No matter how slight the cause may
seem to the ordinary intellect, there are persons who look
more deeply into things, and derive wisdom from circumstances
apparently too trivial to deserve regard.
But they are secret, too. The perfect lounger, though
prodigal of his presence, is a niggard with his words. It
is his vocation to see, and not to speak. His inferences
are locked within the recesses of his own breast. He is
wary and diplomatic, and not like other individuals, to
be sounded “from the lowest note to the top of his compass,”
by the curiosity of each passing stranger. He
opposes no one in the acquisition of knowledge—he places
no stumbling-blocks in the way; but, by his taciturnity,
intimates that the results of his labours are not to be
obtained for nothing. It is his motto that if you desire
information, you must use the proper means to acquire it;
for you have the same natural qualifications for the purpose
as he.
That this characteristic belongs to the street lounger—
we have nothing to say about the inferior class who operate
solely within walls—is evident from the fact that it
rarely happens in the course of the most inquisitive life,
that any one, on approaching a crowd, can ascertain, by
inquiry of its component members, why it has assembled.
The question is either unheeded altogether, or else a
supercilious glance is turned upon the querist, with a
laconic response that the party does not know. Ostensibly,
nobody knows a jot about the matter, except the
fortunate few who form the inner circle, and, as it were,
early from the interior pressure, and walk away, either
with smiling faces, as if the joke were good, or with a
solemn sadness of the brow, as if their sensibilities
had been lacerated, even they “don't know!” None
will tell, except perchance it be a luckless urchin not yet
taught to economize his facts, or some unsophisticated
girl with a market basket, who talks for talking's sake.
But who believes that the initiated “don't know”—that
the omnipresent lounger “don't know?” It is not to be
believed. He does know; but from some as yet undetermined
and unappreciated singularity of his nature, it is
rather his pleasure to be looked upon as ignorant, than to
“unlace his reputation” by proving false to so cardinal
a point in the practice of his kind, as to be a mere bulletin
for others' uses. What he knows, he knows—let that
content you. He has employment for all he has acquired,
which, to outward appearance, would be spoiled by participation;
but where, or how, or when he proposes to
use it, is a problem which remains to be solved.
Unawed by the state of the weather, these watchful
sentinels are always abroad; and so far are they elevated
above the influences of prevailing effeminacy, that they
indulge so little in home delights as to induce many to
believe that they dispense altogether with the enervating
comforts of a fixed domicile. When their nature must
needs “recuperate,” it is supposed they “rotate” for
repose, and that thus, by never couching themselves consecutively
in the same nest, they catch abuses napping,
by their sudden and unexpected appearance “so early in
the morning.”
But, whatever may be the private habits, entomologically
or ornithologically speaking, of “the corner
lounger,” he is a self-evident proposition and an undeniable
fact There may be doubts as to the existence of
but he must be confessed. Go where you will, he is
there, and as he is there to everybody, his there must be
everywhere, paradoxical as it may seem. His visibility
is co-existent with your presence, and it would require
the pen of transcendentalism to explain the mysterious
nature of his wonderful ubiquity. We have not language
to pourtray the phenomena developed in this respect by a
civic lounger of the superlative class; but, in homely
phrase, if we may so express it, like a speck upon the
eye itself, look where you will, he stands full blown before
you. He is rarely seen in motion—never in transitu;
but he is at your elbow when you depart, and when you
have reached your end, the lounger is at the place in anticipation,
leisurely drumming with his heels upon a post
and bearing no traces of a forced march. By what magic
process this is accomplished, no one can tell. There is
no proof that he travels. There is no physical sign in his
appearance, to induce a belief that he excels in locomotion,
or has any taste for such active employment as would
seem to be necessary for achieving such results; and so
much are the scientific puzzled to account for the fact to
which we have reference, that a paper is said to be in
preparation for the “Philosophical Transactions,” having
for its object to determine “whether a corner lounger,
in his distinctive and individual capacity, be one or
many; or whether the specimen be not multitudinous,
in an identical shape and image, so that in the same form
and as one person, he is gifted with the capacity to be
everywhere at once.” Every nice observer will be inclined
to receive the last hypothesis as the correct impression;
for he must often have had abundant reason to
conclude that the lounger is really thus, “as broad and
general as the casing air”—a Monsieur Tonson who has
always “come again.”
There are, however, certain peculiarities in this matter
which are also worthy of remark—little niceties in the
case which deserve their comment. As each man is supposed
to have his superintending star—his supervising
genius, which, both in weal and wo, hovers about his
footsteps or directs his course, so each individual has his
lounging “John Jones”—his familiar from the spirit-land
of loaferdom. We know him not, but in his palpable
form—we have exchanged no word or kindness with
him—he has no interest in our affairs, nor we in his—
there is no earthly tie existing; but when we have once
marked our coincident lounger, he is there for ever—our
inevitable fate—the everlasting frontispiece in the volume
of our experiences—our perpetual double, in sunshine or
in rain. Let the fact once be presented to your sensorium
that you rarely go to any place without seeing “that
man,” and your doom is sealed. You never will go
anywhere without seeing him, either there or on your way
there, from that time forth; and when you do not see him,
be assured that there is abundant reason to doubt whether
you are really yourself, and whether, notwithstanding
appearances, you are not mistaken in the person—so that
in shaving your apparent countenance, you may have
shaved an impostor, and in drinking your wine, you may
have been pouring refreshment down the throat of a rogue.
When a man is without his shadow, what assurance is
there that himself is he? But when one's reflex is present,
he may, in some cases, be satisfied that money put
in his own pocket, is not intrusted to the care of a peculator.
And in this way is it that wisdom derives comfort
from the phenomenon that we have attempted to
explain.
Is the citizen martially inclined, and does he attend
volunteer parades, to gratify the heroic longings of his
soul by having his toes macerated by iron heels, his ribs
astonished by the musket-but of the authoritative sentinel,
who knocks the breath out of your body, while politely
exclaiming “stand back, gentlemen; a little further, if
you please!” There is his attendant lounger, in the best
of possible places, and safely beyond the reach of the mobrepressing
guard.
Is the foiled pickpocket borne triumphantly to office
of Recorder, Alderman or Mayor? Look ye now and see.
Within the rail of official function, close to magisterial
dignity, there stands your ghost, your “bodach glas;” not
antecedent or consequent, but instant. No need to wish,
or call, or wonder at his absence. You are here, and he
is—there—cause and effect, linked together by hooks of
steel. 'Tis your alter ego—your t'other eye.
Do you attend the burial of a friend, and walk in gloom
and silent sorrow? Dash aside your tears, and behold,
leaning against that funeral tree which overshadows the
sad procession, an evidence is apparent that even in grief
your unknown coadjutor is true to his vocation. You
will never be deserted—never!
Are you essentially humane, taking delight to see murder
choked and homicide made breathless, that the world
may become tender-hearted and averse to horrors by familiarity
with Ketch's delectable countenance? “That
man” is helping to support the rectangular superstructure
which reforms men by the speedy dislocation of their
vertebral column, and improves the age by the disjointing
of necks. He and Ketch seem to be sworn brothers.
But fear not. Though this circumstance of yours be
something that cannot be avoided, either by secresy respecting
your movements—for he is an intuition—by
rapidity of travel—for he is ubiquitous—or by cunning
evasion—for he is instinctive—yet no harm appears ever
to have arisen from this species of Chang and Engship—
venture upon a terminological experiment, and coin a
phrase to distinguish an unnamed idea. The “inevitable”
may be sad in his expression; but he shows no sign of
being mischievous in his soul, nor is his observation sarcastic
in its conclusions. He is a student of humanity,
ever at his book, but rather touched with melancholy at
the lession thus derived, than made misanthropic by a
knowledge of our weaknesses and follies. Exulting beauty
passes by him, and at the “rustling of silks and the creaking
of shoes,” which have betrayed so many hearts, he
sighs to think that a bad cold or a misdirected bucket
would soon reduce that joyousness to the most pitiable
plight. He looks plaintively at the unheeding dog, who,
ignorant of laws, and with muzzle at home, sports onward
to the fell clutches of the sordid Sambo, to whom canine
slaughter is a trade and profit; and he draws analogies
between puppyhood and youthful prime, revelling in wild
delights, and unwarned of “ketchers” till they are caught.
The lounger is a lonely moralist, who has too much general
sympathy to isolate affection by contracting his sphere
of usefulness—too disinterested to narrow himself down
to a pursuit of selfish aggrandizement—too full of heart to
be cooped within the ribs of a trade, and too anxious
about the general welfare ever to give rest to his anxious
eye. He is the general guardian—the foster mother of us
all; and perhaps it is our ignorance alone that regards him
as being exclusive in his attentions; just as childhood
thinks that a portrait watches all its movements, or as the
moon seems marching above our heads wherever we go.
Such as we have described is Nicholas Nollikins—he
with the breastpin—he who watches so intently the
shaving, evolved and elaborated from its parent stick by
the keen edge of his whittle. Though Nollikins appears
to be cutting, and it is reasonable to suppose that he is
sage—not such as they stuff ducks withal, or liquidate
into medicinal tea—but that sort of sage which has sagacity
for its result, better far than ducks or teas. Nollikins,
however, labours under a difficulty. He is reflective
and observant, but not practical. He never comes
to the application, for that word is particularly what he
dislikes; and hence the deep river of his probable usefulness
has its perfect navigation interrupted by a dam in
the channel. His ships never come to port. Nollikins
has in his time tried many trades; but none of them agreed
with him, except the office of being midshipman to an
oyster boat, and there were points even in this profession
which were repugnant to his finer emotions. “Raking”
on dry land is not perhaps so disagreeable; but let those
who think that words are identical and synonymous, and
represent the same thing at sea and ashore, try raking for
oysters, as Nicholas Nollikins did for a whole season, and
they will ever after have a correct appreciation of differences.
When the boat returned to the wharf, Nicholas
was at home. His taste for society could now be gratified.
The delicate aspirations of his nature found food in the
distribution of oysters, and his imagination had room to
expand as he opened the bivalves. What a delightful
compound of business and pleasure is that phase of the
oyster trade which sells wholesale, but yet does not scorn
the niceties of retail to the hungry wanderer! Benevolence
and information are here combined—to talk and to
eat—to question and to impart nourishment—to benefit
both the physique and the morale at the same time—who
would not be midshipman of an oyster boat—who could
not live whole days at the wharf, under such circumstances?
Nollikins could—Nollikins did—thrice happy
Nollikins!
But the genial sky always has clouds in it—a spring
by a cloudy afternoon. When oysters are sold and eaten,
it is a necessity, arising from the unfortunate state of
things in this sublunary sphere, that you must go after
additional oysters—that is, if you want more; for oysters,
unlike the accommodating shad, have not yet learned to
come up the river of themselves, that they may be caught
at the very door. Few things, in the eating way, have
that innate politeness so remarkable in the character of a
shad. Had the shad been blessed with feet and hands,
there cannot be a doubt but that it would complete its
measure of complaisance by walking up the street and
ringing at the bell, with a civil inquiry for the cook and
the gridiron. It would come about half an hour before
breakfast, and never defer its call till after tea. Commend
us to the shad, as the best mannered fish that swims.
Many men might go to school to the shad; and indeed, if
our piscatory learning be not at fault, the shad do assemble
in schools, to which cause possibly may be attributed
the excellence of their training. Always bow with
deference to a shad—it has travelled far to enjoy the
pleasure of your acquaintance. The oyster, however, is
churlish—it makes no free visitation, and upon this fact
hinges the fate of Nicholas Nollikins. He could not
abide the painful contrast which was brought home to his
sensibilities, by the change from the wharf to the cove—
from society to solitude—from the delicate play of the
iron-handled knife, (so favourable to the exhibition of
grace and skill,) to the heavy drag of rakes and tongs in
the oyster bed; and he, therefore, concluded to resign his
regular commission, and to obtain his living for the future
by dabbling only in the fancy branches of human employment.
When the boats come up, he has no objection to
taking a place, for the time being, as salesman to the
concern; and in this way, working only when urgent
in the ornamentals of life, such as leaning against a post
and speculating on the chances and changes of terrestrial
affairs, our worthy Nicholas contrives to bite the sunny
side from the peach, leaving the green core for those who
are mean enough to be content with it.
Nicholas has a home, upon a desperate emergency;
but he does not trouble it often with his presence, for
reasons which he regards as perfectly adequate to excuse
any delinquency in this respect, which calumnious tongues
may think proper to lay to his charge.
“As for goin' home, Billy Bunkers,” said he, one day,
in confidence to the long lad with the short roundabout,
who leans upon the opposite side of the lamp post; “as
for goin' home, Billy, savin' and exceptin' when you
can't help it, why it's perfectly redicklis. If people's
opinyins could be made to agree, that would be one thing,
and you might go home. But as these opinyins don't
agree, why that's another thing, and it's best to clear out
and keep out, jist as long as you kin. What's your sitivation
when you do go home? There's the old man, and
there's the old voman and the rest of them, hurtin' your
feelins as bad as if they was killin' kittens with a brickbat.
As soon as you're inside of the door, they sing out
like good fellers, `Eh, waggybone!—Ho! ho! lazyboots!—
hellow, loafer!—ain't you most dead a workin' so hard?—
t'aint good for your wholesome to be so all-fired industrious!'
That's the way they keep a goin' on, aggravatin' you for
everlastin'. They don't understand my complaint—they
can't understand a man that's lookin' up to better things.
I tell you, Billy,” exclaimed Nicholas, with tears in his
eyes, “when a feller's any sort of a feller, like you and
me—”
“Yes,” replied Billy, complacently; “we're the fellers
—it takes us.”
“When a feller's any sort of a feller, to be ketched at
home is little better than bein' a mouse in a wire-trap.
They poke sticks in your eye, squirt cold water on your
nose, and show you to the cat. Common people, Billy—
low, ornery, common people, can't make it out when
natur's raised a gentleman in the family—a gentleman all
complete, only the money's been forgot. If a man won't
work all the time—day in and day out—if he smokes by
the fire or whistles out of the winder, the very gals bump
agin him and say `get out of the way, loaf!' Now what
I say is this—if people hasn't had genteel fotchin' up,
you can no more expect 'em to behave as if they had
been fotch up genteel, than you can make good cigars
out of a broom handle.”
“That are a fact,” ejaculated Billy Bunkers, with emphasis;
for Billy has experienced, in his time, treatment at
home somewhat similar to that complained of by Nicholas
Nollikins.
“But, Billy, my son, never mind, and keep not a lettin'
on,” continued Nollikins, and a beam of hope irradiated
his otherwise saturnine countenance; “the world's
a railroad and the cars is comin'—all we'll have to do is
to jump in, chalked free. There will be a time—something
must happen. Rich widders are about yet, though
they are snapped up so fast. Rich widders, Billy, are
`special providences,' as my old boss used to say when
I broke my nose in the entry, sent here like rafts to pick
up deservin' chaps when they can't swim no longer.
When you've bin down twy'st, Billy, and are jist off
agin, then comes the widder a floatin' along. Why,
splatterdocks is nothin' to it, and a widder is the best of
all life-preservers, when a man is most a case, like you
and me.”
“Well, I'm not perticklar, not I, nor never was. I'll
take a widder, for my part, if she's got the mint drops,
harrystocratic—I drinks with anybody, and smokes all
the cigars they give me. What's the use of bein' stuck
up, stiffy? It's my principle that other folks are nearly
as good as me, if they're not constables nor aldermen. I
can't stand them sort.”
“No, Billy,” said Nollikins, with an encouraging
smile, “no, Billy, such indiwidooals as them don't know
human natur'—but, as I was goin' to say, if there happens
to be a short crop of widders, why can't somebody
leave us a fortin?—That will do as well, if not better.
Now look here—what's easier than this? I'm standin'
on the wharf—the rich man tries to go aboard of the
steamboat—the niggers push him off the plank—in I
jumps, ca-splash! The old gentleman isn't drownded;
but he might have been drownded but for me, and if he
had a bin, where's the use of his money then? So he gives
me as much as I want now, and a great deal more when
he defuncts riggler, accordin' to law and the practice of
civilized nations. You see—that's the way the thing
works. I'm at the wharf every day—can't afford to lose
a chance, and I begin to wish the old chap would hurra
about comin' along. What can keep him?”
“If it 'ud come to the same thing in the end,” remarked
Billy Bunkers, “I'd rather the niggers would
push the old man's little boy into the water, if it's all the
same to him. Them fat old fellers are so heavy when
they're skeered, and hang on so—why, I might get
drownded before I had time to go to bank with the
check! But what's the use of waitin'? Couldn't we
shove 'em in some warm afternoon, ourselves? Who'd
know in the crowd?”
“I've thought of that, Bunkers, when a man was before
me that looked like the right sort. I've often said
to myself, `My friend, how would you like to be washed
when you got him out, he couldn't pay. What
then?”
“Why, keep a puttin' new ones in to soak every day,
till you do fish up the right one.”
“It won't do, my friend—they'd smoke the joke—
all the riff-raff in town would be pushin' old gentlemen
into the river, and the elderly folks would have to give
up travellin' by the steamboat. We must wait, I'm
afeared, till the real thing happens. The right person will
be sure to come along.”
“I hope so; and so it happens quick, I don't much
care whether it's the old man, or his little boy, or that
rich widder, that gets a ducking. I'm not proud.”
“And when it does happen,” exclaimed Nollikins,
swelling with a triumphant anticipation, “who but me,
with more beard than a nannygoat, and a mile of gold
chain, goin' up Chestnut street! Who but Nollikins,
with his big dog!”
“Yes, and Billy Bunkers, with two big dogs, a chasin'
the pigs into the chaney shops.”
“Then you'll see me come the nonsense over the old
folks—who's loafer now!—and my dog will bite their
cat—who's ginger-pop and jam spruce beer, at this present
writin', I'd like to know!”
And, in a transport of enthusiasm, Nollikins knocked
the hat of Billy Bunkers, a shallow, dishlike castor, clear
across the street.
Thus, wrapped in present dreams and future anticipations—a
king that is to be—lives Nicholas Nollikins—
the grand exemplar of the corner loungers. There he
stations himself; for hope requires a boundless prospect
and a clear look out, that, by whatever route fortune
chooses to approach, she may have a prompt reception.
Nicholas and his tribe exist but for to-morrow, and rely
who wait patiently until the wheel of fortune turns up a
prize. They feel, by the generous expansion of their
souls, by their impatience of ignoble toil, by their aspirations
after the beautiful and nice, that their present position
in society is the result of accident and inadvertency,
and that, if they are not false to the nature that is within
them, the time must come when the mistake will be rectified,
and “they shall walk in silk attire and siller hae
to spare,” which is not by any means the case at present.
All that can be expected just now, is, that they should
spare other people's “siller.”
STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON,
PHILADELPHIA.
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