University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.,
Which brings me to New York, where I find
employment, and make a new acquaintance.

New York has a bewildering effect
on a European. Its size is not so great
as that of London; but its bustle and
life are scarcely inferior; and the habit
of the place, of interminably tearing
itself down and building itself up, prevents
any familiarity. The New Yorkers
seem like children with their card-houses.
So soon as one fabric has
been erected, they throw it down and
commence building afresh—each succeeding
erection being of a more absurd
and impossible order of architecture
than the one before. The stranger
runs the gauntlet of mortar-beds and
sand-heaps, finds temporary bridges
over the sidewalks at every step, admires
the mixture of the useful and ornamental
which garnishes piles of
bricks with many-colored placards,
and gains great dexterity of movement
and quickness of eye by dodging

falling fragments of brick and stone.
Should he leave it on a visit to the
provinces, and remain six months, he
finds on his return new houses, new
streets, and apparently a new population.
New York is among cities what
the English tongue is among languages—it
is made up of the natives
of every part of its own land and
of the world at large. At least one-half
the population is foreign, and of
that half the greater portion comes
from the British islands. So I had no
difficulty in making the acquintance of
a number of my own countrymen.
These were mostly those who had resided
there for a number of years, and
who would probably die there, but who
did not think so.

There were some peculiarities about
these New York Englishmen which
struck me as being odd. These oddities
arose from their nationality of
thought, and its opposition to surrounding
circumstances—the conflict
of sentiment with fact.

The Englishman, and American too,
I fancy, only leaves his native place
with the expectation of returning to it
next month, or next year, or possibly
when he has accumulated a fortune.
The Irishman, or German, leaves his
home to find a new world, and leaves
it never to return. The Irishman is
content with his creature comforts, and
his political equality, and at once identifies
himself with the natives of the
country he has chosen; the German
brings fatherland along with him, in
the shape of lager bier, singing societies,
and impracticable theories of
government, and is content. The Englishman
cannot carry with him his
juicy mutton, and his moist atmosphere,
no more than the American could
his oysters and canvass-back ducks,
and so sighs for his old comforts. But
my new English acquaintances were
all married and settled—married chiefly
to the natives of the country—most
of them had children who were thoroughly
fast young Americans, looking
at their fathers as foreigners; they
had acquired property, some less and
some more; and they had acquired
with the last, though profoundly ignorant
of the fact, a grumbling attachment
to the country. They growled
at the usages around them, none of
which they would have changed had
they the power; and sighed for London,
which, had they once got there,
they would have left in a month
Though their cry was, “There's no
place like old England,” the attachment
it implied was theoretical. After
I had been in New York some time, I
parodied Alexander's declaration about
Diogenes, and said, “If I were not an
Englishman, I would be an American;”
but most of these ridiculing America
at the outset, became practically Americans
before the end. True, to an
American they would disparage the
country; but let a newly-come Englishman
poke fun at anything around
him, and they would fall on him as ferociously
as the most furious Yankee
patriot could desire.

Had there been any suspicion in my
mind that the Earl would endeavor to
reach at me over the Atlantic, I should
have kept clear of my countrymen in
New York, as one means to baffle discovery;
but I was well satisfied that
the enmity arose solely through my
supposed connection with Zara and
Espinel, whom he had some unknown
cause to either fear or hate. Hence
his desire to get me to India; and

were he to discover that I was in the
United States, it was probable he would
be well contented so long as I remained
there.

As I did not intend to draw on
Sharp's money, if possibly to be avoided,
I deposited it in a bank pointed
out to me by Archbold, and then, leaving
my hotel, went to lodgings. I
found a third story back room, plainly
furnished, at the house of a Frenchman,
a jeweler, for three dollars a
week. There I had my own breakfast
and supper—the arrangement including
hot water and attendance—and I took
my dinner at a cheap eating-house in
Nassau street, kept by a man named
Gosling. I sought for something to
do, and after a few weeks was fortunate
enough to find employment as
compositor in the “printing office,” as
they called it, of a Sunday newspaper—
so called because dated and sold on
the Christian Sabbath, though all the
work upon it, except the delivery to
the readers, was done before the midnight
of Saturday.

There were nine others at work in
the office—six regularly, and three
of Fridays and Saturdays. As I was
what is called a fast workman, and
could set nearly one-half as many more
“ems” of type per day than any of the
others, my only concern was to secure
a sufficiency of copy, with as much
“fat”—that is, as much blank space in
the matter—as possible. My fellow-compositors
were mostly agreeable
companions, and with the exception of
one of the number, very well-informed,
as well as very steady men. They
were all Americans, and felt disposed
to have some practical jokes at the expense
of the only foreigner among
them; but I took these attempts so
good naturedly, that they soon left it
off, voting me “a good fellow.” Thus
we got on together without mishap or
misunderstanding.

Among the compositors I have said
there was one not so well-informed as
the rest—in fact he knew little more
than how to read or write—and yet I
grew more intimate with him than
with any of the others. He was a
“chunky” young man, with a great
head of fiery red hair, and was named
John McManus. His father was an
Irishman, who had settled in the United
States about thirty years before, and
there reared a brood of stout young
Americans. The elder McManus had
been successful in various street contracts,
and was in comfortable circumstances;
but insisted that his children,
when grown, should take care of themselves.
The younger McManus, the
only son among seven children, was
married, fond of his home and his
pretty wife, and an occasional frolic.
There was not a particle of sympathy
in our tastes, or similarity in our
habits, and yet we soon became fast
friends. His jovial, off-hand manner
and broad jokes, diverted my melancholy
thoughts, and came to be a kind
of necessity.

During all this time I never saw
Archbold. I presumed that he was
wandering somewhere as usual. I
heard occasionally from Paul, but he
gave me nothing of importance; and
received one letter from Sharp, barren
of all details about affairs in Puttenham.

One day, about ten months after I
had been in the printing office, and toward
the latter part of February, McManus
invited me to visit his lodgings
that evening.

“The old woman,” said he, meaning
by that term his young wife, “gives
a tea-fight to-night, and there will be
lots of calico on hand. Do you
dance?”

“A little,” I replied.

“You're the man for the crisis,” he
said; “but, nota bena, you'd better oil
your shanks, and put a solid inch of
injy-rubber on your boot-soles, for some
of the girls are terrible dancers, and if
you don't take care you'll come away
with two short stumps sticking to your
body.”

I promised to use proper precautions
to prevent the abbreviation of
my legs, and taking his address, went
home when we were through work, to
get ready.

He had named seven o'clock, but I
thought it better to be late than too
early, so I did not start until eight.
He lived in Sullivan street, occupying
the first floor of a house, the basement
of which was used as a corner-grocery—that
is, a shop where they sell
sugar, tea, salted meats, vegetables,
coals, beer and whiskey, in short, any
thing that can be taken, drank or consumed
about the household. I forgot
the name of the cross street, and it
was some time before I could find the
place. At length I observed lights
and heard the sound of a piano in the
second story of a house over a grocer's
shop, and on inquiry found it to
be the place I sought. I knocked at
the door, but no one answered. There
were three bell handles, one above the
other, at the side of the door, and I
pulled the upper one briskly. In a few
minutes a young woman came to the
door and inquired my business.

“You've rung the wrong bell, sir,”
she said; “Mr. McManus lives in the
second story.”

She sighed as she spoke. I noted
by the dim light of the hall lamp that
she was pale and care-worn. I thanked
her for the information, and proceeded
to the second floor, and there
knocked at the door. McManus himself
answered my rap, appearing arrayed
in a black frock coat and trousers,
with a waistcoat of gorgeous
pattern, and a green silk neck-tie,
studded with golden sprigs, in which
his red face and flaming hair reposed
like a gigantic peony. He dragged
me in with boisterous welcome, and introduced
me generally to the company
and specially to his wife.

Mrs. McManus was quite a presentable
person indeed—young, handsome,
with a self-possessed air, and a style
quite different from what I had anticipated.
I have seen many women since,
in what are called the upper circles,
by no means so distinguished in their
appearance, or so faultless in their
style, who were considered models of
taste and deportment. How she could
ever have fancied her rude and boisterous
husband I could not divine—but
so we say of many other wives every
day. She put me at ease at once, and
after a short chat, introduced me to a
partner.

I stood up in a quadrille, intending
to walk through it, but found that I
was expected to dance, and that right
vigorously. As I had come determined
to make myself as agreeable as possible,
I fell into the spirit of the affair so
earnestly that when the music stopped,
I was nearly knocked up. I led
my partner to a seat, said to her some
of the complacent nothings customary

on such occasions, and presently rejoined
the mistress of the place.

McManus himself came up to us,
with a moist countenance and humbled
shirt collar.

“What kept you so late?” “he asked,
“I had given out that you'd be
here, and then I'd given you out.”

I explained the cause of my delay,
and then mentioned my mistake in
ringing the wrong bell, and how the
girl came from above.

“Yes,” he said. “That was poor
Mely Van Kline. My wife would have
asked her here to-night, but I don't
think she had a dress fit to wear. I
expect they've pawned nearly everything
they have. By thunder! that
Van Kline ought to be hung!”

“Don't say that, John, please,” interrupted
his wife. “You forget the
poor man is in the asylum.”

“No I don't. He ought to have
been in a worse place long ago.”

“Who is the father?” I inquired, the
name glimmering over my memory.

“He was a sea-faring man,” answered
M`Manus, “the second mate of a
liner, and would have been captain
only he drank so that the owners discharged
him. Now he's gone clear
crazy, and there's his family suffering.
It's a pity for them, but it's a judgment
on him.”

“Don't talk that way, John, please.”

“But I will talk that way, Bell,
please. It's just what I mean. I went
up there the time he had the horrors
on him, and he let out enough to make
me sure he'd knocked the captain overboard
one dark night; and no good
come of it. That's what made him a
bummer, and served him right.”

“But a man's crazy fancies, John—”

“Are about as apt as anything, Bella,
to be a crazy man's memories, especially
when he's run crazy. It was
his deed preying on him that drove
him crazy.”

“That explains it, then!” I exclaimed,
as I thought of Van Kline's pallid
face, on the night I flashed he light
upon it.

They both looked at me inquiringly.
I told them how I was aboard the vessel
on the night of Captain Peabody's
disappearance; and M'Manus plied me
with questions which I could not avoid
answering.

“Well,” said Mrs. M`Manus, “Amelia
is to be pitied.”

“Yes,” admitted John, “I'll own it's
a pity for her. Her mother is sick,
and she supports her by sewing for
the slop-shops—starves her, I guess.
They havn't paid any rent for some
time, and the agent says if the next
month isn't ready, he'll turn 'em out.”

“Oh, Mr. Brooks,” said the wife,
“don't you want some linen made up,
or some work of that kind done? Amelia
is a capital seamstress—I have
seen some of her work—and any employment
of that kind would be
of great assistance to her. It would
give her the profit that would otherwise
go to the shop-keeper.”

“Why,” said I, “I am not too well
supplied, and I will get the materials
and send them with the measure to
you. You can make the proper bargain
with her, if you will be kind
enough to undertake the commission.”

Another quadrille was formed, in
which I took part. I passed a very
pleasant evening. The guests were
honest, well-meaning working-people,

who had met to enjoy themselves, and
did it without restraint. I went home
late to my lodgings, thinking of the
poor girl who was striving to support
her mother and herself on a pittance,
and the terrible fate of the murderer.
I was impressible, and all that night
the pallid face and mournful eyes of
Amelia Van Kline looked on me
through my dreams.

The next morning I acted on impulse,
and enclosing forty dollars,
which was the amount of rent that
Mrs. M`Manus had said was in arrears,
in an envelope, along with the words—
“A loan from a shipmate of your father,”
I directed it to Amelia Van
Kline. As I feared to trust it to the
care of the penny-post, I hired a boy
to deliver it at the house. I stood at
some distance off, saw it taken from
his hand, and after he had told me that
he had given it to “a gal in a brown
an' white striped caliker,” gave him
the promised dime, and went on my
way rejoicing.