University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
CERTAIN DISCOVERIES.

THE next morning found me still ignorant of the
whereabouts of Somerville. I had wasted the previous
evening in searching for him; had visited the
opera and several theatres; examined the books of eight or
ten hotels; looked into various billiard saloons; patrolled the
streets; all useless. Since fortune disarranged my plots
against the demon of the house of Seacliff, it was best, I concluded,
to attend to my own interests and render myself worthy
to stand forward in case of need as the guardian angel
of the threatened Westervelts. I wanted my crown of wealth
and wings of renown immediately; and I would go to my
publishers to see if they were not almost ready. Walking
down Broadway, I struck across the Park to Nassau Street,
and turned into that contracted but delightful office of Messrs.
Bookworm & Binder, so fragrant with fresh paper, so luminous
with gilded piles of new publications, so melodious with
the voices of poets establishing the relation between dollars
and the Muses.

The “Idler in Italy” was ready for issue and would be
out in three days, notwithstanding that his practical patrons
exceedingly doubted the expediency of sending him on his
adventures in such warm weather. There he was, a clean,
sweet-scented, gay little knight-errant, wearing his gold lettering
as gallantly as a Crusader wore his cross, and sworn

to the devoir of conquering for me some island of Barataria,
undiscovered as yet, in the wide ocean of fame. How
simply pleased I was to hold him in my hand, and with what
an affectation of indifference I spoke of his prospects! I was
old enough to behave better; but a man is always youthful
the moment he publishes his first book.

Humorously telling Messrs. Bookworm & Binder that I
hoped they would not become bankrupt because I had idled
in Italy, I bade them good-morning and walked back into
Broadway, feeling as if the wings were already sprouting
from my hitherto merely human shoulders. The idea occurred
to me of running in upon fashionable lady friends to
catechize them about the moral standing of Somerville; but
would a lady, however fashionable, know the worst, or knowing
it, have the face to utter it? The female American is
fastidiously delicate, and ignores the existence of Don Juans
and Julias, at least so far as I have had an opportunity to
enjoy her conversation. It is laughable sometimes, but the
practical result seems to be good, and perhaps it is the better
way.

At the moment of closing this brief moral generalization,
I caught a glimpse of something in the window of a third-rate
jeweller's shop, which brought me to a sudden halt, followed
by a prolonged stare and a thrill of discovery. Stepping
in with an assumed air of indifference, I nodded politely
to a green youth behind the counter, who seemed to be troubled
with that ailment peculiar to chickens, known as the gapes,
and asked him to let me see some ladies' watches and bracelets.
He showed several middling specimens of both, but none
of them were exactly what I wanted. At last I ventured to
point out a diamond bracelet, and an enamelled watch with a
remarkably heavy chain, which hung in the window, and signified
to him that those articles might prove an irresistible
attraction.

“But these are second-hand,” said I, after a moment's examination.

“Yes, sir, they are second-hand,” the green youth hesitatingly
but respectfully admitted, taking me, no doubt, for a
brother jeweller, or at least for a connoisseur of note in his
art. “They are very fine, though; just as fine as if they was
bran-new; the diamond is splendid; watch first-rate Geneva
article. We've marked 'em down a good deal; dirt cheap,
sir.”

“You bought them yesterday of a Mr. Somerville,” said I,
looking him full in the eyes.

“We bought 'em this morning of a Mr. —, Mr. —,
don't remember,—don't know his name,” replied the lad, suddenly
shedding a little of his greenness, and showing an
under shell, not yet very solid, of caution.

“Oh! I thought I knew them,” observed I; “but never
mind; no consequence. I don't want a second-hand article.
Good-morning.”

The green youth was absurd enough to look indignant because
I bought nothing after giving him so much trouble and
asking him impertinent questions. Leaving him to communicate
the circumstance to his Jew employer, whose massive
semi-lunar nose had already risen from behind a desk in the
back part of the shop, I walked away, meditating gloomily
over my discovery. It was the very watch, certainly, and
the very bracelet, I believed, that I had seen in the hands of
Somerville. Is it possible, I asked, that the human vampire,
the man who feeds upon women, who fascinates only to
pillage them, has at last reached America, and is to be found
even in our retired country-houses, mingling with our fairest
and tenderest and purest? In France and Italy showy
wretches had been pointed out to me, who had no other means
of subsistence than to win love and transmute it into gold.
With the simple patriotism of youth, I then believed and
proudly said, that no countryman of mine could be base
enough to live an hour, if life were only to be supported at
the cost of such infamy. But was not my boast confounded,
and the vampire, native-born, already incarnate among us?

Shocking as the supposition was, anxiously as I sought to
evade it, it seemed probable that Somerville had made an
utter ruin of Mrs. Van Leer, and was now robbing her purse
of its pittance, and her person of its trinkets, by the hideous
right that he had robbed her soul of its purity.

I suppose that I was something of a mystery, and perhaps
an object of grave suspicion to the pawn-brokers
and small jewellers of New York during the rest of that
day. I hunted them in all directions, inspected their windows
and show-cases, and made them exhibit their most
secret stores, purchasing nothing meanwhile, and solely intent
on spying out second-hand ornaments which bore the name
of Van Leer, and had been in the possession of Somerville.
It was a fruitless and perhaps foolish way of spending
my time, but it was the best that I could devise. Indeed,
I possess hardly a ripple of what might be called the bump
of detectiveness, and should make one of the clumsiest spies
or policemen that could be, as the reader will abundantly perceive
by the time he has finished this history. At last it occurred
to me that it would be a good thing, the very thing that
I ought to have done at first, to buy the watch and bracelet
which I had recognized. I will do so, said I; stick them in
Somerville's face; stick them in Mrs. Van Leer's face; see
if they won't turn twenty colors. I hurried back to the shop,
but the watch and the bracelet had disappeared.

“Sold, sir; regular bargain; snapped up right away,” said
green youth, while the blush of an inexperienced liar mantled
his downy countenance. They had taken the alarm
there, and were on their guard against me.

Emerging from the shop, I caught sight of Somerville, as
I thought, in an omnibus which was receding up Broadway.
No hack-stand being near, I gave chase in another omnibus,
choosing of course a full one, and suffering torments between
two fat women, who all the while looked daggers at me as if
I was very impertinent in occupying any space whatsoever.
After a fidgeting pursuit of half a mile, my vehicle passed

his, and behold he was neither there nor thereabout. Then
I spied him walking down Bond Street; ran a square, at the
risk of being chased as a pickpocket; overtook a handsome
Spaniard, stared at him, and returned to Broadway. In such
labors of indefatigable imbecility the day wore out. In
Paris I should have been arrested for a lunatic or a conspirator;
in New York no one noticed me, the police being too
lazy, and all others too industrious. Another grand tour
through the theatres, another inspection of hotel-books, another
peep into billiard saloons, wasted the evening and sent
me to bed in as pettish a humor as the untamable hyena.

The next morning, after an early breakfast, I set off down
Broadway, resolved to lie all day in ambush before the post-office,
keeping an eye on the delivery-door leading to the letter
S. I had reached the lower end of the Park when I was
saluted by an old friend, a schoolmate, whom I shall not
otherwise name than to call him the Reporter. I knew that
he had been very poor; but he looked so spruce and in such
good spirits that I felt at liberty to ask how he was getting
along,—tolerably certain that the answer would be agreeable
to what he had of vanity.

“Not so badly,” said he. “Observe my hat, if you please;
that is the index of a man's fortunes. Isn't it fresh, luminous,
eh? Your humble servant is contributor to a Monthly,
and scavenger or items-man to a Daily. I am not drunk
when I say scavenger. In sober earnest, and not to put too
fine a point upon it, the word describes my business. I pick
old rags of scandal and other trumpery from the moral gutters
of this city, and starch and iron them to the taste of my
public. It is not a satisfactory trade to a man of my aspirations,—a
man who wants to be the united Scott and Byron
of his age;—but then it pays well, and I am not rich enough
to resist good pay. Besides, it is profitable in another sense;
it supplies me with studies of character; prepares the way for
novels; monstrously amusing, too; hear the drollest things.”

“You are just the man I want. Come, not to waste your

time and so keep the world waiting for its titbits of tattle,
I'll walk in your direction. I am in the greatest need of a
gossip-monger. Do you know anything of a merchant in the
China trade, named—ah—let me see—oh, Westervelt,—yes,
that's the name,—Westervelt.”

“Old Westervelt? Westervelt, senior, of South Street?
Know anything of him? Yes, know he's rich; worth at
least five millions. Hang the unintellectual old Crœsus!
Why doesn't he patronize literature, and start poor authors?
I'll tell you what I'd do, Fitz Hugh, if I had five millions, or
even so little as a million; I'd look up talented poor rats,—
fellows with full heads and empty stomachs,—support 'em
while they took their time to write good things,—then help
'em publish. Why the devil these auriferous old dunces
don't think of it, and do it, is more than I can understand.”

“Perhaps you had best mention the idea to Mr.—Mr.
Whatshisname. Perhaps he would be delighted to hear
of it.”

“Delighted to kick me out of his office. You can't imaging,
Fitz Hugh, how basely indifferent our New York merchant
princes are to literature. All they go for is hard facts;
that is, facts that can be transmuted into hard money. Well,
what do you want to know about old Westervelt?”

“Is it perfectly positive that he—that he is—ah, so enormously
wealthy?” (Here I twisted my moustache, and
looked up and down the street indifferently.) “Isn't he very
much extended, and liable to break, eh?”

“Not a bit of it; no extension about him; never 'll ask an
extension, either. China 'll break before he does. He isn't
much in the central flowery trade now; investing, perhaps,
in the other celestial kingdom. Yes, he cut the pig-tails
about two years ago. They made a new house of it, and he
only put in half a million as silent partner; so, you see, he
can't lose much, especially as he never indorses, not even for
his own son. I believe the balance of his estate is well distributed
and well invested. Why, sir, he has a million in

New York and Chicago lots, sure to double every ten years.
He's a cold, close, iron-bowelled old safe, though. I wish he
was dead,—I do, out of the purest charity and benevolence—
solely, I assure you, for the honor and interests of human
nature. He has a son whom he snubs publicly,—actually
blows him up on 'Change,—and two lovely granddaughters,
to whom he hardly allows the pin-money necessary to support
life. My greatest objection to him, however, is that he
doesn't assist struggling genius. I know he wouldn't lend me
a dollar, Fitz Hugh, unless I left him my hat in pawn.”

“What a monster!” said I. “One reads of just such
people, though.”

“But I don't wonder that he keeps his son short of funds,”
continued the Reporter. “Westervelt, junior, is the confoundedest
fool! Bought a lot of cotton in the spring, at ten cents;
saw it go up to twelve and a half; shinned it, and held on as
long as he could; saw it go down to nine, and then sold.
That was a few days ago, and I reckon that he's just about
dead broke. The senior paid the loss; very often does pay
the loss when it's a crusher, I hear; but revenges himself by
calling the junior all the names he can think of. Perhaps,
on the whole, it's lucky for the pretty granddaughters that
the old one doesn't die. The son has a perfect alacrity in
sinking; he would be able to hide his two millions in a napkin
in less than five years from the time he got them; he
would be such an awful temptation to our man-eating brokers,
that they couldn't help devouring him. All things considered.
I should advise old Westervelt to stick by till his son
is on the other side of Jordan. When he goes, though, he'll
have to be after him quick to keep him from speculating away
his gold harp and crown.”

“You said Westervelt, junior, would get two millions,” I
remarked. “There are other heirs then?”

“Yes; two sisters and their children, resident here. Then
it is understood that about a million will be wasted in founding
colleges, just as though we hadn't too many in the country

already. Much better use it in giving twenty-five thousand
apiece to forty struggling geniuses. However, that story
about the college is all nonsense; you may take my word for
it that old Westervelt will never let a dollar roll outside of
the family circle.—But, hallo! there's my man, and yours
too. See that elegant swell over there? That's Dandy
Somerville. He knows New York from the foam to the
dregs. Come along. I want some fashionable scandal, and
you can ask him about Westevelt, senior. By the way, what
makes you take such an interest in the old fellow? Got
acquainted with the granddaughters?”

“Good-bye, my dear boy,” said I, hastily, “I know Somerville;
see him some other time; don't ask him anything for
me. Much obliged for your information. Good-bye. By
the way, just ask Somerville where he is staying. See you
again sometime. Good-bye, old fellow.”

Naturally, I did not care to let Somerville know that I
was inquiring about the fortune of Westervelt, senior. He
might be malicious enough to joke about the affair at Seacliff,
and he certainly would not give me credit for my true feelings
on the subject, nor believe that these vast specie expectations
of Miss Westervelt were only a burden and terror to
my spirit. At first it was bad enough, when only the miragic
enchantment of beauty seemed to put her beyond my reach;
but now, furthermore, I had discovered a golden desert between
us, as discouraging in its dimensions as the great
Zahara.

I saw the Reporter overtake Somerville, talk with him a
minute, and lead him into Delmonico's.

Fashionable scandal! I muttered. A pretty way of earning
your treats! Let me ever catch you setting a bad word
afloat about the Westervelts, you elegant calumniator! And
only yesterday, you gave me such a noble lecture on the dirtiness
of scandal. Verily, Satan rebuketh sin, in these times
as of old.

Looking about for an ambush from whence to waylay

Somerville on his reappearance, I observed a chop-house,
directly opposite Delmonico's, bearing the following legend
on its sign board.

The Retreat of Old Bill Hobson.

Hot Joints from Twelve to Four.

I entered, and seated myself at a table by a front window.
It was a long, dark room, slovenly, soiled, and smoky, containing
thirteen small tables of stained cherry, thirty-three
wooden-bottomed chairs, a model of a pilot schooner set over
a freckled looking-glass, and two or three rusty engravings
of yachts, racers, &c., hanging awry against the walls. On
one of the tables lay two or three copies of the Illustrated
London News, two or three Punches, a Bell's Life in London,
and a New York Herald. A dozen men of the “hossy”
sort, mostly English, sat here and there, eating, drinking,
talking, and smoking. A handsome, dissipated young fellow
stood near me, calling on a party of his friends to finish their
dinner and come out on a lark. Holding fast to a chair
with one hand, and gesturing violently with the other, he
swayed and jerked like a galvanized corpse, talked loud,
swore at every other word, looked about him insolently, as if
anxious to pick a quarrel, and, in short, was very drunk and
not far from delirium tremens. A chubby boy was serving
the guests with fat jorums and long slim glasses of ale. Old
Bill himself, a lean leathery personage, an Englishman run
to legs in America, approached me with a dignified suavity
which showed travel, and asked what I would have. I told
him ale, and he brought me some half-and-half, as full of
sparkle as the best of London. Lighting a cheroot, I sipped
quietly, keeping an eye on the door of Delmonico's, and an
ear on the conversation of my neighbors.

“I tell you, I had a lark last night,” said the man who was
coquetting with mania-a-potu. He had seated himself by
this time, finding that it was impossible to inveigle his hungry
comrades away from their dinner.

“Take something to eat, Tom,” observed one of them,
pausing before he swallowed an oyster.

“No, curse it! I can't eat. I haven't eaten anything since
yesterday. You don't know how infernal sickish I am. But
I was saying, I had a lark.”

“You have too many larks, Tom. It's an unwholesome
sort of bird.”

“You be hanged! I'll be all right again in a day or two.
But just listen, won't you? and hold your cursed noise. I
was out with Somerville; you know Somerville; curse it,
everybody knows Somerville. But I was out with him all
night; yes, curse it, till morning come again; rooting through
all the hells and holes we could find. And if there's a hole
in New York that Somerville can't find, it must be a devilish
sly one.”

“Did he find the hole in your pocket, Tom?”

“In my pocket? Well, everything ran out; that's all I
know, boys, haw haw haw! put every penny through before
morning.”

This young man did not share in the common prejudice
against the word damn, and used it in those places where I
have hypocritically represented him as uttering expressions
of much milder and less sulphurous import. In truth, if I
should give his conversation exactly as it fell from his lips,
the good world would shut to the covers of this book as
hastily as it would close, or thinks it would close the gates of
hell, if permitted to do so.

He went on detailing, in his drunken hiccoughs, the particulars
of a night spent in the sewers of New York vice. I
could not discover positively whether the Somerville of these
scenes was the Somerville now in Delmonico's; but I suspected
it more and more strongly as the story hobbled
downward through ever descending sinks of pollution; and
I gnashed at the thought that such a wretch should be
the guest of Seacliff, free to weave there his webs of more
elegant wickedness. The “lark” had ended, it seems, at a

gambling resort, where the Somerville of the drunken tale
won largely. “And I lost,” continued Tom; “he won, and I
lost; that was it. I never was lucky with him. We always
drink, and he never minds the liquor; just as sharp and bobbish
after it as before. No, I never was lucky with him: but
then, curse it, I don't 'grudge it; no gentleman would 'grudge
it. He needs the money, you know, or he couldn't keep his
larks a-flying.”

Half an hour having passed, I got impatient, and paying
for my ale at the door, strolled over to Delmonico's, resolved
to join the two scandal-mongers. Seated alone at one of the
most retired of the little tables, bottles and glasses standing
empty before him on the sticky marble, the Reporter was
scribbling with pencil in a well worn note-book.

“Ah! there you are again,” said I. “Where is Somerville?”

“Gone. Saw a gentleman at the front door looking for
him, and left by the back door.”

“A pretty early hour to be thirsty,” I remarked, nodding
at the bottles. “I reverence the strength of your head.”

“Only soda-water. Somerville made a night of it somewhere,
and wanted to cool his coppers instead of heating
them. Flush of money, too; paid the shot out of his own
pocket; most uncommon performance for him, I assure you.
I think somewhat of giving his magnanimity a favorable
notice in our paper. Not that he is stingy; but then he
generally spends his cash on the other sex, and so has to
sponge upon ours; in other words, robs Peter to pay
Pauline.”

“Well, you asked him where he was staying?”

“No, I didn't: it was of no use; he is off in two hours for
Washington; at least, he told me so.”

“He may have told you the truth,” said I. “Now what's
the gossip? Let's have it in advance of the public.”

“Why, yes; I've got a jewel here, that is sure. The only
fault is that it is too brilliant; it might attract too much

attention. I shall have to pare it a little before it will be
safe to set it up as the capital of one of our columns. Look
here. Do you want to see the dirty work that I have to do
in order to earn my bread, at the same time that I gratify
my passion for pen and ink? Thank your stars, Fitz Hugh,
that your father lived before you.”

I took the note-book and read a paragraph of two pages.
It was a tale of sin and shame in high life; of a folly-stricken
woman and a man who gloried in villainy; a story
without names, but marked by dates, and events, and places;
a story the more abominable because the narrator of it was
evidently its hero. I read it twice over, following out its
chain of circumstances carefully, and coming each time to
so distinct a conclusion, that I nearly pronounced aloud,
“Mrs. Van Leer!”

“Now then,” said I, as he retook the note-book, “how
much will you get for that rascally trifle?”

“With the help of a joke or two, and ditto of quotations
from the proper authors, I think I can make a dollar-piece
out of it. But that isn't all: it will get me credit at the
office for cleverness; and therefore I may fairly consider it
worth, say three dollars. To be sure, I shall have to give
Somerville an advertisement in our paper; hook it in if
possible; pay it, if necessary.”

“An advertisement? Has the man really any business?”

“Yes; business in Cupid's court; he advertises in the
personal column.”

“Oh! He does, eh? What signature? come now, that's
a good fellow.”

“No, I ain't a good fellow, and I shan't tell you the signature.
You wouldn't have me frighten away the goose that
lays my goldenest eggs, would you?”

“No; never mind; it was mere curiosity. But I covet
this story of yours, and I'll give you five dollars for it.”

“You? What do you want of it? Are you going to set

up a daily, and have a scandal department? Please to
nominate me one of your editors; not in the tittle-tattle line,
though; I crave respectability.”

“Never mind what I want of it. I want to burn it more
than anything else. What do you say to the offer?”

“You are the most persuasive creature, Fitz Hugh!
You have such an insinuating way with poor geniuses! I'll
take the shekels, and there's your copyright.”

He tore out the two sheets, and I put them in my pocket,
while he calmly fobbed the half eagle.

“Of course the story is altogether mine now,” said I;
“you are not to print it not repeat it. And, by the way,
suppose that you tell me one thing: don't you believe that
Somerville himself is the rascally hero of this narrative?”

“Why, he didn't say that, you understand. Of course you
are at liberty to suspect it; but he didn't confess it.”

“No matter. I believe that he is, whether his boast of
success is true or false. I only wish that the manuscript
were in his handwriting.”

“Ah! but in that case you wouldn't have got it. Honor
among thieves, you know, even if they filch good names. By
the way, you seem to know, or to guess at, the lady's personality.”

“Possibly. What would you give to learn it? I would
part with the secret for a million—nothing less.”

“How very cheap! But I don't happen to have such a
thing as a million about me. I wish I had. Another time,
if you please, unless you are willing to take my note, payable
when I have secured all my castles in the clouds. For I do
dream of millions, Fitz Hugh; yes, I have faith to believe
that there is a million somewhere laid up for me; at least in
the coin of fame. But I must be off to hunt down some
other reputation for my villainous public. Your humble
servant.”

“Good-bye, my dear fellow. Forgive me for just one
frank word at parting. I don't like this particular rut, or

rather puddle, in your path of duty;—I am excessively annoyed
to find an old schoolmate dipping his pen—excuse me
—in the devil's inkhorn.”

“Thank you, for your sympathy,” he replied, wincing a
little as he observed my earnestness. “I dare say that at
bottom, the Old Harry is my employer; it is the Satanic
Press that I work for, I acknowledge; but the fact is, that I am
less afraid of the devil than of my own stomach. The question
with me is not so much how I can escape the clutches
of the one, as how I can pacify the juices of the other. It is
all very easy for you to preach and practise fine moralities,
with your pockets full of half eagles and certificates of bank
stock. But put yourself in my situation, with never a dividend
coming in from year's end to year's end, and all the
while an old mother looking to you to keep a flicker of fire
under her teapot. You haven't lived the whole round of
human life, my boy.”

We both colored; he, with shame of his work; I, with
shame of my reproof.

“I beg your pardon, my friend,” said I. “So you support
a mother? I never earned a dollar for any one's support,
not even my own. You humble me, really. I am
very sorry that I have annoyed you with my cheap virtue.”

“Don't take it hard,” he replied, good-naturedly. “You
are right at bottom; good ends don't justify bad means; the
holy Jesuit fathers to the contrary, notwithstanding. I'll
crawl out of this puddle, as you very properly call it, before
long. Good-bye, again.”

We shook hands, and he walked away rapidly. I gave
my manuscript purchase another perusal, and once more
muttered, “Mrs. Van Leer!” Yet in a few moments I found
that the very atrocity of the revelation was working its own
antidote, by leading me to suspect that Somerville had imposed
upon the Reporter with a monstrous fiction. Was it
possible that this man, so polished in manner, so noble in
intellect, so fitted by nature and education to be an ornament

and exemplar of society, could be the deliberate oppressor,
torturer, and robber, of an unfortunate woman, whose too
great confidence and love had placed her in his power?
Would any man dare to hint such infamies concerning his
own life? No, the story could not be true, or it must refer
to some other than Somerville. And yet—the words of the
boudoir! And yet—the bracelet! the watch! I vacillated,
believed, disbelieved, suspected, and remained at last in a
state of the most disagreeable doubt.