 | Eli Perkins (at large) |  |
BROWN'S BOYS.
1. CHAPTER I.
THE TRIBE IN GENERAL.
The Brown's Boy is peculiar
to New York, though
every large city is infested
with Brown's Boys in a greater
or less degree. They were
named after Sexton Brown of
Grace Church. They are his
boys. He keeps them—this
dilettante Grace Church sexton
does—to run swell parties
with. He furnishes them with
invitations to weddings and
parties and receptions. In fact, Brown contracts to
furnish Brown's Boys to dance and flirt, and amuse
young ladies at parties, just as he contracts to furnish
flowers and ushers and pall-bearers at a funeral. How
can Mrs. Witherington's party go off well without a
Brown's Boy to lead the German? They don't have
anything in particular to do, Brown's Boys don't, and
it takes them all the time to do it. They don't have
much money, but they make believe they have immense
incomes. They are looking out for rich wives. They
live in cheap rooms, on side-streets, and swell in Fifth
Avenue parlors. Ask them what they do for a living,
and they will say,—.
“O, aw—I opewate a little in stawks now and then
on Wall street, yeu know.”
If you go down to Wall street you will never see or
hear of them.
In New York they live on the Egyptian plan—that
is, they rent a hall bedroom and eat when they are
invited; but in Saratoga they swell around in amber
kids and white neckties, and spend their time in
dancing the German and in noble endeavors to win
the affections of some rich young lady. Their whole
theory of a noble life is to marry a rich girl and board
with her mother—and not be bored by her mother.
These Brown's Boys are always very religious—from
12 to 1 on Sundays. At that hour you will see them
always religiously—returning from church. You will
always see them just coming from or going to church;
but I have consulted the “oldest inhabitant,” who
says that up to this time, they have never been visible
to the naked eye while engaged in an active state of
worship.
Brown's Boys are good managers. They all have
nice dress suits, and wear immaculate kids. They
dance all the round dances, and, at supper, “corner”
enough champagne behind ladies' dresses to last all
the evening—even after the champagne is all out, and
other people are reduced to lemonade and punch.
They never take any one to a party. They come late
and alone, but they go for the prettiest girl immediately
on their arrival, and run her regular escort out.
They don't call that “cheek”—they call it society
diplomacy.
The theater and opera are the favorite resort of
Brown's Boys. They go alone, in swell Ulster overcoats,
crush Dunlop hats, and elaborate opera glasses.
Here they stand around the doors and aisles, and
during the acts visit rich young ladies in their twenty-six-dollar
boxes.
2. CHAPTER II.
BROWN'S BOYS AT PARTIES.
Brown's Boys are the dancing men at fashionable
parties. They do not talk—they have no ideas—but
they do dance the German divinely.
They generally accompany some member of the
hereditary train of uncertain-aged dancing young ladies,
who attend five parties a week, from December to Lent.
These dancing girls are generally prettily and often
richly dressed, and are the daughters of rich parents,
while the dancing fellows are generally poor. They
are pensioners on the young ladies, for, when the young
ladies forget to send a carriage for them, they invariably
excuse themselves on the ground of a previous
engagement, or smuggle themselves in alone. Still, they
are good-looking, generally contrive to wear nice-fitting
dress suits, faultless kids, and crush hats. They depend
upon “the governor,” generally, for cigars. They
look upon the party as a place to flatter the girls, get
a free lunch, smoke good cigars, and “corner” champagne.
A Brown's Boy's strong point, as with Achilles, lies
in his heels. Though, without any apparent brain, they
They know, from force of habit, just what
to say, and just what to do. If they step on a lady's
dress, they say instantly,
“Beg pardon, Miss Smith. I thought the train had
passed!”
“Ha! ha! Charley, you must learn to wait for the
train,” Miss Smith remarks as Charley peeps over the
banisters to smell the incipient breath of—supper.
BROWN'S BOYS AT SUPPER.
The dancing men—the professional champagne “cornerers”—are
never late to supper. Here their discriminating
genius makes a prodigious display.
They never go for cheap refreshments, but have a
weakness for fried oysters, salads, and expensive woodcock.
They take to expensive game wonderfully, and
they manage to have it while the non-professional
party-goer is picking away at plain sandwiches, cold
tongue, mottoes, and cream. A knowledge of Greek
and Latin don't help a man in the grand raffle for
woodcock at a New York party, for Brown's Boys are
sure to win by tact and society diplomacy.
CORNERING CHAMPAGNE.
When the wine comes on, then the professional man
of heels is in his element. He turns a sweet patronizing
smile upon the caterer, and says,
“John, no cider champagne for us, yeu kneuw.”
John smiles and hands him the first bottle of fine
old Roederer. This he generally drinks with the fellows,
while the ladies are eating in the corner.
Now he approaches the caterer and says with a patronizing
wink:
“John, some more of our kind, yeu kneuw,” and
John hands out two bottles more—one to be drunk
with the ladies, and the other Charley “corners” with
a laugh, behind their dresses. The girls think this is
very funny, and they laugh at Charley's coup in high
glee.
This is a nice provision on the part of the champagne
“cornerer,” for soon “the governor's” best champagne
gives out. Then while the unprofessionals, having exhausted
everything from cider champagne, through
sparkling Catawba, to Set Sherry, are all sipping away
at rum punch, Charley is reveling in Widow Clicquot's
best. All the girls are laughing, too, and Charley is
voted “a deuced smart fellow.”
Now he is up to the prettiest tricks, even to taking
a young lady's hand, or even her mother's. They all
say, “It's all right—Charley has been `cornering' a little
too much champagne—that's all. Ha! ha!”
EXPENSIVE CHARLEY.
Let's see what Charley has cost Nellie Smith's governor
to-night.
| Carriage (which Nellie Smith sent) | $5 00 |
| Two woodcock (totally eaten up) | 1 50 |
| Salad and oysters (destroyed) | 1 00 |
| Cigars (smoked and pocketed) | 1 00 |
| Champagne | 12 00 |
| Total for Charley | $20 50 |
| Cr. By face and heels lent to Nellie for occasion | $20 50 |
| Balance | 000 00 |
A kind old father-in-law on Madison avenue, who
is supporting four or five of Brown's Boys as sons-in-law,
went down to see Barnum's Feejee Cannibals.
“Why are they called Cannibals?” he asked of Mr.
Barnum.
“Because they live off of other people,” replied the
great showman.
“O, I see,” replied the unhappy father-in-law. “Alas!
my four Brown's Boys sons-in-law are Cannibals, too—
they live off of me!”
| Eli Perkins (at large) | |