THE CONFIDENCE-MAN:HIS MASQUERADE. 

BY

HERMAN MELVILLE, AUTHOR OF "PIAZZA TALES, " "OMOO, " "TYPEE, " ETC. , ETC. 

NEW YORK:DIX, EDWARDS & CO. , 321 BROADWAY1857. 

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1857, byHERMAN MELVILLE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for theSouthern District of New York. 

MILLER & HOLMAN, Printers and Stereotypers, N. Y. 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. 

A mute goes aboard a boat on the Mississippi. 

CHAPTER II. 

Showing that many men have many minds. 

CHAPTER III. 

In which a variety of characters appear. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Renewal of old acquaintance. 

CHAPTER V. 

The man with the weed makes it an even question whether he be a greatsage or a great simpleton. 

CHAPTER VI. 

At the outset of which certain passengers prove deaf to the call ofcharity. 

CHAPTER VII. 

A gentleman with gold sleeve-buttons. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A charitable lady. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Two business men transact a little business. 

CHAPTER X. 

In the cabin. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Only a page or so. 

CHAPTER XII. 

The story of the unfortunate man, from which may be gathered whether orno he has been justly so entitled. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The man with the traveling-cap evinces much humanity, and in a way whichwould seem to show him to be one of the most logical of optimists. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Worth the consideration of those to whom it may prove worth considering. 

CHAPTER XV. 

An old miser, upon suitable representations, is prevailed upon toventure an investment. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

A sick man, after some impatience, is induced to become a patient. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Towards the end of which the Herb-Doctor proves himself a forgiver ofinjuries. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Inquest into the true character of the Herb-Doctor. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

A soldier of fortune. 

CHAPTER XX. 

Reappearance of one who may be remembered. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

A hard case. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

In the polite spirit of the Tusculan disputations. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

In which the powerful effect of natural scenery is evinced in the caseof the Missourian, who, in view of the region round about Cairo, has areturn of his chilly fit. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

A philanthropist undertakes to convert a misanthrope, but does not getbeyond confuting him. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

The Cosmopolitan makes an acquaintance. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Containing the metaphysics of Indian-hating, according to the views ofone evidently as prepossessed as Rousseau in favor of savages. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Some account of a man of questionable morality, but who, nevertheless, would seem entitled to the esteem of that eminent English moralist whosaid he liked a good hater. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Moot points touching the late Colonel John Moredock. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

The boon companions. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Opening with a poetical eulogy of the Press, and continuing with talkinspired by the same. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

A metamorphosis more surprising than any in Ovid. 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Showing that the age of music and magicians is not yet over. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Which may pass for whatever it may prove to be worth. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

In which the Cosmopolitan tells the story of the gentleman-madman. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

In which the Cosmopolitan strikingly evinces the artlessness of hisnature. 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

In which the Cosmopolitan is accosted by a mystic, whereupon ensuespretty much such talk as might be expected. 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

The mystical master introduces the practical disciple. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

The disciple unbends, and consents to act a social part. 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

The hypothetical friends. 

CHAPTER XL. 

In which the story of China Aster is, at second-hand, told by one who, while not disapproving the moral, disclaims the spirit of the style. 

CHAPTER XLI. 

Ending with a rupture of the hypothesis. 

CHAPTER XLII. 

Upon the heel of the last scene, the Cosmopolitan enters the barber'sshop, a benediction on his lips. 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

Very charming. 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

In which the last three words of the last chapter are made the text ofthe discourse, which will be sure of receiving more or less attentionfrom those readers who do not skip it. 

CHAPTER XLV. 

The Cosmopolitan increases in seriousness. 

CHAPTER I. 

A MUTE GOES ABOARD A BOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 

At sunrise on a first of April, there appeared, suddenly as Manco Capacat the lake Titicaca, a man in cream-colors, at the water-side in thecity of St. Louis. 

His cheek was fair, his chin downy, his hair flaxen, his hat a white furone, with a long fleecy nap. He had neither trunk, valise, carpet-bag, nor parcel. No porter followed him. He was unaccompanied by friends. From the shrugged shoulders, titters, whispers, wonderings of the crowd, it was plain that he was, in the extremest sense of the word, astranger. 

In the same moment with his advent, he stepped aboard the favoritesteamer Fidèle, on the point of starting for New Orleans. Stared at, butunsaluted, with the air of one neither courting nor shunning regard, butevenly pursuing the path of duty, lead it through solitudes or cities, he held on his way along the lower deck until he chanced to come to aplacard nigh the captain's office, offering a reward for the capture ofa mysterious impostor, supposed to have recently arrived from the East;quite an original genius in his vocation, as would appear, thoughwherein his originality consisted was not clearly given; but whatpurported to be a careful description of his person followed. 

As if it had been a theatre-bill, crowds were gathered about theannouncement, and among them certain chevaliers, whose eyes, it wasplain, were on the capitals, or, at least, earnestly seeking sight ofthem from behind intervening coats; but as for their fingers, they wereenveloped in some myth; though, during a chance interval, one of thesechevaliers somewhat showed his hand in purchasing from anotherchevalier, ex-officio a peddler of money-belts, one of his popularsafe-guards, while another peddler, who was still another versatilechevalier, hawked, in the thick of the throng, the lives of Measan, thebandit of Ohio, Murrel, the pirate of the Mississippi, and the brothersHarpe, the Thugs of the Green River country, in Kentucky--creatures, with others of the sort, one and all exterminated at the time, and forthe most part, like the hunted generations of wolves in the sameregions, leaving comparatively few successors; which would seem causefor unalloyed gratulation, and is such to all except those who thinkthat in new countries, where the wolves are killed off, the foxesincrease. 

Pausing at this spot, the stranger so far succeeded in threading hisway, as at last to plant himself just beside the placard, when, producing a small slate and tracing some words upon if, he held it upbefore him on a level with the placard, so that they who read the onemight read the other. The words were these:--

"Charity thinketh no evil. "

As, in gaining his place, some little perseverance, not to saypersistence, of a mildly inoffensive sort, had been unavoidable, it wasnot with the best relish that the crowd regarded his apparent intrusion;and upon a more attentive survey, perceiving no badge of authority abouthim, but rather something quite the contrary--he being of an aspect sosingularly innocent; an aspect too, which they took to be somehowinappropriate to the time and place, and inclining to the notion thathis writing was of much the same sort: in short, taking him for somestrange kind of simpleton, harmless enough, would he keep to himself, but not wholly unobnoxious as an intruder--they made no scruple tojostle him aside; while one, less kind than the rest, or more of a wag, by an unobserved stroke, dexterously flattened down his fleecy hat uponhis head. Without readjusting it, the stranger quietly turned, andwriting anew upon the slate, again held it up:--

"Charity suffereth long, and is kind. "

Illy pleased with his pertinacity, as they thought it, the crowd asecond time thrust him aside, and not without epithets and some buffets, all of which were unresented. But, as if at last despairing of sodifficult an adventure, wherein one, apparently a non-resistant, soughtto impose his presence upon fighting characters, the stranger now movedslowly away, yet not before altering his writing to this:--

"Charity endureth all things. "

Shield-like bearing his slate before him, amid stares and jeers he movedslowly up and down, at his turning points again changing his inscriptionto--

"Charity believeth all things. "

and then--

"Charity never faileth. "

The word charity, as originally traced, remained throughout uneffaced, not unlike the left-hand numeral of a printed date, otherwise left forconvenience in blank. 

To some observers, the singularity, if not lunacy, of the stranger washeightened by his muteness, and, perhaps also, by the contrast to hisproceedings afforded in the actions--quite in the wonted and sensibleorder of things--of the barber of the boat, whose quarters, under asmoking-saloon, and over against a bar-room, was next door but two tothe captain's office. As if the long, wide, covered deck, hereaboutsbuilt up on both sides with shop-like windowed spaces, were someConstantinople arcade or bazaar, where more than one trade is plied, this river barber, aproned and slippered, but rather crusty-looking forthe moment, it may be from being newly out of bed, was throwing openhis premises for the day, and suitably arranging the exterior. Withbusiness-like dispatch, having rattled down his shutters, and at apalm-tree angle set out in the iron fixture his little ornamental pole, and this without overmuch tenderness for the elbows and toes of thecrowd, he concluded his operations by bidding people stand still moreaside, when, jumping on a stool, he hung over his door, on the customarynail, a gaudy sort of illuminated pasteboard sign, skillfully executedby himself, gilt with the likeness of a razor elbowed in readiness toshave, and also, for the public benefit, with two words not unfrequentlyseen ashore gracing other shops besides barbers':--

"NO TRUST. "

An inscription which, though in a sense not less intrusive than thecontrasted ones of the stranger, did not, as it seemed, provoke anycorresponding derision or surprise, much less indignation; and stillless, to all appearances, did it gain for the inscriber the repute ofbeing a simpleton. 

Meanwhile, he with the slate continued moving slowly up and down, notwithout causing some stares to change into jeers, and some jeers intopushes, and some pushes into punches; when suddenly, in one of histurns, he was hailed from behind by two porters carrying a large trunk;but as the summons, though loud, was without effect, they accidentallyor otherwise swung their burden against him, nearly overthrowing him;when, by a quick start, a peculiar inarticulate moan, and a pathetictelegraphing of his fingers, he involuntarily betrayed that he was notalone dumb, but also deaf. 

Presently, as if not wholly unaffected by his reception thus far, hewent forward, seating himself in a retired spot on the forecastle, nighthe foot of a ladder there leading to a deck above, up and down whichladder some of the boatmen, in discharge of their duties, wereoccasionally going. 

From his betaking himself to this humble quarter, it was evident that, as a deck-passenger, the stranger, simple though he seemed, was notentirely ignorant of his place, though his taking a deck-passage mighthave been partly for convenience; as, from his having no luggage, it wasprobable that his destination was one of the small wayside landingswithin a few hours' sail. But, though he might not have a long way togo, yet he seemed already to have come from a very long distance. 

Though neither soiled nor slovenly, his cream-colored suit had a tossedlook, almost linty, as if, traveling night and day from some far countrybeyond the prairies, he had long been without the solace of a bed. Hisaspect was at once gentle and jaded, and, from the moment of seatinghimself, increasing in tired abstraction and dreaminess. Graduallyovertaken by slumber, his flaxen head drooped, his whole lamb-likefigure relaxed, and, half reclining against the ladder's foot, laymotionless, as some sugar-snow in March, which, softly stealing downover night, with its white placidity startles the brown farmer peeringout from his threshold at daybreak. 

CHAPTER II. 

SHOWING THAT MANY MEN HAVE MANY MINDS. 

"Odd fish!"

"Poor fellow!"

"Who can he be?"

"Casper Hauser. "

"Bless my soul!"

"Uncommon countenance. "

"Green prophet from Utah. "

"Humbug!"

"Singular innocence. "

"Means something. "

"Spirit-rapper. "

"Moon-calf. "

"Piteous. "

"Trying to enlist interest. "

"Beware of him. "

"Fast asleep here, and, doubtless, pick-pockets on board. "

"Kind of daylight Endymion. "

"Escaped convict, worn out with dodging. "

"Jacob dreaming at Luz. "

Such the epitaphic comments, conflictingly spoken or thought, of amiscellaneous company, who, assembled on the overlooking, cross-wisebalcony at the forward end of the upper deck near by, had not witnessedpreceding occurrences. 

Meantime, like some enchanted man in his grave, happily oblivious of allgossip, whether chiseled or chatted, the deaf and dumb stranger stilltranquilly slept, while now the boat started on her voyage. 

The great ship-canal of Ving-King-Ching, in the Flowery Kingdom, seemsthe Mississippi in parts, where, amply flowing between low, vine-tangledbanks, flat as tow-paths, it bears the huge toppling steamers, bedizenedand lacquered within like imperial junks. 

Pierced along its great white bulk with two tiers of smallembrasure-like windows, well above the waterline, the Fiddle, though, might at distance have been taken by strangers for some whitewashed forton a floating isle. 

Merchants on 'change seem the passengers that buzz on her decks, while, from quarters unseen, comes a murmur as of bees in the comb. Finepromenades, domed saloons, long galleries, sunny balconies, confidentialpassages, bridal chambers, state-rooms plenty as pigeon-holes, andout-of-the-way retreats like secret drawers in an escritoire, presentlike facilities for publicity or privacy. Auctioneer or coiner, withequal ease, might somewhere here drive his trade. 

Though her voyage of twelve hundred miles extends from apple to orange, from clime to clime, yet, like any small ferry-boat, to right and left, at every landing, the huge Fidèle still receives additional passengersin exchange for those that disembark; so that, though always full ofstrangers, she continually, in some degree, adds to, or replaces themwith strangers still more strange; like Rio Janeiro fountain, fed fromthe Cocovarde mountains, which is ever overflowing with strange waters, but never with the same strange particles in every part. 

Though hitherto, as has been seen, the man in cream-colors had by nomeans passed unobserved, yet by stealing into retirement, and theregoing asleep and continuing so, he seemed to have courted oblivion, aboon not often withheld from so humble an applicant as he. Those staringcrowds on the shore were now left far behind, seen dimly clustering likeswallows on eaves; while the passengers' attention was soon drawn awayto the rapidly shooting high bluffs and shot-towers on the Missourishore, or the bluff-looking Missourians and towering Kentuckians amongthe throngs on the decks. 

By-and-by--two or three random stoppages having been made, and the lasttransient memory of the slumberer vanished, and he himself, notunlikely, waked up and landed ere now--the crowd, as is usual, began inall parts to break up from a concourse into various clusters or squads, which in some cases disintegrated again into quartettes, trios, andcouples, or even solitaires; involuntarily submitting to that naturallaw which ordains dissolution equally to the mass, as in time to themember. 

As among Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims, or those oriental ones crossingthe Red Sea towards Mecca in the festival month, there was no lack ofvariety. Natives of all sorts, and foreigners; men of business and menof pleasure; parlor men and backwoodsmen; farm-hunters and fame-hunters;heiress-hunters, gold-hunters, buffalo-hunters, bee-hunters, happiness-hunters, truth-hunters, and still keener hunters after allthese hunters. Fine ladies in slippers, and moccasined squaws; Northernspeculators and Eastern philosophers; English, Irish, German, Scotch, Danes; Santa Fé traders in striped blankets, and Broadway bucks incravats of cloth of gold; fine-looking Kentucky boatmen, andJapanese-looking Mississippi cotton-planters; Quakers in full drab, andUnited States soldiers in full regimentals; slaves, black, mulatto, quadroon; modish young Spanish Creoles, and old-fashioned French Jews;Mormons and Papists Dives and Lazarus; jesters and mourners, teetotalersand convivialists, deacons and blacklegs; hard-shell Baptists andclay-eaters; grinning negroes, and Sioux chiefs solemn as high-priests. In short, a piebald parliament, an Anacharsis Cloots congress of allkinds of that multiform pilgrim species, man. 

As pine, beech, birch, ash, hackmatack, hemlock, spruce, bass-wood, maple, interweave their foliage in the natural wood, so these mortalsblended their varieties of visage and garb. A Tartar-likepicturesqueness; a sort of pagan abandonment and assurance. Here reignedthe dashing and all-fusing spirit of the West, whose type is theMississippi itself, which, uniting the streams of the most distant andopposite zones, pours them along, helter-skelter, in one cosmopolitanand confident tide. 

CHAPTER III. 

IN WHICH A VARIETY OF CHARACTERS APPEAR. 

In the forward part of the boat, not the least attractive object, for atime, was a grotesque negro cripple, in tow-cloth attire and an oldcoal-sifter of a tamborine in his hand, who, owing to something wrongabout his legs, was, in effect, cut down to the stature of aNewfoundland dog; his knotted black fleece and good-natured, honestblack face rubbing against the upper part of people's thighs as he madeshift to shuffle about, making music, such as it was, and raising asmile even from the gravest. It was curious to see him, out of his verydeformity, indigence, and houselessness, so cheerily endured, raisingmirth in some of that crowd, whose own purses, hearths, hearts, alltheir possessions, sound limbs included, could not make gay. 

"What is your name, old boy?" said a purple-faced drover, putting hislarge purple hand on the cripple's bushy wool, as if it were the curledforehead of a black steer. 

"Der Black Guinea dey calls me, sar. "

"And who is your master, Guinea?"

"Oh sar, I am der dog widout massa. "

"A free dog, eh? Well, on your account, I'm sorry for that, Guinea. Dogswithout masters fare hard. "

"So dey do, sar; so dey do. But you see, sar, dese here legs? Whatge'mman want to own dese here legs?"

"But where do you live?"

"All 'long shore, sar; dough now. I'se going to see brodder at derlanding; but chiefly I libs in dey city. "

"St. Louis, ah? Where do you sleep there of nights?"

"On der floor of der good baker's oven, sar. "

"In an oven? whose, pray? What baker, I should like to know, bakes suchblack bread in his oven, alongside of his nice white rolls, too. Who isthat too charitable baker, pray?"

"Dar he be, " with a broad grin lifting his tambourine high over hishead. 

"The sun is the baker, eh?"

"Yes sar, in der city dat good baker warms der stones for dis ole darkiewhen he sleeps out on der pabements o' nights. "

"But that must be in the summer only, old boy. How about winter, whenthe cold Cossacks come clattering and jingling? How about winter, oldboy?"

"Den dis poor old darkie shakes werry bad, I tell you, sar. Oh sar, oh!don't speak ob der winter, " he added, with a reminiscent shiver, shuffling off into the thickest of the crowd, like a half-frozen blacksheep nudging itself a cozy berth in the heart of the white flock. 

Thus far not very many pennies had been given him, and, used at last tohis strange looks, the less polite passengers of those in that part ofthe boat began to get their fill of him as a curious object; whensuddenly the negro more than revived their first interest by anexpedient which, whether by chance or design, was a singular temptationat once to _diversion_ and charity, though, even more than his crippledlimbs, it put him on a canine footing. In short, as in appearance heseemed a dog, so now, in a merry way, like a dog he began to be treated. Still shuffling among the crowd, now and then he would pause, throwingback his head and, opening his mouth like an elephant for tossed applesat a menagerie; when, making a space before him, people would have about at a strange sort of pitch-penny game, the cripple's mouth being atonce target and purse, and he hailing each expertly-caught copper with acracked bravura from his tambourine. To be the subject of alms-giving istrying, and to feel in duty bound to appear cheerfully grateful underthe trial, must be still more so; but whatever his secret emotions, heswallowed them, while still retaining each copper this side theoesophagus. And nearly always he grinned, and only once or twice didhe wince, which was when certain coins, tossed by more playful almoners, came inconveniently nigh to his teeth, an accident whose unwelcomenesswas not unedged by the circumstance that the pennies thus thrown provedbuttons. 

While this game of charity was yet at its height, a limping, gimlet-eyed, sour-faced person--it may be some discharged custom-houseofficer, who, suddenly stripped of convenient means of support, hadconcluded to be avenged on government and humanity by making himselfmiserable for life, either by hating or suspecting everything andeverybody--this shallow unfortunate, after sundry sorry observations ofthe negro, began to croak out something about his deformity being asham, got up for financial purposes, which immediately threw a damp uponthe frolic benignities of the pitch-penny players. 

But that these suspicions came from one who himself on a wooden leg wenthalt, this did not appear to strike anybody present. That cripples, above all men should be companionable, or, at least, refrain frompicking a fellow-limper to pieces, in short, should have a littlesympathy in common misfortune, seemed not to occur to the company. 

Meantime, the negro's countenance, before marked with even more thanpatient good-nature, drooped into a heavy-hearted expression, full ofthe most painful distress. So far abased beneath its proper physicallevel, that Newfoundland-dog face turned in passively hopeless appeal, as if instinct told it that the right or the wrong might not haveovermuch to do with whatever wayward mood superior intelligences mightyield to. 

But instinct, though knowing, is yet a teacher set below reason, whichitself says, in the grave words of Lysander in the comedy, after Puckhas made a sage of him with his spell:--

"The will of man is by his reason swayed. "

So that, suddenly change as people may, in their dispositions, it is notalways waywardness, but improved judgment, which, as in Lysander's case, or the present, operates with them. 

Yes, they began to scrutinize the negro curiously enough; when, emboldened by this evidence of the efficacy of his words, thewooden-legged man hobbled up to the negro, and, with the air of abeadle, would, to prove his alleged imposture on the spot, have strippedhim and then driven him away, but was prevented by the crowd's clamor, now taking part with the poor fellow, against one who had just beforeturned nearly all minds the other way. So he with the wooden leg wasforced to retire; when the rest, finding themselves left sole judges inthe case, could not resist the opportunity of acting the part: notbecause it is a human weakness to take pleasure in sitting in judgmentupon one in a box, as surely this unfortunate negro now was, but that itstrangely sharpens human perceptions, when, instead of standing by andhaving their fellow-feelings touched by the sight of an alleged culpritseverely handled by some one justiciary, a crowd suddenly come to be alljusticiaries in the same case themselves; as in Arkansas once, a manproved guilty, by law, of murder, but whose condemnation was deemedunjust by the people, so that they rescued him to try him themselves;whereupon, they, as it turned out, found him even guiltier than thecourt had done, and forthwith proceeded to execution; so that thegallows presented the truly warning spectacle of a man hanged by hisfriends. 

But not to such extremities, or anything like them, did the presentcrowd come; they, for the time, being content with putting the negrofairly and discreetly to the question; among other things, asking him, had he any documentary proof, any plain paper about him, attesting thathis case was not a spurious one. 

"No, no, dis poor ole darkie haint none o' dem waloable papers, " hewailed. 

"But is there not some one who can speak a good word for you?" here saida person newly arrived from another part of the boat, a young Episcopalclergyman, in a long, straight-bodied black coat; small in stature, butmanly; with a clear face and blue eye; innocence, tenderness, and goodsense triumvirate in his air. 

"Oh yes, oh yes, ge'mmen, " he eagerly answered, as if his memory, beforesuddenly frozen up by cold charity, as suddenly thawed back intofluidity at the first kindly word. "Oh yes, oh yes, dar is aboard here awerry nice, good ge'mman wid a weed, and a ge'mman in a gray coat andwhite tie, what knows all about me; and a ge'mman wid a big book, too;and a yarb-doctor; and a ge'mman in a yaller west; and a ge'mman wid abrass plate; and a ge'mman in a wiolet robe; and a ge'mman as is asodjer; and ever so many good, kind, honest ge'mmen more aboard whatknows me and will speak for me, God bress 'em; yes, and what knows me aswell as dis poor old darkie knows hisself, God bress him! Oh, find 'em, find 'em, " he earnestly added, "and let 'em come quick, and show youall, ge'mmen, dat dis poor ole darkie is werry well wordy of all youkind ge'mmen's kind confidence. "

"But how are we to find all these people in this great crowd?" was thequestion of a bystander, umbrella in hand; a middle-aged person, acountry merchant apparently, whose natural good-feeling had been made atleast cautious by the unnatural ill-feeling of the dischargedcustom-house officer. 

"Where are we to find them?" half-rebukefully echoed the young Episcopalclergymen. "I will go find one to begin with, " he quickly added, and, with kind haste suiting the action to the word, away he went. 

"Wild goose chase!" croaked he with the wooden leg, now again drawingnigh. "Don't believe there's a soul of them aboard. Did ever beggar havesuch heaps of fine friends? He can walk fast enough when he tries, agood deal faster than I; but he can lie yet faster. He's some whiteoperator, betwisted and painted up for a decoy. He and his friends areall humbugs. "

"Have you no charity, friend?" here in self-subdued tones, singularlycontrasted with his unsubdued person, said a Methodist minister, advancing; a tall, muscular, martial-looking man, a Tennessean by birth, who in the Mexican war had been volunteer chaplain to a volunteerrifle-regiment. 

"Charity is one thing, and truth is another, " rejoined he with thewooden leg: "he's a rascal, I say. "

"But why not, friend, put as charitable a construction as one can uponthe poor fellow?" said the soldierlike Methodist, with increaseddifficulty maintaining a pacific demeanor towards one whose own asperityseemed so little to entitle him to it: "he looks honest, don't he?"

"Looks are one thing, and facts are another, " snapped out the otherperversely; "and as to your constructions, what construction can you putupon a rascal, but that a rascal he is?"

"Be not such a Canada thistle, " urged the Methodist, with something lessof patience than before. "Charity, man, charity. "

"To where it belongs with your charity! to heaven with it!" againsnapped out the other, diabolically; "here on earth, true charity dotes, and false charity plots. Who betrays a fool with a kiss, the charitablefool has the charity to believe is in love with him, and the charitableknave on the stand gives charitable testimony for his comrade in thebox. "

"Surely, friend, " returned the noble Methodist, with much adorestraining his still waxing indignation--"surely, to say the least, youforget yourself. Apply it home, " he continued, with exterior calmnesstremulous with inkept emotion. "Suppose, now, I should exercise nocharity in judging your own character by the words which have fallenfrom you; what sort of vile, pitiless man do you think I would take youfor?"

"No doubt"--with a grin--"some such pitiless man as has lost his pietyin much the same way that the jockey loses his honesty. "

"And how is that, friend?" still conscientiously holding back the oldAdam in him, as if it were a mastiff he had by the neck. 

"Never you mind how it is"--with a sneer; "but all horses aint virtuous, no more than all men kind; and come close to, and much dealt with, somethings are catching. When you find me a virtuous jockey, I will find youa benevolent wise man. "

"Some insinuation there. "

"More fool you that are puzzled by it. "

"Reprobate!" cried the other, his indignation now at last almost boilingover; "godless reprobate! if charity did not restrain me, I could callyou by names you deserve. "

"Could you, indeed?" with an insolent sneer. 

"Yea, and teach you charity on the spot, " cried the goaded Methodist, suddenly catching this exasperating opponent by his shabby coat-collar, and shaking him till his timber-toe clattered on the deck like anine-pin. "You took me for a non-combatant did you?--thought, seedycoward that you are, that you could abuse a Christian with impunity. Youfind your mistake"--with another hearty shake. 

"Well said and better done, church militant!" cried a voice. 

"The white cravat against the world!" cried another. 

"Bravo, bravo!" chorused many voices, with like enthusiasm taking sideswith the resolute champion. 

"You fools!" cried he with the wooden leg, writhing himself loose andinflamedly turning upon the throng; "you flock of fools, under thiscaptain of fools, in this ship of fools!"

With which exclamations, followed by idle threats against hisadmonisher, this condign victim to justice hobbled away, as disdainingto hold further argument with such a rabble. But his scorn was more thanrepaid by the hisses that chased him, in which the brave Methodist, satisfied with the rebuke already administered, was, to omit stillbetter reasons, too magnanimous to join. All he said was, pointingtowards the departing recusant, "There he shambles off on his one loneleg, emblematic of his one-sided view of humanity. "

"But trust your painted decoy, " retorted the other from a distance, pointing back to the black cripple, "and I have my revenge. "

"But we aint agoing to trust him!" shouted back a voice. 

"So much the better, " he jeered back. "Look you, " he added, coming to adead halt where he was; "look you, I have been called a Canada thistle. Very good. And a seedy one: still better. And the seedy Canada thistlehas been pretty well shaken among ye: best of all. Dare say some seedhas been shaken out; and won't it spring though? And when it doesspring, do you cut down the young thistles, and won't they spring themore? It's encouraging and coaxing 'em. Now, when with my thistles yourfarms shall be well stocked, why then--you may abandon 'em!"

"What does all that mean, now?" asked the country merchant, staring. 

"Nothing; the foiled wolf's parting howl, " said the Methodist. "Spleen, much spleen, which is the rickety child of his evil heart of unbelief:it has made him mad. I suspect him for one naturally reprobate. Oh, friends, " raising his arms as in the pulpit, "oh beloved, how are weadmonished by the melancholy spectacle of this raver. Let us profit bythe lesson; and is it not this: that if, next to mistrusting Providence, there be aught that man should pray against, it is against mistrustinghis fellow-man. I have been in mad-houses full of tragic mopers, andseen there the end of suspicion: the cynic, in the moody madnessmuttering in the corner; for years a barren fixture there; head loppedover, gnawing his own lip, vulture of himself; while, by fits andstarts, from the corner opposite came the grimace of the idiot at him. "

"What an example, " whispered one. 

"Might deter Timon, " was the response. 

"Oh, oh, good ge'mmen, have you no confidence in dis poor ole darkie?"now wailed the returning negro, who, during the late scene, had stumpedapart in alarm. 

"Confidence in you?" echoed he who had whispered, with abruptly changedair turning short round; "that remains to be seen. "

"I tell you what it is, Ebony, " in similarly changed tones said he whohad responded to the whisperer, "yonder churl, " pointing toward thewooden leg in the distance, "is, no doubt, a churlish fellow enough, andI would not wish to be like him; but that is no reason why you may notbe some sort of black Jeremy Diddler. "

"No confidence in dis poor ole darkie, den?"

"Before giving you our confidence, " said a third, "we will wait thereport of the kind gentleman who went in search of one of your friendswho was to speak for you. "

"Very likely, in that case, " said a fourth, "we shall wait here tillChristmas. Shouldn't wonder, did we not see that kind gentleman again. After seeking awhile in vain, he will conclude he has been made a foolof, and so not return to us for pure shame. Fact is, I begin to feel alittle qualmish about the darkie myself. Something queer about thisdarkie, depend upon it. "

Once more the negro wailed, and turning in despair from the lastspeaker, imploringly caught the Methodist by the skirt of his coat. Buta change had come over that before impassioned intercessor. With anirresolute and troubled air, he mutely eyed the suppliant; against whom, somehow, by what seemed instinctive influences, the distrusts first seton foot were now generally reviving, and, if anything, with addedseverity. 

"No confidence in dis poor ole darkie, " yet again wailed the negro, letting go the coat-skirts and turning appealingly all round him. 

"Yes, my poor fellow _I_ have confidence in you, " now exclaimed thecountry merchant before named, whom the negro's appeal, coming sopiteously on the heel of pitilessness, seemed at last humanely to havedecided in his favor. "And here, here is some proof of my trust, " withwhich, tucking his umbrella under his arm, and diving down his hand intohis pocket, he fished forth a purse, and, accidentally, along with it, his business card, which, unobserved, dropped to the deck. "Here, here, my poor fellow, " he continued, extending a half dollar. 

Not more grateful for the coin than the kindness, the cripple's faceglowed like a polished copper saucepan, and shuffling a pace nigher, with one upstretched hand he received the alms, while, as unconsciously, his one advanced leather stump covered the card. 

Done in despite of the general sentiment, the good deed of the merchantwas not, perhaps, without its unwelcome return from the crowd, sincethat good deed seemed somehow to convey to them a sort of reproach. Still again, and more pertinaciously than ever, the cry arose againstthe negro, and still again he wailed forth his lament and appeal amongother things, repeating that the friends, of whom already he hadpartially run off the list, would freely speak for him, would anybody gofind them. 

"Why don't you go find 'em yourself?" demanded a gruff boatman. 

"How can I go find 'em myself? Dis poor ole game-legged darkie's friendsmust come to him. Oh, whar, whar is dat good friend of dis darkie's, datgood man wid de weed?"

At this point, a steward ringing a bell came along, summoning allpersons who had not got their tickets to step to the captain's office;an announcement which speedily thinned the throng about the blackcripple, who himself soon forlornly stumped out of sight, probably onmuch the same errand as the rest. 

CHAPTER IV. 

RENEWAL OF OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 

"How do you do, Mr. Roberts?"

"Eh?"

"Don't you know me?"

"No, certainly. "

The crowd about the captain's office, having in good time melted away, the above encounter took place in one of the side balconies astern, between a man in mourning clean and respectable, but none of theglossiest, a long weed on his hat, and the country-merchantbefore-mentioned, whom, with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, theformer had accosted. 

"Is it possible, my dear sir, " resumed he with the weed, "that you donot recall my countenance? why yours I recall distinctly as if but halfan hour, instead of half an age, had passed since I saw you. Don't yourecall me, now? Look harder. "

"In my conscience--truly--I protest, " honestly bewildered, "bless mysoul, sir, I don't know you--really, really. But stay, stay, " hehurriedly added, not without gratification, glancing up at the crape onthe stranger's hat, "stay--yes--seems to me, though I have not thepleasure of personally knowing you, yet I am pretty sure I have at least_heard_ of you, and recently too, quite recently. A poor negro aboardhere referred to you, among others, for a character, I think. "

"Oh, the cripple. Poor fellow. I know him well. They found me. I havesaid all I could for him. I think I abated their distrust. Would I couldhave been of more substantial service. And apropos, sir, " he added, "nowthat it strikes me, allow me to ask, whether the circumstance of oneman, however humble, referring for a character to another man, howeverafflicted, does not argue more or less of moral worth in the latter?"

The good merchant looked puzzled. 

"Still you don't recall my countenance?"

"Still does truth compel me to say that I cannot, despite my bestefforts, " was the reluctantly-candid reply. 

"Can I be so changed? Look at me. Or is it I who am mistaken?--Are younot, sir, Henry Roberts, forwarding merchant, of Wheeling, Pennsylvania?Pray, now, if you use the advertisement of business cards, and happen tohave one with you, just look at it, and see whether you are not the manI take you for. "

"Why, " a bit chafed, perhaps, "I hope I know myself. "

"And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, mydear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else?Stranger things have happened. "

The good merchant stared. 

"To come to particulars, my dear sir, I met you, now some six yearsback, at Brade Brothers & Co's office, I think. I was traveling for aPhiladelphia house. The senior Brade introduced us, you remember; somebusiness-chat followed, then you forced me home with you to a familytea, and a family time we had. Have you forgotten about the urn, andwhat I said about Werter's Charlotte, and the bread and butter, and thatcapital story you told of the large loaf. A hundred times since, I havelaughed over it. At least you must recall my name--Ringman, JohnRingman. "

"Large loaf? Invited you to tea? Ringman? Ringman? Ring? Ring?"

"Ah sir, " sadly smiling, "don't ring the changes that way. I see youhave a faithless memory, Mr. Roberts. But trust in the faithfulness ofmine. "

"Well, to tell the truth, in some things my memory aint of the verybest, " was the honest rejoinder. "But still, " he perplexedly added, "still I----"

"Oh sir, suffice it that it is as I say. Doubt not that we are all wellacquainted. "

"But--but I don't like this going dead against my own memory; I----"

"But didn't you admit, my dear sir, that in some things this memory ofyours is a little faithless? Now, those who have faithless memories, should they not have some little confidence in the less faithlessmemories of others?"

"But, of this friendly chat and tea, I have not the slightest----"

"I see, I see; quite erased from the tablet. Pray, sir, " with a suddenillumination, "about six years back, did it happen to you to receive anyinjury on the head? Surprising effects have arisen from such a cause. Not alone unconsciousness as to events for a greater or less timeimmediately subsequent to the injury, but likewise--strange toadd--oblivion, entire and incurable, as to events embracing a longer orshorter period immediately preceding it; that is, when the mind at thetime was perfectly sensible of them, and fully competent also toregister them in the memory, and did in fact so do; but all in vain, forall was afterwards bruised out by the injury. "

After the first start, the merchant listened with what appeared morethan ordinary interest. The other proceeded:

"In my boyhood I was kicked by a horse, and lay insensible for a longtime. Upon recovering, what a blank! No faintest trace in regard to howI had come near the horse, or what horse it was, or where it was, orthat it was a horse at all that had brought me to that pass. For theknowledge of those particulars I am indebted solely to my friends, inwhose statements, I need not say, I place implicit reliance, sinceparticulars of some sort there must have been, and why should theydeceive me? You see sir, the mind is ductile, very much so: but images, ductilely received into it, need a certain time to harden and bake intheir impressions, otherwise such a casualty as I speak of will in aninstant obliterate them, as though they had never been. We are but clay, sir, potter's clay, as the good book says, clay, feeble, andtoo-yielding clay. But I will not philosophize. Tell me, was it yourmisfortune to receive any concussion upon the brain about the period Ispeak of? If so, I will with pleasure supply the void in your memory bymore minutely rehearsing the circumstances of our acquaintance. "

The growing interest betrayed by the merchant had not relaxed as theother proceeded. After some hesitation, indeed, something more thanhesitation, he confessed that, though he had never received any injuryof the sort named, yet, about the time in question, he had in fact beentaken with a brain fever, losing his mind completely for a considerableinterval. He was continuing, when the stranger with much animationexclaimed:

"There now, you see, I was not wholly mistaken. That brain feveraccounts for it all. "

"Nay; but----"

"Pardon me, Mr. Roberts, " respectfully interrupting him, "but time isshort, and I have something private and particular to say to you. Allowme. "

Mr. Roberts, good man, could but acquiesce, and the two having silentlywalked to a less public spot, the manner of the man with the weedsuddenly assumed a seriousness almost painful. What might be called awrithing expression stole over him. He seemed struggling with somedisastrous necessity inkept. He made one or two attempts to speak, butwords seemed to choke him. His companion stood in humane surprise, wondering what was to come. At length, with an effort mastering hisfeelings, in a tolerably composed tone he spoke:

"If I remember, you are a mason, Mr. Roberts?"

"Yes, yes. "

Averting himself a moment, as to recover from a return of agitation, thestranger grasped the other's hand; "and would you not loan a brother ashilling if he needed it?"

The merchant started, apparently, almost as if to retreat. 

"Ah, Mr. Roberts, I trust you are not one of those business men, whomake a business of never having to do with unfortunates. For God's sakedon't leave me. I have something on my heart--on my heart. Underdeplorable circumstances thrown among strangers, utter strangers. I wanta friend in whom I may confide. Yours, Mr. Roberts, is almost the firstknown face I've seen for many weeks. "

It was so sudden an outburst; the interview offered such a contrast tothe scene around, that the merchant, though not used to be veryindiscreet, yet, being not entirely inhumane, remained not entirelyunmoved. 

The other, still tremulous, resumed:

"I need not say, sir, how it cuts me to the soul, to follow up a socialsalutation with such words as have just been mine. I know that Ijeopardize your good opinion. But I can't help it: necessity knows nolaw, and heeds no risk. Sir, we are masons, one more step aside; I willtell you my story. "

In a low, half-suppressed tone, he began it. Judging from his auditor'sexpression, it seemed to be a tale of singular interest, involvingcalamities against which no integrity, no forethought, no energy, nogenius, no piety, could guard. 

At every disclosure, the hearer's commiseration increased. Nosentimental pity. As the story went on, he drew from his wallet a banknote, but after a while, at some still more unhappy revelation, changedit for another, probably of a somewhat larger amount; which, when thestory was concluded, with an air studiously disclamatory of alms-giving, he put into the stranger's hands; who, on his side, with an airstudiously disclamatory of alms-taking, put it into his pocket. 

Assistance being received, the stranger's manner assumed a kind anddegree of decorum which, under the circumstances, seemed almostcoldness. After some words, not over ardent, and yet not exactlyinappropriate, he took leave, making a bow which had one knows not whatof a certain chastened independence about it; as if misery, howeverburdensome, could not break down self-respect, nor gratitude, howeverdeep, humiliate a gentleman. 

He was hardly yet out of sight, when he paused as if thinking; then withhastened steps returning to the merchant, "I am just reminded that thepresident, who is also transfer-agent, of the Black Rapids Coal Company, happens to be on board here, and, having been subpoenaed as witness in astock case on the docket in Kentucky, has his transfer-book with him. Amonth since, in a panic contrived by artful alarmists, some credulousstock-holders sold out; but, to frustrate the aim of the alarmists, theCompany, previously advised of their scheme, so managed it as to getinto its own hands those sacrificed shares, resolved that, since aspurious panic must be, the panic-makers should be no gainers by it. TheCompany, I hear, is now ready, but not anxious, to redispose of thoseshares; and having obtained them at their depressed value, will now sellthem at par, though, prior to the panic, they were held at a handsomefigure above. That the readiness of the Company to do this is notgenerally known, is shown by the fact that the stock still stands on thetransfer-book in the Company's name, offering to one in funds a rarechance for investment. For, the panic subsiding more and more every day, it will daily be seen how it originated; confidence will be more thanrestored; there will be a reaction; from the stock's descent its risewill be higher than from no fall, the holders trusting themselves tofear no second fate. "

Having listened at first with curiosity, at last with interest, themerchant replied to the effect, that some time since, through friendsconcerned with it, he had heard of the company, and heard well of it, but was ignorant that there had latterly been fluctuations. He addedthat he was no speculator; that hitherto he had avoided having to dowith stocks of any sort, but in the present case he really feltsomething like being tempted. "Pray, " in conclusion, "do you think thatupon a pinch anything could be transacted on board here with thetransfer-agent? Are you acquainted with him?"

"Not personally. I but happened to hear that he was a passenger. For therest, though it might be somewhat informal, the gentleman might notobject to doing a little business on board. Along the Mississippi, youknow, business is not so ceremonious as at the East. "

"True, " returned the merchant, and looked down a moment in thought, then, raising his head quickly, said, in a tone not so benign as hiswonted one, "This would seem a rare chance, indeed; why, upon firsthearing it, did you not snatch at it? I mean for yourself!"

"I?--would it had been possible!"

Not without some emotion was this said, and not without someembarrassment was the reply. "Ah, yes, I had forgotten. "

Upon this, the stranger regarded him with mild gravity, not a littledisconcerting; the more so, as there was in it what seemed the aspectnot alone of the superior, but, as it were, the rebuker; which sort ofbearing, in a beneficiary towards his benefactor, looked strangelyenough; none the less, that, somehow, it sat not altogether unbecominglyupon the beneficiary, being free from anything like the appearance ofassumption, and mixed with a kind of painful conscientiousness, asthough nothing but a proper sense of what he owed to himself swayed him. At length he spoke:

"To reproach a penniless man with remissness in not availing himself ofan opportunity for pecuniary investment--but, no, no; it wasforgetfulness; and this, charity will impute to some lingering effect ofthat unfortunate brain-fever, which, as to occurrences dating yetfurther back, disturbed Mr. Roberts's memory still more seriously. "

"As to that, " said the merchant, rallying, "I am not----"

"Pardon me, but you must admit, that just now, an unpleasant distrust, however vague, was yours. Ah, shallow as it is, yet, how subtle a thingis suspicion, which at times can invade the humanest of hearts andwisest of heads. But, enough. My object, sir, in calling your attentionto this stock, is by way of acknowledgment of your goodness. I but seekto be grateful; if my information leads to nothing, you must rememberthe motive. "

He bowed, and finally retired, leaving Mr. Roberts not wholly withoutself-reproach, for having momentarily indulged injurious thoughtsagainst one who, it was evident, was possessed of a self-respect whichforbade his indulging them himself. 

CHAPTER V

THE MAN WITH THE WEED MAKES IT AN EVEN QUESTION WHETHER HE BE A GREATSAGE OR A GREAT SIMPLETON. 

"Well, there is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness thatis not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is. Dear good man. Poorbeating heart!"

It was the man with the weed, not very long after quitting the merchant, murmuring to himself with his hand to his side like one with theheart-disease. 

Meditation over kindness received seemed to have softened him something, too, it may be, beyond what might, perhaps, have been looked for fromone whose unwonted self-respect in the hour of need, and in the act ofbeing aided, might have appeared to some not wholly unlike pride out ofplace; and pride, in any place, is seldom very feeling. But the truth, perhaps, is, that those who are least touched with that vice, besidesbeing not unsusceptible to goodness, are sometimes the ones whom aruling sense of propriety makes appear cold, if not thankless, under afavor. For, at such a time, to be full of warm, earnest words, andheart-felt protestations, is to create a scene; and well-bred peopledislike few things more than that; which would seem to look as if theworld did not relish earnestness; but, not so; because the world, beingearnest itself, likes an earnest scene, and an earnest man, very well, but only in their place--the stage. See what sad work they make of it, who, ignorant of this, flame out in Irish enthusiasm and with Irishsincerity, to a benefactor, who, if a man of sense and respectability, as well as kindliness, can but be more or less annoyed by it; and, if ofa nervously fastidious nature, as some are, may be led to think almostas much less favorably of the beneficiary paining him by his gratitude, as if he had been guilty of its contrary, instead only of anindiscretion. But, beneficiaries who know better, though they may feelas much, if not more, neither inflict such pain, nor are inclined to runany risk of so doing. And these, being wise, are the majority. By whichone sees how inconsiderate those persons are, who, from the absence ofits officious manifestations in the world, complain that there is notmuch gratitude extant; when the truth is, that there is as much of it asthere is of modesty; but, both being for the most part votarists of theshade, for the most part keep out of sight. 

What started this was, to account, if necessary, for the changed air ofthe man with the weed, who, throwing off in private the cold garb ofdecorum, and so giving warmly loose to his genuine heart, seemed almosttransformed into another being. This subdued air of softness, too, wastoned with melancholy, melancholy unreserved; a thing which, however atvariance with propriety, still the more attested his earnestness; forone knows not how it is, but it sometimes happens that, whereearnestness is, there, also, is melancholy. 

At the time, he was leaning over the rail at the boat's side, in hispensiveness, unmindful of another pensive figure near--a young gentlemanwith a swan-neck, wearing a lady-like open shirt collar, thrown back, and tied with a black ribbon. From a square, tableted-broach, curiouslyengraved with Greek characters, he seemed a collegian--not improbably, asophomore--on his travels; possibly, his first. A small book bound inRoman vellum was in his hand. 

Overhearing his murmuring neighbor, the youth regarded him with somesurprise, not to say interest. But, singularly for a collegian, beingapparently of a retiring nature, he did not speak; when the other stillmore increased his diffidence by changing from soliloquy to colloquy, ina manner strangely mixed of familiarity and pathos. 

"Ah, who is this? You did not hear me, my young friend, did you? Why, you, too, look sad. My melancholy is not catching!"

"Sir, sir, " stammered the other. 

"Pray, now, " with a sort of sociable sorrowfulness, slowly sliding alongthe rail, "Pray, now, my young friend, what volume have you there? Giveme leave, " gently drawing it from him. "Tacitus!" Then opening it atrandom, read: "In general a black and shameful period lies before me. ""Dear young sir, " touching his arm alarmedly, "don't read this book. Itis poison, moral poison. Even were there truth in Tacitus, such truthwould have the operation of falsity, and so still be poison, moralpoison. Too well I know this Tacitus. In my college-days he came nearsouring me into cynicism. Yes, I began to turn down my collar, and goabout with a disdainfully joyless expression. "

"Sir, sir, I--I--"

"Trust me. Now, young friend, perhaps you think that Tacitus, like me, is only melancholy; but he's more--he's ugly. A vast difference, youngsir, between the melancholy view and the ugly. The one may show theworld still beautiful, not so the other. The one may be compatible withbenevolence, the other not. The one may deepen insight, the othershallows it. Drop Tacitus. Phrenologically, my young friend, you wouldseem to have a well-developed head, and large; but cribbed within theugly view, the Tacitus view, your large brain, like your large ox in thecontracted field, will but starve the more. And don't dream, as some ofyou students may, that, by taking this same ugly view, the deepermeanings of the deeper books will so alone become revealed to you. DropTacitus. His subtlety is falsity, To him, in his double-refined anatomyof human nature, is well applied the Scripture saying--'There is asubtle man, and the same is deceived. ' Drop Tacitus. Come, now, let methrow the book overboard. "

"Sir, I--I--"

"Not a word; I know just what is in your mind, and that is just what Iam speaking to. Yes, learn from me that, though the sorrows of the worldare great, its wickedness--that is, its ugliness--is small. Much causeto pity man, little to distrust him. I myself have known adversity, andknow it still. But for that, do I turn cynic? No, no: it is small beerthat sours. To my fellow-creatures I owe alleviations. So, whatever Imay have undergone, it but deepens my confidence in my kind. Now, then"(winningly), "this book--will you let me drown it for you?"

"Really, sir--I--"

"I see, I see. But of course you read Tacitus in order to aid you inunderstanding human nature--as if truth was ever got at by libel. Myyoung friend, if to know human nature is your object, drop Tacitus andgo north to the cemeteries of Auburn and Greenwood. "

"Upon my word, I--I--"

"Nay, I foresee all that. But you carry Tacitus, that shallow Tacitus. What do _I_ carry? See"--producing a pocket-volume--"Akenside--his'Pleasures of Imagination. ' One of these days you will know it. Whateverour lot, we should read serene and cheery books, fitted to inspire loveand trust. But Tacitus! I have long been of opinion that these classicsare the bane of colleges; for--not to hint of the immorality of Ovid, Horace, Anacreon, and the rest, and the dangerous theology of Eschylusand others--where will one find views so injurious to human nature as inThucydides, Juvenal, Lucian, but more particularly Tacitus? When Iconsider that, ever since the revival of learning, these classics havebeen the favorites of successive generations of students and studiousmen, I tremble to think of that mass of unsuspected heresy on everyvital topic which for centuries must have simmered unsurmised in theheart of Christendom. But Tacitus--he is the most extraordinary exampleof a heretic; not one iota of confidence in his kind. What a mockerythat such an one should be reputed wise, and Thucydides be esteemed thestatesman's manual! But Tacitus--I hate Tacitus; not, though, I trust, with the hate that sins, but a righteous hate. Without confidencehimself, Tacitus destroys it in all his readers. Destroys confidence, paternal confidence, of which God knows that there is in this world noneto spare. For, comparatively inexperienced as you are, my dear youngfriend, did you never observe how little, very little, confidence, thereis? I mean between man and man--more particularly between stranger andstranger. In a sad world it is the saddest fact. Confidence! I havesometimes almost thought that confidence is fled; that confidence is theNew Astrea--emigrated--vanished--gone. " Then softly sliding nearer, withthe softest air, quivering down and looking up, "could you now, my dearyoung sir, under such circumstances, by way of experiment, simply haveconfidence in _me_?"

From the outset, the sophomore, as has been seen, had struggled with anever-increasing embarrassment, arising, perhaps, from such strangeremarks coming from a stranger--such persistent and prolonged remarks, too. In vain had he more than once sought to break the spell byventuring a deprecatory or leave-taking word. In vain. Somehow, thestranger fascinated him. Little wonder, then, that, when the appealcame, he could hardly speak, but, as before intimated, being apparentlyof a retiring nature, abruptly retired from the spot, leaving thechagrined stranger to wander away in the opposite direction. 

CHAPTER VI. 

AT THE OUTSET OF WHICH CERTAIN PASSENGERS PROVE DEAF TO THE CALL OFCHARITY. 

----"You--pish! Why will the captain suffer these begging fellows onboard?";

These pettish words were breathed by a well-to-do gentleman in aruby-colored velvet vest, and with a ruby-colored cheek, a ruby-headedcane in his hand, to a man in a gray coat and white tie, who, shortlyafter the interview last described, had accosted him for contributionsto a Widow and Orphan Asylum recently founded among the Seminoles. Upona cursory view, this last person might have seemed, like the man withthe weed, one of the less unrefined children of misfortune; but, on acloser observation, his countenance revealed little of sorrow, thoughmuch of sanctity. 

With added words of touchy disgust, the well-to-do gentleman hurriedaway. But, though repulsed, and rudely, the man in gray did notreproach, for a time patiently remaining in the chilly loneliness towhich he had been left, his countenance, however, not without token oflatent though chastened reliance. 

At length an old gentleman, somewhat bulky, drew nigh, and from him alsoa contribution was sought. 

"Look, you, " coming to a dead halt, and scowling upon him. "Look, you, "swelling his bulk out before him like a swaying balloon, "look, you, youon others' behalf ask for money; you, a fellow with a face as long as myarm. Hark ye, now: there is such a thing as gravity, and in condemnedfelons it may be genuine; but of long faces there are three sorts; thatof grief's drudge, that of the lantern-jawed man, and that of theimpostor. You know best which yours is. "

"Heaven give you more charity, sir. "

"And you less hypocrisy, sir. "

With which words, the hard-hearted old gentleman marched off. 

While the other still stood forlorn, the young clergyman, beforeintroduced, passing that way, catching a chance sight of him, seemedsuddenly struck by some recollection; and, after a moment's pause, hurried up with: "Your pardon, but shortly since I was all over lookingfor you. "

"For me?" as marveling that one of so little account should be soughtfor. 

"Yes, for you; do you know anything about the negro, apparently acripple, aboard here? Is he, or is he not, what he seems to be?"

"Ah, poor Guinea! have you, too, been distrusted? you, upon whom naturehas placarded the evidence of your claims?"

"Then you do really know him, and he is quite worthy? It relieves me tohear it--much relieves me. Come, let us go find him, and see what can bedone. "

"Another instance that confidence may come too late. I am sorry to saythat at the last landing I myself--just happening to catch sight of himon the gangway-plank--assisted the cripple ashore. No time to talk, onlyto help. He may not have told you, but he has a brother in thatvicinity. 

"Really, I regret his going without my seeing him again; regret it, more, perhaps, than you can readily think. You see, shortly afterleaving St. Louis, he was on the forecastle, and there, with manyothers, I saw him, and put trust in him; so much so, that, to convincethose who did not, I, at his entreaty, went in search of you, you beingone of several individuals he mentioned, and whose personal appearancehe more or less described, individuals who he said would willingly speakfor him. But, after diligent search, not finding you, and catching noglimpse of any of the others he had enumerated, doubts were at lastsuggested; but doubts indirectly originating, as I can but think, fromprior distrust unfeelingly proclaimed by another. Still, certain it is, I began to suspect. "

"Ha, ha, ha!"

A sort of laugh more like a groan than a laugh; and yet, somehow, itseemed intended for a laugh. 

Both turned, and the young clergyman started at seeing the wooden-leggedman close behind him, morosely grave as a criminal judge with amustard-plaster on his back. In the present case the mustard-plastermight have been the memory of certain recent biting rebuffs andmortifications. 

"Wouldn't think it was I who laughed would you?"

"But who was it you laughed at? or rather, tried to laugh at?" demandedthe young clergyman, flushing, "me?"

"Neither you nor any one within a thousand miles of you. But perhaps youdon't believe it. "

"If he were of a suspicious temper, he might not, " interposed the man ingray calmly, "it is one of the imbecilities of the suspicious person tofancy that every stranger, however absent-minded, he sees so much assmiling or gesturing to himself in any odd sort of way, is secretlymaking him his butt. In some moods, the movements of an entire street, as the suspicious man walks down it, will seem an express pantomimicjeer at him. In short, the suspicious man kicks himself with his ownfoot. "

"Whoever can do that, ten to one he saves other folks' sole-leather, "said the wooden-legged man with a crusty attempt at humor. But withaugmented grin and squirm, turning directly upon the young clergyman, "you still think it was _you_ I was laughing at, just now. To prove yourmistake, I will tell you what I _was_ laughing at; a story I happened tocall to mind just then. "

Whereupon, in his porcupine way, and with sarcastic details, unpleasantto repeat, he related a story, which might, perhaps, in a good-naturedversion, be rendered as follows:

A certain Frenchman of New Orleans, an old man, less slender in pursethan limb, happening to attend the theatre one evening, was so charmedwith the character of a faithful wife, as there represented to the life, that nothing would do but he must marry upon it. So, marry he did, abeautiful girl from Tennessee, who had first attracted his attention byher liberal mould, and was subsequently recommended to him through herkin, for her equally liberal education and disposition. Though large, the praise proved not too much. For, ere long, rumor more thancorroborated it, by whispering that the lady was liberal to a fault. Butthough various circumstances, which by most Benedicts would have beendeemed all but conclusive, were duly recited to the old Frenchman by hisfriends, yet such was his confidence that not a syllable would hecredit, till, chancing one night to return unexpectedly from a journey, upon entering his apartment, a stranger burst from the alcove: "Begar!"cried he, "now I _begin_ to suspec. "

His story told, the wooden-legged man threw back his head, and gave ventto a long, gasping, rasping sort of taunting cry, intolerable as that ofa high-pressure engine jeering off steam; and that done, with apparentsatisfaction hobbled away. 

"Who is that scoffer, " said the man in gray, not without warmth. "Who ishe, who even were truth on his tongue, his way of speaking it would maketruth almost offensive as falsehood. Who is he?"

"He who I mentioned to you as having boasted his suspicion of thenegro, " replied the young clergyman, recovering from disturbance, "inshort, the person to whom I ascribe the origin of my own distrust; hemaintained that Guinea was some white scoundrel, betwisted and paintedup for a decoy. Yes, these were his very words, I think. "

"Impossible! he could not be so wrong-headed. Pray, will you call himback, and let me ask him if he were really in earnest?"

The other complied; and, at length, after no few surly objections, prevailed upon the one-legged individual to return for a moment. Uponwhich, the man in gray thus addressed him: "This reverend gentlemantells me, sir, that a certain cripple, a poor negro, is by youconsidered an ingenious impostor. Now, I am not unaware that there aresome persons in this world, who, unable to give better proof of beingwise, take a strange delight in showing what they think they havesagaciously read in mankind by uncharitable suspicions of them. I hopeyou are not one of these. In short, would you tell me now, whether youwere not merely joking in the notion you threw out about the negro. Would you be so kind?"

"No, I won't be so kind, I'll be so cruel. "

"As you please about that. "

"Well, he's just what I said he was. "

"A white masquerading as a black?"

"Exactly. "

The man in gray glanced at the young clergyman a moment, then quietlywhispered to him, "I thought you represented your friend here as a verydistrustful sort of person, but he appears endued with a singularcredulity. --Tell me, sir, do you really think that a white could lookthe negro so? For one, I should call it pretty good acting. "

"Not much better than any other man acts. "

"How? Does all the world act? Am _I_, for instance, an actor? Is myreverend friend here, too, a performer?"

"Yes, don't you both perform acts? To do, is to act; so all doers areactors. "

"You trifle. --I ask again, if a white, how could he look the negro so?"

"Never saw the negro-minstrels, I suppose?"

"Yes, but they are apt to overdo the ebony; exemplifying the old saying, not more just than charitable, that 'the devil is never so black as heis painted. ' But his limbs, if not a cripple, how could he twist hislimbs so?"

"How do other hypocritical beggars twist theirs? Easy enough to see howthey are hoisted up. "

"The sham is evident, then?"

"To the discerning eye, " with a horrible screw of his gimlet one. 

"Well, where is Guinea?" said the man in gray; "where is he? Let us atonce find him, and refute beyond cavil this injurious hypothesis. "

"Do so, " cried the one-eyed man, "I'm just in the humor now for havinghim found, and leaving the streaks of these fingers on his paint, as thelion leaves the streaks of his nails on a Caffre. They wouldn't let metouch him before. Yes, find him, I'll make wool fly, and him after. "

"You forget, " here said the young clergyman to the man in gray, "thatyourself helped poor Guinea ashore. "

"So I did, so I did; how unfortunate. But look now, " to the other, "Ithink that without personal proof I can convince you of your mistake. For I put it to you, is it reasonable to suppose that a man with brains, sufficient to act such a part as you say, would take all that trouble, and run all that hazard, for the mere sake of those few paltry coppers, which, I hear, was all he got for his pains, if pains they were?"

"That puts the case irrefutably, " said the young clergyman, with achallenging glance towards the one-legged man. 

"You two green-horns! Money, you think, is the sole motive to pains andhazard, deception and deviltry, in this world. How much money did thedevil make by gulling Eve?"

Whereupon he hobbled off again with a repetition of his intolerablejeer. 

The man in gray stood silently eying his retreat a while, and then, turning to his companion, said: "A bad man, a dangerous man; a man to beput down in any Christian community. --And this was he who was the meansof begetting your distrust? Ah, we should shut our ears to distrust, andkeep them open only for its opposite. "

"You advance a principle, which, if I had acted upon it this morning, Ishould have spared myself what I now feel. --That but one man, and hewith one leg, should have such ill power given him; his one sour wordleavening into congenial sourness (as, to my knowledge, it did) thedispositions, before sweet enough, of a numerous company. But, as Ihinted, with me at the time his ill words went for nothing; the same asnow; only afterwards they had effect; and I confess, this puzzles me. "

"It should not. With humane minds, the spirit of distrust workssomething as certain potions do; it is a spirit which may enter suchminds, and yet, for a time, longer or shorter, lie in them quiescent;but only the more deplorable its ultimate activity. "

"An uncomfortable solution; for, since that baneful man did but just nowanew drop on me his bane, how shall I be sure that my present exemptionfrom its effects will be lasting?"

"You cannot be sure, but you can strive against it. "

"How?"

"By strangling the least symptom of distrust, of any sort, whichhereafter, upon whatever provocation, may arise in you. "

"I will do so. " Then added as in soliloquy, "Indeed, indeed, I was toblame in standing passive under such influences as that one-leggedman's. My conscience upbraids me. --The poor negro: You see himoccasionally, perhaps?"

"No, not often; though in a few days, as it happens, my engagements willcall me to the neighborhood of his present retreat; and, no doubt, honest Guinea, who is a grateful soul, will come to see me there. "

"Then you have been his benefactor?"

"His benefactor? I did not say that. I have known him. "

"Take this mite. Hand it to Guinea when you see him; say it comes fromone who has full belief in his honesty, and is sincerely sorry forhaving indulged, however transiently, in a contrary thought. "

"I accept the trust. And, by-the-way, since you are of this trulycharitable nature, you will not turn away an appeal in behalf of theSeminole Widow and Orphan Asylum?"

"I have not heard of that charity. "

"But recently founded. "

After a pause, the clergyman was irresolutely putting his hand in hispocket, when, caught by something in his companion's expression, he eyedhim inquisitively, almost uneasily. 

"Ah, well, " smiled the other wanly, "if that subtle bane, we werespeaking of but just now, is so soon beginning to work, in vain myappeal to you. Good-by. "

"Nay, " not untouched, "you do me injustice; instead of indulging presentsuspicions, I had rather make amends for previous ones. Here issomething for your asylum. Not much; but every drop helps. Of course youhave papers?"

"Of course, " producing a memorandum book and pencil. "Let me take downname and amount. We publish these names. And now let me give you alittle history of our asylum, and the providential way in which it wasstarted. "

CHAPTER VII. 

A GENTLEMAN WITH GOLD SLEEVE-BUTTONS. 

At an interesting point of the narration, and at the moment when, withmuch curiosity, indeed, urgency, the narrator was being particularlyquestioned upon that point, he was, as it happened, altogether divertedboth from it and his story, by just then catching sight of a gentlemanwho had been standing in sight from the beginning, but, until now, as itseemed, without being observed by him. 

"Pardon me, " said he, rising, "but yonder is one who I know willcontribute, and largely. Don't take it amiss if I quit you. "

"Go: duty before all things, " was the conscientious reply. 

The stranger was a man of more than winsome aspect. There he stood apartand in repose, and yet, by his mere look, lured the man in gray from hisstory, much as, by its graciousness of bearing, some full-leaved elm, alone in a meadow, lures the noon sickleman to throw down his sheaves, and come and apply for the alms of its shade. 

But, considering that goodness is no such rare thing among men--theworld familiarly know the noun; a common one in every language--it wascurious that what so signalized the stranger, and made him look like akind of foreigner, among the crowd (as to some it make him appear moreor less unreal in this portraiture), was but the expression of soprevalent a quality. Such goodness seemed his, allied with such fortune, that, so far as his own personal experience could have gone, scarcelycould he have known ill, physical or moral; and as for knowing orsuspecting the latter in any serious degree (supposing such degree of itto be), by observation or philosophy; for that, probably, his nature, byits opposition, imperfectly qualified, or from it wholly exempted. Forthe rest, he might have been five and fifty, perhaps sixty, but tall, rosy, between plump and portly, with a primy, palmy air, and for thetime and place, not to hint of his years, dressed with a strangelyfestive finish and elegance. The inner-side of his coat-skirts was ofwhite satin, which might have looked especially inappropriate, had itnot seemed less a bit of mere tailoring than something of an emblem, asit were; an involuntary emblem, let us say, that what seemed so goodabout him was not all outside; no, the fine covering had a still finerlining. Upon one hand he wore a white kid glove, but the other hand, which was ungloved, looked hardly less white. Now, as the Fidèle, likemost steamboats, was upon deck a little soot-streaked here and there, especially about the railings, it was marvel how, under suchcircumstances, these hands retained their spotlessness. But, if youwatched them a while, you noticed that they avoided touching anything;you noticed, in short, that a certain negro body-servant, whose handsnature had dyed black, perhaps with the same purpose that millers wearwhite, this negro servant's hands did most of his master's handling forhim; having to do with dirt on his account, but not to his prejudices. But if, with the same undefiledness of consequences to himself, agentleman could also sin by deputy, how shocking would that be! But itis not permitted to be; and even if it were, no judicious moralist wouldmake proclamation of it. 

This gentleman, therefore, there is reason to affirm, was one who, likethe Hebrew governor, knew how to keep his hands clean, and who never inhis life happened to be run suddenly against by hurrying house-painter, or sweep; in a word, one whose very good luck it was to be a very goodman. 

Not that he looked as if he were a kind of Wilberforce at all; thatsuperior merit, probably, was not his; nothing in his manner bespoke himrighteous, but only good, and though to be good is much below beingrighteous, and though there is a difference between the two, yet not, itis to be hoped, so incompatible as that a righteous man can not be agood man; though, conversely, in the pulpit it has been with muchcogency urged, that a merely good man, that is, one good merely by hisnature, is so far from there by being righteous, that nothing short of atotal change and conversion can make him so; which is something which nohonest mind, well read in the history of righteousness, will care todeny; nevertheless, since St. Paul himself, agreeing in a sense with thepulpit distinction, though not altogether in the pulpit deduction, andalso pretty plainly intimating which of the two qualities in questionenjoys his apostolic preference; I say, since St. Paul has so meaninglysaid, that, "scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventurefor a good man some would even dare to die;" therefore, when we repeatof this gentleman, that he was only a good man, whatever else by severecensors may be objected to him, it is still to be hoped that hisgoodness will not at least be considered criminal in him. At all events, no man, not even a righteous man, would think it quite right to committhis gentleman to prison for the crime, extraordinary as he might deemit; more especially, as, until everything could be known, there would besome chance that the gentleman might after all be quite as innocent ofit as he himself. 

It was pleasant to mark the good man's reception of the salute of therighteous man, that is, the man in gray; his inferior, apparently, notmore in the social scale than in stature. Like the benign elm again, thegood man seemed to wave the canopy of his goodness over that suitor, notin conceited condescension, but with that even amenity of true majesty, which can be kind to any one without stooping to it. 

To the plea in behalf of the Seminole widows and orphans, the gentleman, after a question or two duly answered, responded by producing an amplepocket-book in the good old capacious style, of fine green Frenchmorocco and workmanship, bound with silk of the same color, not to omitbills crisp with newness, fresh from the bank, no muckworms' grime uponthem. Lucre those bills might be, but as yet having been kept unspottedfrom the world, not of the filthy sort. Placing now three of thosevirgin bills in the applicant's hands, he hoped that the smallness ofthe contribution would be pardoned; to tell the truth, and this at lastaccounted for his toilet, he was bound but a short run down the river, to attend, in a festive grove, the afternoon wedding of his niece: sodid not carry much money with him. 

The other was about expressing his thanks when the gentleman in hispleasant way checked him: the gratitude was on the other side. To him, he said, charity was in one sense not an effort, but a luxury; againsttoo great indulgence in which his steward, a humorist, had sometimesadmonished him. 

In some general talk which followed, relative to organized modes ofdoing good, the gentleman expressed his regrets that so many benevolentsocieties as there were, here and there isolated in the land, should notact in concert by coming together, in the way that already in eachsociety the individuals composing it had done, which would result, hethought, in like advantages upon a larger scale. Indeed, such aconfederation might, perhaps, be attended with as happy results aspolitically attended that of the states. 

Upon his hitherto moderate enough companion, this suggestion had aneffect illustrative in a sort of that notion of Socrates, that the soulis a harmony; for as the sound of a flute, in any particular key, will, it is said, audibly affect the corresponding chord of any harp in goodtune, within hearing, just so now did some string in him respond, andwith animation. 

Which animation, by the way, might seem more or less out of character inthe man in gray, considering his unsprightly manner when firstintroduced, had he not already, in certain after colloquies, givenproof, in some degree, of the fact, that, with certain natures, asoberly continent air at times, so far from arguing emptiness of stuff, is good proof it is there, and plenty of it, because unwasted, and maybe used the more effectively, too, when opportunity offers. What nowfollows on the part of the man in gray will still further exemplify, perhaps somewhat strikingly, the truth, or what appears to be such, ofthis remark. 

"Sir, " said he eagerly, "I am before you. A project, not dissimilar toyours, was by me thrown out at the World's Fair in London. "

"World's Fair? You there? Pray how was that?"

"First, let me----"

"Nay, but first tell me what took you to the Fair?"

"I went to exhibit an invalid's easy-chair I had invented. "

"Then you have not always been in the charity business?"

"Is it not charity to ease human suffering? I am, and always have been, as I always will be, I trust, in the charity business, as you call it;but charity is not like a pin, one to make the head, and the other thepoint; charity is a work to which a good workman may be competent in allits branches. I invented my Protean easy-chair in odd intervals stolenfrom meals and sleep. "

"You call it the Protean easy-chair; pray describe it. "

"My Protean easy-chair is a chair so all over bejointed, behinged, andbepadded, everyway so elastic, springy, and docile to the airiest touch, that in some one of its endlessly-changeable accommodations of back, seat, footboard, and arms, the most restless body, the body most racked, nay, I had almost added the most tormented conscience must, somehow andsomewhere, find rest. Believing that I owed it to suffering humanity tomake known such a chair to the utmost, I scraped together my littlemeans and off to the World's Fair with it. "

"You did right. But your scheme; how did you come to hit upon that?"

"I was going to tell you. After seeing my invention duly catalogued andplaced, I gave myself up to pondering the scene about me. As I dweltupon that shining pageant of arts, and moving concourse of nations, andreflected that here was the pride of the world glorying in a glasshouse, a sense of the fragility of worldly grandeur profoundly impressedme. And I said to myself, I will see if this occasion of vanity cannotsupply a hint toward a better profit than was designed. Let someworld-wide good to the world-wide cause be now done. In short, inspiredby the scene, on the fourth day I issued at the World's Fair myprospectus of the World's Charity. "

"Quite a thought. But, pray explain it. "

"The World's Charity is to be a society whose members shall comprisedeputies from every charity and mission extant; the one object of thesociety to be the methodization of the world's benevolence; to whichend, the present system of voluntary and promiscuous contribution to bedone away, and the Society to be empowered by the various governments tolevy, annually, one grand benevolence tax upon all mankind; as inAugustus Cæsar's time, the whole world to come up to be taxed; a taxwhich, for the scheme of it, should be something like the income-tax inEngland, a tax, also, as before hinted, to be a consolidation-tax of allpossible benevolence taxes; as in America here, the state-tax, and thecounty-tax, and the town-tax, and the poll-tax, are by the assessorsrolled into one. This tax, according to my tables, calculated with care, would result in the yearly raising of a fund little short of eighthundred millions; this fund to be annually applied to such objects, andin such modes, as the various charities and missions, in generalcongress represented, might decree; whereby, in fourteen years, as Iestimate, there would have been devoted to good works the sum of eleventhousand two hundred millions; which would warrant the dissolution ofthe society, as that fund judiciously expended, not a pauper or heathencould remain the round world over. "

"Eleven thousand two hundred millions! And all by passing round a _hat_, as it were. "

"Yes, I am no Fourier, the projector of an impossible scheme, but aphilanthropist and a financier setting forth a philanthropy and afinance which are practicable. "

"Practicable?"

"Yes. Eleven thousand two hundred millions; it will frighten none but aretail philanthropist. What is it but eight hundred millions for each offourteen years? Now eight hundred millions--what is that, to average it, but one little dollar a head for the population of the planet? And whowill refuse, what Turk or Dyak even, his own little dollar for sweetcharity's sake? Eight hundred millions! More than that sum is yearlyexpended by mankind, not only in vanities, but miseries. Consider thatbloody spendthrift, War. And are mankind so stupid, so wicked, that, upon the demonstration of these things they will not, amending theirways, devote their superfluities to blessing the world instead ofcursing it? Eight hundred millions! They have not to make it, it istheirs already; they have but to direct it from ill to good. And tothis, scarce a self-denial is demanded. Actually, they would not in themass be one farthing the poorer for it; as certainly would they be allthe better and happier. Don't you see? But admit, as you must, thatmankind is not mad, and my project is practicable. For, what creaturebut a madman would not rather do good than ill, when it is plain that, good or ill, it must return upon himself?"

"Your sort of reasoning, " said the good gentleman, adjusting his goldsleeve-buttons, "seems all reasonable enough, but with mankind it wontdo. "

"Then mankind are not reasoning beings, if reason wont do with them. "

"That is not to the purpose. By-the-way, from the manner in which youalluded to the world's census, it would appear that, according to yourworld-wide scheme, the pauper not less than the nabob is to contributeto the relief of pauperism, and the heathen not less than the Christianto the conversion of heathenism. How is that?"

"Why, that--pardon me--is quibbling. Now, no philanthropist likes to beopposed with quibbling. "

"Well, I won't quibble any more. But, after all, if I understand yourproject, there is little specially new in it, further than themagnifying of means now in operation. "

"Magnifying and energizing. For one thing, missions I would thoroughlyreform. Missions I would quicken with the Wall street spirit. "

"The Wall street spirit?"

"Yes; for if, confessedly, certain spiritual ends are to be gained butthrough the auxiliary agency of worldly means, then, to the surergaining of such spiritual ends, the example of worldly policy in worldlyprojects should not by spiritual projectors be slighted. In brief, theconversion of the heathen, so far, at least, as depending on humaneffort, would, by the world's charity, be let out on contract. So muchby bid for converting India, so much for Borneo, so much for Africa. Competition allowed, stimulus would be given. There would be nolethargy of monopoly. We should have no mission-house or tract-house ofwhich slanderers could, with any plausibility, say that it haddegenerated in its clerkships into a sort of custom-house. But the mainpoint is the Archimedean money-power that would be brought to bear. "

"You mean the eight hundred million power?"

"Yes. You see, this doing good to the world by driblets amounts to justnothing. I am for doing good to the world with a will. I am for doinggood to the world once for all and having done with it. Do but think, mydear sir, of the eddies and maëlstroms of pagans in China. People herehave no conception of it. Of a frosty morning in Hong Kong, pauperpagans are found dead in the streets like so many nipped peas in a binof peas. To be an immortal being in China is no more distinction than tobe a snow-flake in a snow-squall. What are a score or two ofmissionaries to such a people? A pinch of snuff to the kraken. I am forsending ten thousand missionaries in a body and converting the Chinese_en masse_ within six months of the debarkation. The thing is then done, and turn to something else. "

"I fear you are too enthusiastic. "

"A philanthropist is necessarily an enthusiast; for without enthusiasmwhat was ever achieved but commonplace? But again: consider the poor inLondon. To that mob of misery, what is a joint here and a loaf there? Iam for voting to them twenty thousand bullocks and one hundred thousandbarrels of flour to begin with. They are then comforted, and no morehunger for one while among the poor of London. And so all round. "

"Sharing the character of your general project, these things, I take it, are rather examples of wonders that were to be wished, than wonders thatwill happen. "

"And is the age of wonders passed? Is the world too old? Is it barren?Think of Sarah. "

"Then I am Abraham reviling the angel (with a smile). But still, as toyour design at large, there seems a certain audacity. "

"But if to the audacity of the design there be brought a commensuratecircumspectness of execution, how then?"

"Why, do you really believe that your world's charity will ever go intooperation?"

"I have confidence that it will. "

"But may you not be over-confident?"

"For a Christian to talk so!"

"But think of the obstacles!"

"Obstacles? I have confidence to remove obstacles, though mountains. Yes, confidence in the world's charity to that degree, that, as nobetter person offers to supply the place, I have nominated myselfprovisional treasurer, and will be happy to receive subscriptions, forthe present to be devoted to striking off a million more of myprospectuses. "

The talk went on; the man in gray revealed a spirit of benevolencewhich, mindful of the millennial promise, had gone abroad over all thecountries of the globe, much as the diligent spirit of the husbandman, stirred by forethought of the coming seed-time, leads him, in Marchreveries at his fireside, over every field of his farm. The master chordof the man in gray had been touched, and it seemed as if it would nevercease vibrating. A not unsilvery tongue, too, was his, with gesturesthat were a Pentecost of added ones, and persuasiveness before whichgranite hearts might crumble into gravel. 

Strange, therefore, how his auditor, so singularly good-hearted as heseemed, remained proof to such eloquence; though not, as it turned out, to such pleadings. For, after listening a while longer with pleasantincredulity, presently, as the boat touched his place of destination, the gentleman, with a look half humor, half pity, put another bank-noteinto his hands; charitable to the last, if only to the dreams ofenthusiasm. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A CHARITABLE LADY. 

If a drunkard in a sober fit is the dullest of mortals, an enthusiast ina reason-fit is not the most lively. And this, without prejudice to hisgreatly improved understanding; for, if his elation was the height ofhis madness, his despondency is but the extreme of his sanity. Somethingthus now, to all appearance, with the man in gray. Society his stimulus, loneliness was his lethargy. Loneliness, like the sea breeze, blowingoff from a thousand leagues of blankness, he did not find, as veteransolitaires do, if anything, too bracing. In short, left to himself, withnone to charm forth his latent lymphatic, he insensibly resumes hisoriginal air, a quiescent one, blended of sad humility and demureness. 

Ere long he goes laggingly into the ladies' saloon, as in spiritlessquest of somebody; but, after some disappointed glances about him, seatshimself upon a sofa with an air of melancholy exhaustion and depression. 

At the sofa's further end sits a plump and pleasant person, whose aspectseems to hint that, if she have any weak point, it must be anythingrather than her excellent heart. From her twilight dress, neither dawnnor dark, apparently she is a widow just breaking the chrysalis of hermourning. A small gilt testament is in her hand, which she has just beenreading. Half-relinquished, she holds the book in reverie, her fingerinserted at the xiii. Of 1st Corinthians, to which chapter possibly herattention might have recently been turned, by witnessing the scene ofthe monitory mute and his slate. 

The sacred page no longer meets her eye; but, as at evening, when for atime the western hills shine on though the sun be set, her thoughtfulface retains its tenderness though the teacher is forgotten. 

Meantime, the expression of the stranger is such as ere long to attracther glance. But no responsive one. Presently, in her somewhatinquisitive survey, her volume drops. It is restored. No encroachingpoliteness in the act, but kindness, unadorned. The eyes of the ladysparkle. Evidently, she is not now unprepossessed. Soon, bending over, in a low, sad tone, full of deference, the stranger breathes, "Madam, pardon my freedom, but there is something in that face which strangelydraws me. May I ask, are you a sister of the Church?"

"Why--really--you--"

In concern for her embarrassment, he hastens to relieve it, but, withoutseeming so to do. "It is very solitary for a brother here, " eying theshowy ladies brocaded in the background, "I find none to mingle soulswith. It may be wrong--I _know_ it is--but I cannot force myself to beeasy with the people of the world. I prefer the company, howeversilent, of a brother or sister in good standing. By the way, madam, mayI ask if you have confidence?"

"Really, sir--why, sir--really--I--"

"Could you put confidence in _me_ for instance?"

"Really, sir--as much--I mean, as one may wisely put in a--a--stranger, an entire stranger, I had almost said, " rejoined the lady, hardly yet atease in her affability, drawing aside a little in body, while at thesame time her heart might have been drawn as far the other way. Anatural struggle between charity and prudence. 

"Entire stranger!" with a sigh. "Ah, who would be a stranger? In vain, Iwander; no one will have confidence in me. "

"You interest me, " said the good lady, in mild surprise. "Can I any waybefriend you?"

"No one can befriend me, who has not confidence. "

"But I--I have--at least to that degree--I mean that----"

"Nay, nay, you have none--none at all. Pardon, I see it. No confidence. Fool, fond fool that I am to seek it!"

"You are unjust, sir, " rejoins the good lady with heightened interest;"but it may be that something untoward in your experiences has undulybiased you. Not that I would cast reflections. Believe me, I--yes, yes--I may say--that--that----"

"That you have confidence? Prove it. Let me have twenty dollars. "

"Twenty dollars!"

"There, I told you, madam, you had no confidence. "

The lady was, in an extraordinary way, touched. She sat in a sort ofrestless torment, knowing not which way to turn. She began twentydifferent sentences, and left off at the first syllable of each. Atlast, in desperation, she hurried out, "Tell me, sir, for what you wantthe twenty dollars?"

"And did I not----" then glancing at her half-mourning, "for the widowand the fatherless. I am traveling agent of the Widow and Orphan Asylum, recently founded among the Seminoles. "

"And why did you not tell me your object before?" As not a littlerelieved. "Poor souls--Indians, too--those cruelly-used Indians. Here, here; how could I hesitate. I am so sorry it is no more. "

"Grieve not for that, madam, " rising and folding up the bank-notes. "This is an inconsiderable sum, I admit, but, " taking out his pencil andbook, "though I here but register the amount, there is another register, where is set down the motive. Good-bye; you have confidence. Yea, youcan say to me as the apostle said to the Corinthians, 'I rejoice that Ihave confidence in you in all things. '"

CHAPTER IX. 

TWO BUSINESS MEN TRANSACT A LITTLE BUSINESS. 

----"Pray, sir, have you seen a gentleman with a weed hereabouts, rathera saddish gentleman? Strange where he can have gone to. I was talkingwith him not twenty minutes since. "

By a brisk, ruddy-cheeked man in a tasseled traveling-cap, carryingunder his arm a ledger-like volume, the above words were addressed tothe collegian before introduced, suddenly accosted by the rail to whichnot long after his retreat, as in a previous chapter recounted, he hadreturned, and there remained. 

"Have you seen him, sir?"

Rallied from his apparent diffidence by the genial jauntiness of thestranger, the youth answered with unwonted promptitude: "Yes, a personwith a weed was here not very long ago. "

"Saddish?"

"Yes, and a little cracked, too, I should say. "

"It was he. Misfortune, I fear, has disturbed his brain. Now quick, which way did he go?"

"Why just in the direction from which you came, the gangway yonder. "

"Did he? Then the man in the gray coat, whom I just met, said right: hemust have gone ashore. How unlucky!"

He stood vexedly twitching at his cap-tassel, which fell over by hiswhisker, and continued: "Well, I am very sorry. In fact, I had somethingfor him here. "--Then drawing nearer, "you see, he applied to me forrelief, no, I do him injustice, not that, but he began to intimate, youunderstand. Well, being very busy just then, I declined; quite rudely, too, in a cold, morose, unfeeling way, I fear. At all events, not threeminutes afterwards I felt self-reproach, with a kind of prompting, veryperemptory, to deliver over into that unfortunate man's hands aten-dollar bill. You smile. Yes, it may be superstition, but I can'thelp it; I have my weak side, thank God. Then again, " he rapidly wenton, "we have been so very prosperous lately in our affairs--by we, Imean the Black Rapids Coal Company--that, really, out of my abundance, associative and individual, it is but fair that a charitable investmentor two should be made, don't you think so?"

"Sir, " said the collegian without the least embarrassment, "do Iunderstand that you are officially connected with the Black Rapids CoalCompany?"

"Yes, I happen to be president and transfer-agent. "

"You are?"

"Yes, but what is it to you? You don't want to invest?"

"Why, do you sell the stock?"

"Some might be bought, perhaps; but why do you ask? you don't want toinvest?"

"But supposing I did, " with cool self-collectedness, "could you do upthe thing for me, and here?"

"Bless my soul, " gazing at him in amaze, "really, you are quite abusiness man. Positively, I feel afraid of you. "

"Oh, no need of that. --You could sell me some of that stock, then?"

"I don't know, I don't know. To be sure, there are a few shares underpeculiar circumstances bought in by the Company; but it would hardly bethe thing to convert this boat into the Company's office. I think youhad better defer investing. So, " with an indifferent air, "you have seenthe unfortunate man I spoke of?"

"Let the unfortunate man go his ways. --What is that large book you havewith you?"

"My transfer-book. I am subpoenaed with it to court. "

"Black Rapids Coal Company, " obliquely reading the gilt inscription onthe back; "I have heard much of it. Pray do you happen to have with youany statement of the condition of your company. "

"A statement has lately been printed. "

"Pardon me, but I am naturally inquisitive. Have you a copy with you?"

"I tell you again, I do not think that it would be suitable to convertthis boat into the Company's office. --That unfortunate man, did yourelieve him at all?"

"Let the unfortunate man relieve himself. --Hand me the statement. "

"Well, you are such a business-man, I can hardly deny you. Here, "handing a small, printed pamphlet. 

The youth turned it over sagely. 

"I hate a suspicious man, " said the other, observing him; "but I mustsay I like to see a cautious one. "

"I can gratify you there, " languidly returning the pamphlet; "for, as Isaid before, I am naturally inquisitive; I am also circumspect. Noappearances can deceive me. Your statement, " he added "tells a very finestory; but pray, was not your stock a little heavy awhile ago? downwardtendency? Sort of low spirits among holders on the subject of thatstock?"

"Yes, there was a depression. But how came it? who devised it? The'bears, ' sir. The depression of our stock was solely owing to thegrowling, the hypocritical growling, of the bears. "

"How, hypocritical?"

"Why, the most monstrous of all hypocrites are these bears: hypocritesby inversion; hypocrites in the simulation of things dark instead ofbright; souls that thrive, less upon depression, than the fiction ofdepression; professors of the wicked art of manufacturing depressions;spurious Jeremiahs; sham Heraclituses, who, the lugubrious day done, return, like sham Lazaruses among the beggars, to make merry over thegains got by their pretended sore heads--scoundrelly bears!"

"You are warm against these bears?"

"If I am, it is less from the remembrance of their stratagems as to ourstock, than from the persuasion that these same destroyers ofconfidence, and gloomy philosophers of the stock-market, though false inthemselves, are yet true types of most destroyers of confidence andgloomy philosophers, the world over. Fellows who, whether in stocks, politics, bread-stuffs, morals, metaphysics, religion--be it what itmay--trump up their black panics in the naturally-quiet brightness, solely with a view to some sort of covert advantage. That corpse ofcalamity which the gloomy philosopher parades, is but hisGood-Enough-Morgan. "

"I rather like that, " knowingly drawled the youth. "I fancy these gloomysouls as little as the next one. Sitting on my sofa after a champagnedinner, smoking my plantation cigar, if a gloomy fellow come to me--whata bore!"

"You tell him it's all stuff, don't you?"

"I tell him it ain't natural. I say to him, you are happy enough, andyou know it; and everybody else is as happy as you, and you know that, too; and we shall all be happy after we are no more, and you know that, too; but no, still you must have your sulk. "

"And do you know whence this sort of fellow gets his sulk? not fromlife; for he's often too much of a recluse, or else too young to haveseen anything of it. No, he gets it from some of those old plays he seeson the stage, or some of those old books he finds up in garrets. Ten toone, he has lugged home from auction a musty old Seneca, and sets aboutstuffing himself with that stale old hay; and, thereupon, thinks itlooks wise and antique to be a croaker, thinks it's taking a stand-wayabove his kind. "

"Just so, " assented the youth. "I've lived some, and seen a good manysuch ravens at second hand. By the way, strange how that man with theweed, you were inquiring for, seemed to take me for some softsentimentalist, only because I kept quiet, and thought, because I had acopy of Tacitus with me, that I was reading him for his gloom, insteadof his gossip. But I let him talk. And, indeed, by my manner humoredhim. "

"You shouldn't have done that, now. Unfortunate man, you must have madequite a fool of him. "

"His own fault if I did. But I like prosperous fellows, comfortablefellows; fellows that talk comfortably and prosperously, like you. Suchfellows are generally honest. And, I say now, I happen to have asuperfluity in my pocket, and I'll just----"

"----Act the part of a brother to that unfortunate man?"

"Let the unfortunate man be his own brother. What are you dragging himin for all the time? One would think you didn't care to register anytransfers, or dispose of any stock--mind running on something else. Isay I will invest. "

"Stay, stay, here come some uproarious fellows--this way, this way. "

And with off-handed politeness the man with the book escorted hiscompanion into a private little haven removed from the brawling swellswithout. 

Business transacted, the two came forth, and walked the deck. 

"Now tell me, sir, " said he with the book, "how comes it that a younggentleman like you, a sedate student at the first appearance, shoulddabble in stocks and that sort of thing?"

"There are certain sophomorean errors in the world, " drawled thesophomore, deliberately adjusting his shirt-collar, "not the least ofwhich is the popular notion touching the nature of the modern scholar, and the nature of the modern scholastic sedateness. "

"So it seems, so it seems. Really, this is quite a new leaf in myexperience. "

"Experience, sir, " originally observed the sophomore, "is the onlyteacher. "

"Hence am I your pupil; for it's only when experience speaks, that I canendure to listen to speculation. "

"My speculations, sir, " dryly drawing himself up, "have been chieflygoverned by the maxim of Lord Bacon; I speculate in those philosophieswhich come home to my business and bosom--pray, do you know of any othergood stocks?"

"You wouldn't like to be concerned in the New Jerusalem, would you?"

"New Jerusalem?"

"Yes, the new and thriving city, so called, in northern Minnesota. Itwas originally founded by certain fugitive Mormons. Hence the name. Itstands on the Mississippi. Here, here is the map, " producing a roll. "There--there, you see are the public buildings--here the landing--therethe park--yonder the botanic gardens--and this, this little dot here, isa perpetual fountain, you understand. You observe there are twentyasterisks. Those are for the lyceums. They have lignum-vitae rostrums. "

"And are all these buildings now standing?"

"All standing--bona fide. "

"These marginal squares here, are they the water-lots?"

"Water-lots in the city of New Jerusalem? All terra firma--you don'tseem to care about investing, though?"

"Hardly think I should read my title clear, as the law students say, "yawned the collegian. 

"Prudent--you are prudent. Don't know that you are wholly out, either. At any rate, I would rather have one of your shares of coal stock thantwo of this other. Still, considering that the first settlement was bytwo fugitives, who had swum over naked from the opposite shore--it's asurprising place. It is, _bona fide_. --But dear me, I must go. Oh, if bypossibility you should come across that unfortunate man----"

"--In that case, " with drawling impatience, "I will send for thesteward, and have him and his misfortunes consigned overboard. "

"Ha ha!--now were some gloomy philosopher here, some theological bear, forever taking occasion to growl down the stock of human nature (withulterior views, d'ye see, to a fat benefice in the gift of theworshipers of Ariamius), he would pronounce that the sign of a hardeningheart and a softening brain. Yes, that would be his sinisterconstruction. But it's nothing more than the oddity of a genialhumor--genial but dry. Confess it. Good-bye. "

CHAPTER X. 

IN THE CABIN. 

Stools, settees, sofas, divans, ottomans; occupying them are clusters ofmen, old and young, wise and simple; in their hands are cards spottedwith diamonds, spades, clubs, hearts; the favorite games are whist, cribbage, and brag. Lounging in arm-chairs or sauntering among themarble-topped tables, amused with the scene, are the comparatively few, who, instead of having hands in the games, for the most part keep theirhands in their pockets. These may be the philosophes. But here andthere, with a curious expression, one is reading a small sort ofhandbill of anonymous poetry, rather wordily entitled:--

 "ODE ON THE INTIMATIONS OF DISTRUST IN MAN, UNWILLINGLY INFERRED FROM REPEATED REPULSES, IN DISINTERESTED ENDEAVORS TO PROCURE HIS CONFIDENCE. "

On the floor are many copies, looking as if fluttered down from aballoon. The way they came there was this: A somewhat elderly person, inthe quaker dress, had quietly passed through the cabin, and, much inthe manner of those railway book-peddlers who precede their proffers ofsale by a distribution of puffs, direct or indirect, of the volumes tofollow, had, without speaking, handed about the odes, which, for themost part, after a cursory glance, had been disrespectfully tossedaside, as no doubt, the moonstruck production of some wanderingrhapsodist. 

In due time, book under arm, in trips the ruddy man with thetraveling-cap, who, lightly moving to and fro, looks animatedly abouthim, with a yearning sort of gratulatory affinity and longing, expressive of the very soul of sociality; as much as to say, "Oh, boys, would that I were personally acquainted with each mother's son of you, since what a sweet world, to make sweet acquaintance in, is ours, mybrothers; yea, and what dear, happy dogs are we all!"

And just as if he had really warbled it forth, he makes fraternally upto one lounging stranger or another, exchanging with him some pleasantremark. 

"Pray, what have you there?" he asked of one newly accosted, a little, dried-up man, who looked as if he never dined. 

"A little ode, rather queer, too, " was the reply, "of the same sort yousee strewn on the floor here. "

"I did not observe them. Let me see;" picking one up and looking itover. "Well now, this is pretty; plaintive, especially the opening:--

 'Alas for man, he hath small sense Of genial trust and confidence. '

--If it be so, alas for him, indeed. Runs off very smoothly, sir. Beautiful pathos. But do you think the sentiment just?"

"As to that, " said the little dried-up man, "I think it a kind of queerthing altogether, and yet I am almost ashamed to add, it really has setme to thinking; yes and to feeling. Just now, somehow, I feel as it weretrustful and genial. I don't know that ever I felt so much so before. Iam naturally numb in my sensibilities; but this ode, in its way, workson my numbness not unlike a sermon, which, by lamenting over my lyingdead in trespasses and sins, thereby stirs me up to be all alive inwell-doing. "

"Glad to hear it, and hope you will do well, as the doctors say. But whosnowed the odes about here?"

"I cannot say; I have not been here long. "

"Wasn't an angel, was it? Come, you say you feel genial, let us do asthe rest, and have cards. "

"Thank you, I never play cards. "

"A bottle of wine?"

"Thank you, I never drink wine. "

"Cigars?"

"Thank you, I never smoke cigars. "

"Tell stories?"

"To speak truly, I hardly think I know one worth telling. "

"Seems to me, then, this geniality you say you feel waked in you, is aswater-power in a land without mills. Come, you had better take a genialhand at the cards. To begin, we will play for as small a sum as youplease; just enough to make it interesting. "

"Indeed, you must excuse me. Somehow I distrust cards. "

"What, distrust cards? Genial cards? Then for once I join with our sadPhilomel here:--

 'Alas for man, he hath small sense Of genial trust and confidence. '

Good-bye!"

Sauntering and chatting here and there, again, he with the book atlength seems fatigued, looks round for a seat, and spying apartly-vacant settee drawn up against the side, drops down there; soon, like his chance neighbor, who happens to be the good merchant, becomingnot a little interested in the scene more immediately before him; aparty at whist; two cream-faced, giddy, unpolished youths, the one in ared cravat, the other in a green, opposed to two bland, grave, handsome, self-possessed men of middle age, decorously dressed in a sort ofprofessional black, and apparently doctors of some eminence in the civillaw. 

By-and-by, after a preliminary scanning of the new comer next him thegood merchant, sideways leaning over, whispers behind a crumpled copy ofthe Ode which he holds: "Sir, I don't like the looks of those two, doyou?"

"Hardly, " was the whispered reply; "those colored cravats are not in thebest taste, at least not to mine; but my taste is no rule for all. "

"You mistake; I mean the other two, and I don't refer to dress, butcountenance. I confess I am not familiar with such gentry any furtherthan reading about them in the papers--but those two are--are sharpers, aint they?"

"Far be from us the captious and fault-finding spirit, my dear sir. "

"Indeed, sir, I would not find fault; I am little given that way: butcertainly, to say the least, these two youths can hardly be adepts, while the opposed couple may be even more. "

"You would not hint that the colored cravats would be so bungling as tolose, and the dark cravats so dextrous as to cheat?--Sour imaginations, my dear sir. Dismiss them. To little purpose have you read the Ode youhave there. Years and experience, I trust, have not sophisticated you. Afresh and liberal construction would teach us to regard those fourplayers--indeed, this whole cabin-full of players--as playing at gamesin which every player plays fair, and not a player but shall win. "

"Now, you hardly mean that; because games in which all may win, suchgames remain as yet in this world uninvented, I think. "

"Come, come, " luxuriously laying himself back, and casting a free glanceupon the players, "fares all paid; digestion sound; care, toil, penury, grief, unknown; lounging on this sofa, with waistband relaxed, why notbe cheerfully resigned to one's fate, nor peevishly pick holes in theblessed fate of the world?"

Upon this, the good merchant, after staring long and hard, and thenrubbing his forehead, fell into meditation, at first uneasy, but at lastcomposed, and in the end, once more addressed his companion: "Well, Isee it's good to out with one's private thoughts now and then. Somehow, I don't know why, a certain misty suspiciousness seems inseparable frommost of one's private notions about some men and some things; but onceout with these misty notions, and their mere contact with other men'ssoon dissipates, or, at least, modifies them. "

"You think I have done you good, then? may be, I have. But don'tthank me, don't thank me. If by words, casually delivered in thesocial hour, I do any good to right or left, it is but involuntaryinfluence--locust-tree sweetening the herbage under it; no merit atall; mere wholesome accident, of a wholesome nature. --Don't you see?"

Another stare from the good merchant, and both were silent again. 

Finding his book, hitherto resting on his lap, rather irksome there, theowner now places it edgewise on the settee, between himself andneighbor; in so doing, chancing to expose the lettering on theback--"_Black Rapids Coal Company_"--which the good merchant, scrupulously honorable, had much ado to avoid reading, so directly wouldit have fallen under his eye, had he not conscientiously averted it. Ona sudden, as if just reminded of something, the stranger starts up, andmoves away, in his haste leaving his book; which the merchant observing, without delay takes it up, and, hurrying after, civilly returns it; inwhich act he could not avoid catching sight by an involuntary glance ofpart of the lettering. 

"Thank you, thank you, my good sir, " said the other, receiving thevolume, and was resuming his retreat, when the merchant spoke: "Excuseme, but are you not in some way connected with the--the Coal Company Ihave heard of?"

"There is more than one Coal Company that may be heard of, my good sir, "smiled the other, pausing with an expression of painful impatience, disinterestedly mastered. 

"But you are connected with one in particular. --The 'Black Rapids, ' areyou not?"

"How did you find that out?"

"Well, sir, I have heard rather tempting information of your Company. "

"Who is your informant, pray, " somewhat coldly. 

"A--a person by the name of Ringman. "

"Don't know him. But, doubtless, there are plenty who know our Company, whom our Company does not know; in the same way that one may know anindividual, yet be unknown to him. --Known this Ringman long? Old friend, I suppose. --But pardon, I must leave you. "

"Stay, sir, that--that stock. "

"Stock?"

"Yes, it's a little irregular, perhaps, but----"

"Dear me, you don't think of doing any business with me, do you? In myofficial capacity I have not been authenticated to you. Thistransfer-book, now, " holding it up so as to bring the lettering insight, "how do you know that it may not be a bogus one? And I, beingpersonally a stranger to you, how can you have confidence in me?"

"Because, " knowingly smiled the good merchant, "if you were other than Ihave confidence that you are, hardly would you challenge distrust thatway. "

"But you have not examined my book. "

"What need to, if already I believe that it is what it is lettered tobe?"

"But you had better. It might suggest doubts. "

"Doubts, may be, it might suggest, but not knowledge; for how, byexamining the book, should I think I knew any more than I now think Ido; since, if it be the true book, I think it so already; and since ifit be otherwise, then I have never seen the true one, and don't knowwhat that ought to look like. "

"Your logic I will not criticize, but your confidence I admire, andearnestly, too, jocose as was the method I took to draw it out. Enough, we will go to yonder table, and if there be any business which, eitherin my private or official capacity, I can help you do, pray commandme. "

CHAPTER XI. 

ONLY A PAGE OR SO. 

The transaction concluded, the two still remained seated, falling intofamiliar conversation, by degrees verging into that confidential sort ofsympathetic silence, the last refinement and luxury of unaffected goodfeeling. A kind of social superstition, to suppose that to be trulyfriendly one must be saying friendly words all the time, any more thanbe doing friendly deeds continually. True friendliness, like truereligion, being in a sort independent of works. 

At length, the good merchant, whose eyes were pensively resting upon thegay tables in the distance, broke the spell by saying that, from thespectacle before them, one would little divine what other quarters ofthe boat might reveal. He cited the case, accidentally encountered butan hour or two previous, of a shrunken old miser, clad in shrunken oldmoleskin, stretched out, an invalid, on a bare plank in the emigrants'quarters, eagerly clinging to life and lucre, though the one was gaspingfor outlet, and about the other he was in torment lest death, or someother unprincipled cut-purse, should be the means of his losing it; bylike feeble tenure holding lungs and pouch, and yet knowing anddesiring nothing beyond them; for his mind, never raised above mould, was now all but mouldered away. To such a degree, indeed, that he had notrust in anything, not even in his parchment bonds, which, the better topreserve from the tooth of time, he had packed down and sealed up, likebrandy peaches, in a tin case of spirits. 

The worthy man proceeded at some length with these dispiritingparticulars. Nor would his cheery companion wholly deny that there mightbe a point of view from which such a case of extreme want of confidencemight, to the humane mind, present features not altogether welcome aswine and olives after dinner. Still, he was not without compensatoryconsiderations, and, upon the whole, took his companion to task forevincing what, in a good-natured, round-about way, he hinted to be asomewhat jaundiced sentimentality. Nature, he added, in Shakespeare'swords, had meal and bran; and, rightly regarded, the bran in its way wasnot to be condemned. 

The other was not disposed to question the justice of Shakespeare'sthought, but would hardly admit the propriety of the application in thisinstance, much less of the comment. So, after some further temperatediscussion of the pitiable miser, finding that they could not entirelyharmonize, the merchant cited another case, that of the negro cripple. But his companion suggested whether the alleged hardships of thatalleged unfortunate might not exist more in the pity of the observerthan the experience of the observed. He knew nothing about the cripple, nor had seen him, but ventured to surmise that, could one but get at thereal state of his heart, he would be found about as happy as most men, if not, in fact, full as happy as the speaker himself. He added thatnegroes were by nature a singularly cheerful race; no one ever heard ofa native-born African Zimmermann or Torquemada; that even from religionthey dismissed all gloom; in their hilarious rituals they danced, so tospeak, and, as it were, cut pigeon-wings. It was improbable, therefore, that a negro, however reduced to his stumps by fortune, could be everthrown off the legs of a laughing philosophy. 

Foiled again, the good merchant would not desist, but ventured still athird case, that of the man with the weed, whose story, as narrated byhimself, and confirmed and filled out by the testimony of a certain manin a gray coat, whom the merchant had afterwards met, he now proceededto give; and that, without holding back those particulars disclosed bythe second informant, but which delicacy had prevented the unfortunateman himself from touching upon. 

But as the good merchant could, perhaps, do better justice to the manthan the story, we shall venture to tell it in other words than his, though not to any other effect. 

CHAPTER XII. 

STORY OF THE UNFORTUNATE MAN, FROM WHICH MAY BE GATHERED WHETHER OR NOHE HAS BEEN JUSTLY SO ENTITLED. 

It appeared that the unfortunate man had had for a wife one of thosenatures, anomalously vicious, which would almost tempt a metaphysicallover of our species to doubt whether the human form be, in all cases, conclusive evidence of humanity, whether, sometimes, it may not be akind of unpledged and indifferent tabernacle, and whether, once for allto crush the saying of Thrasea, (an unaccountable one, considering thathe himself was so good a man) that "he who hates vice, hates humanity, "it should not, in self-defense, be held for a reasonable maxim, thatnone but the good are human. 

Goneril was young, in person lithe and straight, too straight, indeed, for a woman, a complexion naturally rosy, and which would have beencharmingly so, but for a certain hardness and bakedness, like that ofthe glazed colors on stone-ware. Her hair was of a deep, rich chestnut, but worn in close, short curls all round her head. Her Indian figure wasnot without its impairing effect on her bust, while her mouth would havebeen pretty but for a trace of moustache. Upon the whole, aided by theresources of the toilet, her appearance at distance was such, that somemight have thought her, if anything, rather beautiful, though of a styleof beauty rather peculiar and cactus-like. 

It was happy for Goneril that her more striking peculiarities were lessof the person than of temper and taste. One hardly knows how to reveal, that, while having a natural antipathy to such things as the breast ofchicken, or custard, or peach, or grape, Goneril could yet in privatemake a satisfactory lunch on hard crackers and brawn of ham. She likedlemons, and the only kind of candy she loved were little dried sticks ofblue clay, secretly carried in her pocket. Withal she had hard, steadyhealth like a squaw's, with as firm a spirit and resolution. Some otherpoints about her were likewise such as pertain to the women of savagelife. Lithe though she was, she loved supineness, but upon occasioncould endure like a stoic. She was taciturn, too. From early morningtill about three o'clock in the afternoon she would seldom speak--ittaking that time to thaw her, by all accounts, into but talking termswith humanity. During the interval she did little but look, and keeplooking out of her large, metallic eyes, which her enemies called coldas a cuttle-fish's, but which by her were esteemed gazelle-like; forGoneril was not without vanity. Those who thought they best knew her, often wondered what happiness such a being could take in life, notconsidering the happiness which is to be had by some natures in the veryeasy way of simply causing pain to those around them. Those who sufferedfrom Goneril's strange nature, might, with one of those hyberboles towhich the resentful incline, have pronounced her some kind of toad; buther worst slanderers could never, with any show of justice, have accusedher of being a toady. In a large sense she possessed the virtue ofindependence of mind. Goneril held it flattery to hint praise even ofthe absent, and even if merited; but honesty, to fling people's imputedfaults into their faces. This was thought malice, but it certainly wasnot passion. Passion is human. Like an icicle-dagger, Goneril at oncestabbed and froze; so at least they said; and when she saw frankness andinnocence tyrannized into sad nervousness under her spell, according tothe same authority, inly she chewed her blue clay, and you could markthat she chuckled. These peculiarities were strange and unpleasing; butanother was alleged, one really incomprehensible. In company she had astrange way of touching, as by accident, the arm or hand of comely youngmen, and seemed to reap a secret delight from it, but whether from thehumane satisfaction of having given the evil-touch, as it is called, orwhether it was something else in her, not equally wonderful, but quiteas deplorable, remained an enigma. 

Needless to say what distress was the unfortunate man's, when, engagedin conversation with company, he would suddenly perceive his Gonerilbestowing her mysterious touches, especially in such cases where thestrangeness of the thing seemed to strike upon the touched person, notwithstanding good-breeding forbade his proposing the mystery, on thespot, as a subject of discussion for the company. In these cases, too, the unfortunate man could never endure so much as to look upon thetouched young gentleman afterwards, fearful of the mortification ofmeeting in his countenance some kind of more or less quizzingly-knowingexpression. He would shudderingly shun the young gentleman. So thathere, to the husband, Goneril's touch had the dread operation of theheathen taboo. Now Goneril brooked no chiding. So, at favorable times, he, in a wary manner, and not indelicately, would venture in privateinterviews gently to make distant allusions to this questionablepropensity. She divined him. But, in her cold loveless way, said it waswitless to be telling one's dreams, especially foolish ones; but if theunfortunate man liked connubially to rejoice his soul with suchchimeras, much connubial joy might they give him. All this was sad--atouching case--but all might, perhaps, have been borne by theunfortunate man--conscientiously mindful of his vow--for better or forworse--to love and cherish his dear Goneril so long as kind heaven mightspare her to him--but when, after all that had happened, the devil ofjealousy entered her, a calm, clayey, cakey devil, for none other couldpossess her, and the object of that deranged jealousy, her own child, alittle girl of seven, her father's consolation and pet; when he sawGoneril artfully torment the little innocent, and then play the maternalhypocrite with it, the unfortunate man's patient long-suffering gaveway. Knowing that she would neither confess nor amend, and might, possibly, become even worse than she was, he thought it but duty as afather, to withdraw the child from her; but, loving it as he did, hecould not do so without accompanying it into domestic exile himself. Which, hard though it was, he did. Whereupon the whole femaleneighborhood, who till now had little enough admired dame Goneril, brokeout in indignation against a husband, who, without assigning a cause, could deliberately abandon the wife of his bosom, and sharpen the stingto her, too, by depriving her of the solace of retaining her offspring. To all this, self-respect, with Christian charity towards Goneril, longkept the unfortunate man dumb. And well had it been had he continued so;for when, driven to desperation, he hinted something of the truth of thecase, not a soul would credit it; while for Goneril, she pronounced allhe said to be a malicious invention. Ere long, at the suggestion of somewoman's-rights women, the injured wife began a suit, and, thanks to ablecounsel and accommodating testimony, succeeded in such a way, as notonly to recover custody of the child, but to get such a settlementawarded upon a separation, as to make penniless the unfortunate man (sohe averred), besides, through the legal sympathy she enlisted, effectinga judicial blasting of his private reputation. What made it yet morelamentable was, that the unfortunate man, thinking that, before thecourt, his wisest plan, as well as the most Christian besides, being, ashe deemed, not at variance with the truth of the matter, would be to putforth the plea of the mental derangement of Goneril, which done, hecould, with less of mortification to himself, and odium to her, revealin self-defense those eccentricities which had led to his retirementfrom the joys of wedlock, had much ado in the end to prevent this chargeof derangement from fatally recoiling upon himself--especially, when, among other things, he alleged her mysterious teachings. In vain did hiscounsel, striving to make out the derangement to be where, in fact, ifanywhere, it was, urge that, to hold otherwise, to hold that such abeing as Goneril was sane, this was constructively a libel uponwomankind. Libel be it. And all ended by the unfortunate man'ssubsequently getting wind of Goneril's intention to procure him to bepermanently committed for a lunatic. Upon which he fled, and was now aninnocent outcast, wandering forlorn in the great valley of theMississippi, with a weed on his hat for the loss of his Goneril; for hehad lately seen by the papers that she was dead, and thought it butproper to comply with the prescribed form of mourning in such cases. Forsome days past he had been trying to get money enough to return to hischild, and was but now started with inadequate funds. 

Now all of this, from the beginning, the good merchant could not butconsider rather hard for the unfortunate man. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE MAN WITH THE TRAVELING-CAP EVINCES MUCH HUMANITY, AND IN A WAY WHICHWOULD SEEM TO SHOW HIM TO BE ONE OF THE MOST LOGICAL OF OPTIMISTS. 

Years ago, a grave American savant, being in London, observed at anevening party there, a certain coxcombical fellow, as he thought, anabsurd ribbon in his lapel, and full of smart persiflage, whisking aboutto the admiration of as many as were disposed to admire. Great was thesavan's disdain; but, chancing ere long to find himself in a corner withthe jackanapes, got into conversation with him, when he was somewhatill-prepared for the good sense of the jackanapes, but was altogetherthrown aback, upon subsequently being whispered by a friend that thejackanapes was almost as great a savan as himself, being no less apersonage than Sir Humphrey Davy. 

The above anecdote is given just here by way of an anticipative reminderto such readers as, from the kind of jaunty levity, or what may havepassed for such, hitherto for the most part appearing in the man withthe traveling-cap, may have been tempted into a more or less hastyestimate of him; that such readers, when they find the same person, asthey presently will, capable of philosophic and humanitariandiscourse--no mere casual sentence or two as heretofore at times, butsolidly sustained throughout an almost entire sitting; that they maynot, like the American savan, be thereupon betrayed into any surpriseincompatible with their own good opinion of their previous penetration. 

The merchant's narration being ended, the other would not deny but thatit did in some degree affect him. He hoped he was not without properfeeling for the unfortunate man. But he begged to know in what spirit hebore his alleged calamities. Did he despond or have confidence?

The merchant did not, perhaps, take the exact import of the last memberof the question; but answered, that, if whether the unfortunate man wasbecomingly resigned under his affliction or no, was the point, he couldsay for him that resigned he was, and to an exemplary degree: for notonly, so far as known, did he refrain from any one-sided reflectionsupon human goodness and human justice, but there was observable in himan air of chastened reliance, and at times tempered cheerfulness. 

Upon which the other observed, that since the unfortunate man's allegedexperience could not be deemed very conciliatory towards a view of humannature better than human nature was, it largely redounded to hisfair-mindedness, as well as piety, that under the alleged dissuasives, apparently so, from philanthropy, he had not, in a moment of excitement, been warped over to the ranks of the misanthropes. He doubted not, also, that with such a man his experience would, in the end, act by acomplete and beneficent inversion, and so far from shaking hisconfidence in his kind, confirm it, and rivet it. Which would the moresurely be the case, did he (the unfortunate man) at last becomesatisfied (as sooner or later he probably would be) that in thedistraction of his mind his Goneril had not in all respects had fairplay. At all events, the description of the lady, charity could not butregard as more or less exaggerated, and so far unjust. The truthprobably was that she was a wife with some blemishes mixed with somebeauties. But when the blemishes were displayed, her husband, no adeptin the female nature, had tried to use reason with her, instead ofsomething far more persuasive. Hence his failure to convince andconvert. The act of withdrawing from her, seemed, under thecircumstances, abrupt. In brief, there were probably small faults onboth sides, more than balanced by large virtues; and one should not behasty in judging. 

When the merchant, strange to say, opposed views so calm and impartial, and again, with some warmth, deplored the case of the unfortunate man, his companion, not without seriousness, checked him, saying, that thiswould never do; that, though but in the most exceptional case, to admitthe existence of unmerited misery, more particularly if alleged to havebeen brought about by unhindered arts of the wicked, such an admissionwas, to say the least, not prudent; since, with some, it mightunfavorably bias their most important persuasions. Not that thosepersuasions were legitimately servile to such influences. Because, since the common occurrences of life could never, in the nature ofthings, steadily look one way and tell one story, as flags in thetrade-wind; hence, if the conviction of a Providence, for instance, werein any way made dependent upon such variabilities as everyday events, the degree of that conviction would, in thinking minds, be subject tofluctuations akin to those of the stock-exchange during a long anduncertain war. Here he glanced aside at his transfer-book, and after amoment's pause continued. It was of the essence of a right conviction ofthe divine nature, as with a right conviction of the human, that, basedless on experience than intuition, it rose above the zones of weather. 

When now the merchant, with all his heart, coincided with this (as beinga sensible, as well as religious person, he could not but do), hiscompanion expressed satisfaction, that, in an age of some distrust onsuch subjects, he could yet meet with one who shared with him, almost tothe full, so sound and sublime a confidence. 

Still, he was far from the illiberality of denying that philosophy dulybounded was not permissible. Only he deemed it at least desirable that, when such a case as that alleged of the unfortunate man was made thesubject of philosophic discussion, it should be so philosophized upon, as not to afford handles to those unblessed with the true light. For, but to grant that there was so much as a mystery about such a case, might by those persons be held for a tacit surrender of the question. And as for the apparent license temporarily permitted sometimes, to thebad over the good (as was by implication alleged with regard to Goneriland the unfortunate man), it might be injudicious there to lay too muchpolemic stress upon the doctrine of future retribution as thevindication of present impunity. For though, indeed, to the right-mindedthat doctrine was true, and of sufficient solace, yet with the perversethe polemic mention of it might but provoke the shallow, thoughmischievous conceit, that such a doctrine was but tantamount to the onewhich should affirm that Providence was not now, but was going to be. Inshort, with all sorts of cavilers, it was best, both for them andeverybody, that whoever had the true light should stick behind thesecure Malakoff of confidence, nor be tempted forth to hazardousskirmishes on the open ground of reason. Therefore, he deemed itunadvisable in the good man, even in the privacy of his own mind, or incommunion with a congenial one, to indulge in too much latitude ofphilosophizing, or, indeed, of compassionating, since this might, begetan indiscreet habit of thinking and feeling which might unexpectedlybetray him upon unsuitable occasions. Indeed, whether in private orpublic, there was nothing which a good man was more bound to guardhimself against than, on some topics, the emotional unreserve of hisnatural heart; for, that the natural heart, in certain points, was notwhat it might be, men had been authoritatively admonished. 

But he thought he might be getting dry. 

The merchant, in his good-nature, thought otherwise, and said that hewould be glad to refresh himself with such fruit all day. It was sittingunder a ripe pulpit, and better such a seat than under a ripepeach-tree. 

The other was pleased to find that he had not, as he feared, beenprosing; but would rather not be considered in the formal light of apreacher; he preferred being still received in that of the equal andgenial companion. To which end, throwing still more of sociability intohis manner, he again reverted to the unfortunate man. Take the veryworst view of that case; admit that his Goneril was, indeed, a Goneril;how fortunate to be at last rid of this Goneril, both by nature and bylaw? If he were acquainted with the unfortunate man, instead ofcondoling with him, he would congratulate him. Great good fortune hadthis unfortunate man. Lucky dog, he dared say, after all. 

To which the merchant replied, that he earnestly hoped it might be so, and at any rate he tried his best to comfort himself with the persuasionthat, if the unfortunate man was not happy in this world, he would, atleast, be so in another. 

His companion made no question of the unfortunate man's happiness inboth worlds; and, presently calling for some champagne, invited themerchant to partake, upon the playful plea that, whatever notions otherthan felicitous ones he might associate with the unfortunate man, alittle champagne would readily bubble away. 

At intervals they slowly quaffed several glasses in silence andthoughtfulness. At last the merchant's expressive face flushed, his eyemoistly beamed, his lips trembled with an imaginative and femininesensibility. Without sending a single fume to his head, the wine seemedto shoot to his heart, and begin soothsaying there. "Ah, " he cried, pushing his glass from him, "Ah, wine is good, and confidence is good;but can wine or confidence percolate down through all the stony strataof hard considerations, and drop warmly and ruddily into the cold caveof truth? Truth will _not_ be comforted. Led by dear charity, lured bysweet hope, fond fancy essays this feat; but in vain; mere dreams andideals, they explode in your hand, leaving naught but the scorchingbehind!"

"Why, why, why!" in amaze, at the burst: "bless me, if _In vino veritas_be a true saying, then, for all the fine confidence you professed withme, just now, distrust, deep distrust, underlies it; and ten thousandstrong, like the Irish Rebellion, breaks out in you now. That wine, goodwine, should do it! Upon my soul, " half seriously, half humorously, securing the bottle, "you shall drink no more of it. Wine was meant togladden the heart, not grieve it; to heighten confidence, not depressit. "

Sobered, shamed, all but confounded, by this raillery, the most tellingrebuke under such circumstances, the merchant stared about him, andthen, with altered mien, stammeringly confessed, that he was almost asmuch surprised as his companion, at what had escaped him. He did notunderstand it; was quite at a loss to account for such a rhapsodypopping out of him unbidden. It could hardly be the champagne; he felthis brain unaffected; in fact, if anything, the wine had acted upon itsomething like white of egg in coffee, clarifying and brightening. 

"Brightening? brightening it may be, but less like the white of egg incoffee, than like stove-lustre on a stove--black, brightening seriously, I repent calling for the champagne. To a temperament like yours, champagne is not to be recommended. Pray, my dear sir, do you feel quiteyourself again? Confidence restored?"

"I hope so; I think I may say it is so. But we have had a long talk, andI think I must retire now. "

So saying, the merchant rose, and making his adieus, left the table withthe air of one, mortified at having been tempted by his own honestgoodness, accidentally stimulated into making mad disclosures--tohimself as to another--of the queer, unaccountable caprices of hisnatural heart. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

WORTH THE CONSIDERATION OF THOSE TO WHOM IT MAY PROVE WORTH CONSIDERING. 

As the last chapter was begun with a reminder looking forwards, so thepresent must consist of one glancing backwards. 

To some, it may raise a degree of surprise that one so full ofconfidence, as the merchant has throughout shown himself, up to themoment of his late sudden impulsiveness, should, in that instance, havebetrayed such a depth of discontent. He may be thought inconsistent, andeven so he is. But for this, is the author to be blamed? True, it may beurged that there is nothing a writer of fiction should more carefullysee to, as there is nothing a sensible reader will more carefully lookfor, than that, in the depiction of any character, its consistencyshould be preserved. But this, though at first blush, seeming reasonableenough, may, upon a closer view, prove not so much so. For how does itcouple with another requirement--equally insisted upon, perhaps--that, while to all fiction is allowed some play of invention, yet, fictionbased on fact should never be contradictory to it; and is it not a fact, that, in real life, a consistent character is a _rara avis_? Whichbeing so, the distaste of readers to the contrary sort in books, canhardly arise from any sense of their untrueness. It may rather be fromperplexity as to understanding them. But if the acutest sage be often athis wits' ends to understand living character, shall those who are notsages expect to run and read character in those mere phantoms which flitalong a page, like shadows along a wall? That fiction, where everycharacter can, by reason of its consistency, be comprehended at aglance, either exhibits but sections of character, making them appearfor wholes, or else is very untrue to reality; while, on the other hand, that author who draws a character, even though to common viewincongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at differentperiods, as much at variance with itself as the butterfly is with thecaterpillar into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not falsebut faithful to facts. 

If reason be judge, no writer has produced such inconsistent charactersas nature herself has. It must call for no small sagacity in a readerunerringly to discriminate in a novel between the inconsistencies ofconception and those of life as elsewhere. Experience is the only guidehere; but as no one man can be coextensive with _what is_, it may beunwise in every ease to rest upon it. When the duck-billed beaver ofAustralia was first brought stuffed to England, the naturalists, appealing to their classifications, maintained that there was, inreality, no such creature; the bill in the specimen must needs be, insome way, artificially stuck on. 

But let nature, to the perplexity of the naturalists, produce herduck-billed beavers as she may, lesser authors some may hold, have nobusiness to be perplexing readers with duck-billed characters. Always, they should represent human nature not in obscurity, but transparency, which, indeed, is the practice with most novelists, and is, perhaps, incertain cases, someway felt to be a kind of honor rendered by them totheir kind. But, whether it involve honor or otherwise might be mooted, considering that, if these waters of human nature can be so readily seenthrough, it may be either that they are very pure or very shallow. Uponthe whole, it might rather be thought, that he, who, in view of itsinconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of itscontrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out, thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by alwaysrepresenting it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that heclearly knows all about it. 

But though there is a prejudice against inconsistent characters inbooks, yet the prejudice bears the other way, when what seemed at firsttheir inconsistency, afterwards, by the skill of the writer, turns outto be their good keeping. The great masters excel in nothing so much asin this very particular. They challenge astonishment at the tangled webof some character, and then raise admiration still greater at theirsatisfactory unraveling of it; in this way throwing open, sometimes tothe understanding even of school misses, the last complications of thatspirit which is affirmed by its Creator to be fearfully and wonderfullymade. 

At least, something like this is claimed for certain psychologicalnovelists; nor will the claim be here disputed. Yet, as touching thispoint, it may prove suggestive, that all those sallies of ingenuity, having for their end the revelation of human nature on fixed principles, have, by the best judges, been excluded with contempt from the ranks ofthe sciences--palmistry, physiognomy, phrenology, psychology. Likewise, the fact, that in all ages such conflicting views have, by the mosteminent minds, been taken of mankind, would, as with other topics, seemsome presumption of a pretty general and pretty thorough ignorance ofit. Which may appear the less improbable if it be considered that, afterporing over the best novels professing to portray human nature, thestudious youth will still run risk of being too often at fault uponactually entering the world; whereas, had he been furnished with a truedelineation, it ought to fare with him something as with a strangerentering, map in hand, Boston town; the streets may be very crooked, hemay often pause; but, thanks to his true map, he does not hopelesslylose his way. Nor, to this comparison, can it be an adequate objection, that the twistings of the town are always the same, and those of humannature subject to variation. The grand points of human nature are thesame to-day they were a thousand years ago. The only variability in themis in expression, not in feature. 

But as, in spite of seeming discouragement, some mathematicians are yetin hopes of hitting upon an exact method of determining the longitude, the more earnest psychologists may, in the face of previous failures, still cherish expectations with regard to some mode of infalliblydiscovering the heart of man. 

But enough has been said by way of apology for whatever may have seemedamiss or obscure in the character of the merchant; so nothing remainsbut to turn to our comedy, or, rather, to pass from the comedy ofthought to that of action. 

CHAPTER XV. 

AN OLD MISER, UPON SUITABLE REPRESENTATIONS, IS PREVAILED UPON TOVENTURE AN INVESTMENT. 

The merchant having withdrawn, the other remained seated alone for atime, with the air of one who, after having conversed with someexcellent man, carefully ponders what fell from him, howeverintellectually inferior it may be, that none of the profit may be lost;happy if from any honest word he has heard he can derive some hint, which, besides confirming him in the theory of virtue, may, likewise, serve for a finger-post to virtuous action. 

Ere long his eye brightened, as if some such hint was now caught. Herises, book in hand, quits the cabin, and enters upon a sort ofcorridor, narrow and dim, a by-way to a retreat less ornate and cheerythan the former; in short, the emigrants' quarters; but which, owing tothe present trip being a down-river one, will doubtless be foundcomparatively tenantless. Owing to obstructions against the sidewindows, the whole place is dim and dusky; very much so, for the mostpart; yet, by starts, haggardly lit here and there by narrow, capricioussky-lights in the cornices. But there would seem no special need forlight, the place being designed more to pass the night in, than the day;in brief, a pine barrens dormitory, of knotty pine bunks, withoutbedding. As with the nests in the geometrical towns of the associatepenguin and pelican, these bunks were disposed with Philadelphianregularity, but, like the cradle of the oriole, they were pendulous, and, moreover, were, so to speak, three-story cradles; the descriptionof one of which will suffice for all. 

Four ropes, secured to the ceiling, passed downwards through auger-holesbored in the corners of three rough planks, which at equal distancesrested on knots vertically tied in the ropes, the lowermost plank but aninch or two from the floor, the whole affair resembling, on a largescale, rope book-shelves; only, instead of hanging firmly against awall, they swayed to and fro at the least suggestion of motion, but weremore especially lively upon the provocation of a green emigrantsprawling into one, and trying to lay himself out there, when thecradling would be such as almost to toss him back whence he came. Inconsequence, one less inexperienced, essaying repose on the uppermostshelf, was liable to serious disturbance, should a raw beginner select ashelf beneath. Sometimes a throng of poor emigrants, coming at night ina sudden rain to occupy these oriole nests, would--through ignorance oftheir peculiarity--bring about such a rocking uproar of carpentry, joining to it such an uproar of exclamations, that it seemed as if someluckless ship, with all its crew, was being dashed to pieces among therocks. They were beds devised by some sardonic foe of poor travelers, to deprive them of that tranquility which should precede, as well asaccompany, slumber. --Procrustean beds, on whose hard grain humble worthand honesty writhed, still invoking repose, while but torment responded. Ah, did any one make such a bunk for himself, instead of having it madefor him, it might be just, but how cruel, to say, You must lie on it!

But, purgatory as the place would appear, the stranger advances into it:and, like Orpheus in his gay descent to Tartarus, lightly hums tohimself an opera snatch. 

Suddenly there is a rustling, then a creaking, one of the cradles swingsout from a murky nook, a sort of wasted penguin-flipper issupplicatingly put forth, while a wail like that of Dives isheard:--"Water, water!"

It was the miser of whom the merchant had spoken. 

Swift as a sister-of-charity, the stranger hovers over him:--

"My poor, poor sir, what can I do for you?"

"Ugh, ugh--water!"

Darting out, he procures a glass, returns, and, holding it to thesufferer's lips, supports his head while he drinks: "And did they letyou lie here, my poor sir, racked with this parching thirst?"

The miser, a lean old man, whose flesh seemed salted cod-fish, dry ascombustibles; head, like one whittled by an idiot out of a knot; flat, bony mouth, nipped between buzzard nose and chin; expression, flittingbetween hunks and imbecile--now one, now the other--he made no response. His eyes were closed, his cheek lay upon an old white moleskin coat, rolled under his head like a wizened apple upon a grimy snow-bank. 

Revived at last, he inclined towards his ministrant, and, in a voicedisastrous with a cough, said:--"I am old and miserable, a poor beggar, not worth a shoestring--how can I repay you?"

"By giving me your confidence. "

"Confidence!" he squeaked, with changed manner, while the pallet swung, "little left at my age, but take the stale remains, and welcome. "

"Such as it is, though, you give it. Very good. Now give me a hundreddollars. "

Upon this the miser was all panic. His hands groped towards hiswaist, then suddenly flew upward beneath his moleskin pillow, andthere lay clutching something out of sight. Meantime, to himself heincoherently mumbled:--"Confidence? Cant, gammon! Confidence? hum, bubble!--Confidence? fetch, gouge!--Hundred dollars?--hundred devils!"

Half spent, he lay mute awhile, then feebly raising himself, in a voicefor the moment made strong by the sarcasm, said, "A hundred dollars?rather high price to put upon confidence. But don't you see I am a poor, old rat here, dying in the wainscot? You have served me; but, wretchthat I am, I can but cough you my thanks, --ugh, ugh, ugh!"

This time his cough was so violent that its convulsions were imparted tothe plank, which swung him about like a stone in a sling preparatory toits being hurled. 

"Ugh, ugh, ugh!"

"What a shocking cough. I wish, my friend, the herb-doctor was here now;a box of his Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator would do you good. "

"Ugh, ugh, ugh!"

"I've a good mind to go find him. He's aboard somewhere. I saw his long, snuff-colored surtout. Trust me, his medicines are the best in theworld. "

"Ugh, ugh, ugh!"

"Oh, how sorry I am. "

"No doubt of it, " squeaked the other again, "but go, get your charityout on deck. There parade the pursy peacocks; they don't cough down herein desertion and darkness, like poor old me. Look how scaly a pauper Iam, clove with this churchyard cough. Ugh, ugh, ugh!"

"Again, how sorry I feel, not only for your cough, but your poverty. Such a rare chance made unavailable. Did you have but the sum named, howI could invest it for you. Treble profits. But confidence--I fear that, even had you the precious cash, you would not have the more preciousconfidence I speak of. "

"Ugh, ugh, ugh!" flightily raising himself. "What's that? How, how? Thenyou don't want the money for yourself?"

"My dear, _dear_ sir, how could you impute to me such preposterousself-seeking? To solicit out of hand, for my private behoof, an hundreddollars from a perfect stranger? I am not mad, my dear sir. "

"How, how?" still more bewildered, "do you, then, go about the world, gratis, seeking to invest people's money for them?"

"My humble profession, sir. I live not for myself; but the world willnot have confidence in me, and yet confidence in me were great gain. "

"But, but, " in a kind of vertigo, "what do--do you do--do with people'smoney? Ugh, ugh! How is the gain made?"

"To tell that would ruin me. That known, every one would be going intothe business, and it would be overdone. A secret, a mystery--all I haveto do with you is to receive your confidence, and all you have to dowith me is, in due time, to receive it back, thrice paid in treblingprofits. "

"What, what?" imbecility in the ascendant once more; "but the vouchers, the vouchers, " suddenly hunkish again. 

"Honesty's best voucher is honesty's face. "

"Can't see yours, though, " peering through the obscurity. 

From this last alternating flicker of rationality, the miser fell back, sputtering, into his previous gibberish, but it took now an arithmeticalturn. Eyes closed, he lay muttering to himself--

"One hundred, one hundred--two hundred, two hundred--three hundred, three hundred. "

He opened his eyes, feebly stared, and still more feebly said--

"It's a little dim here, ain't it? Ugh, ugh! But, as well as my poor oldeyes can see, you look honest. "

"I am glad to hear that. "

"If--if, now, I should put"--trying to raise himself, but vainly, excitement having all but exhausted him--"if, if now, I should put, put----"

"No ifs. Downright confidence, or none. So help me heaven, I will haveno half-confidences. "

He said it with an indifferent and superior air, and seemed moving togo. 

"Don't, don't leave me, friend; bear with me; age can't help somedistrust; it can't, friend, it can't. Ugh, ugh, ugh! Oh, I am so old andmiserable. I ought to have a guardian. Tell me, if----"

"If? No more!"

"Stay! how soon--ugh, ugh!--would my money be trebled? How soon, friend?"

"You won't confide. Good-bye!"

"Stay, stay, " falling back now like an infant, "I confide, I confide;help, friend, my distrust!"

From an old buckskin pouch, tremulously dragged forth, ten hoardedeagles, tarnished into the appearance of ten old horn-buttons, weretaken, and half-eagerly, half-reluctantly, offered. 

"I know not whether I should accept this slack confidence, " said theother coldly, receiving the gold, "but an eleventh-hour confidence, asick-bed confidence, a distempered, death-bed confidence, after all. Give me the healthy confidence of healthy men, with their healthy witsabout them. But let that pass. All right. Good-bye!"

"Nay, back, back--receipt, my receipt! Ugh, ugh, ugh! Who are you? Whathave I done? Where go you? My gold, my gold! Ugh, ugh, ugh!"

But, unluckily for this final flicker of reason, the stranger was nowbeyond ear-shot, nor was any one else within hearing of so feeble acall. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

A SICK MAN, AFTER SOME IMPATIENCE, IS INDUCED TO BECOME A PATIENT

The sky slides into blue, the bluffs into bloom; the rapid Mississippiexpands; runs sparkling and gurgling, all over in eddies; one magnifiedwake of a seventy-four. The sun comes out, a golden huzzar, from histent, flashing his helm on the world. All things, warmed in thelandscape, leap. Speeds the dædal boat as a dream. 

But, withdrawn in a corner, wrapped about in a shawl, sits anunparticipating man, visited, but not warmed, by the sun--a plant whosehour seems over, while buds are blowing and seeds are astir. On a stoolat his left sits a stranger in a snuff-colored surtout, the collarthrown back; his hand waving in persuasive gesture, his eye beaming withhope. But not easily may hope be awakened in one long tranced intohopelessness by a chronic complaint. 

To some remark the sick man, by word or look, seemed to have just madean impatiently querulous answer, when, with a deprecatory air, the otherresumed:

"Nay, think not I seek to cry up my treatment by crying down that ofothers. And yet, when one is confident he has truth on his side, andthat is not on the other, it is no very easy thing to be charitable; notthat temper is the bar, but conscience; for charity would begettoleration, you know, which is a kind of implied permitting, and ineffect a kind of countenancing; and that which is countenanced is so farfurthered. But should untruth be furthered? Still, while for the world'sgood I refuse to further the cause of these mineral doctors, I wouldfain regard them, not as willful wrong-doers, but good Samaritanserring. And is this--I put it to you, sir--is this the view of anarrogant rival and pretender?"

His physical power all dribbled and gone, the sick man replied not byvoice or by gesture; but, with feeble dumb-show of his face, seemed tobe saying "Pray leave me; who was ever cured by talk?"

But the other, as if not unused to make allowances for such despondency, proceeded; and kindly, yet firmly:

"You tell me, that by advice of an eminent physiologist in Louisville, you took tincture of iron. For what? To restore your lost energy. Andhow? Why, in healthy subjects iron is naturally found in the blood, andiron in the bar is strong; ergo, iron is the source of animalinvigoration. But you being deficient in vigor, it follows that thecause is deficiency of iron. Iron, then, must be put into you; and soyour tincture. Now as to the theory here, I am mute. But in modestyassuming its truth, and then, as a plain man viewing that theory inpractice, I would respectfully question your eminent physiologist:'Sir, ' I would say, 'though by natural processes, lifeless natures takenas nutriment become vitalized, yet is a lifeless nature, under anycircumstances, capable of a living transmission, with all its qualitiesas a lifeless nature unchanged? If, sir, nothing can be incorporatedwith the living body but by assimilation, and if that implies theconversion of one thing to a different thing (as, in a lamp, oil isassimilated into flame), is it, in this view, likely, that by banquetingon fat, Calvin Edson will fatten? That is, will what is fat on the boardprove fat on the bones? If it will, then, sir, what is iron in the vialwill prove iron in the vein. ' Seems that conclusion too confident?"

But the sick man again turned his dumb-show look, as much as to say, "Pray leave me. Why, with painful words, hint the vanity of that whichthe pains of this body have too painfully proved?"

But the other, as if unobservant of that querulous look, went on:

"But this notion, that science can play farmer to the flesh, makingthere what living soil it pleases, seems not so strange as that otherconceit--that science is now-a-days so expert that, in consumptivecases, as yours, it can, by prescription of the inhalation of certainvapors, achieve the sublimest act of omnipotence, breathing into all butlifeless dust the breath of life. For did you not tell me, my poor sir, that by order of the great chemist in Baltimore, for three weeks youwere never driven out without a respirator, and for a given time ofevery day sat bolstered up in a sort of gasometer, inspiring vaporsgenerated by the burning of drugs? as if this concocted atmosphere ofman were an antidote to the poison of God's natural air. Oh, who canwonder at that old reproach against science, that it is atheistical? Andhere is my prime reason for opposing these chemical practitioners, whohave sought out so many inventions. For what do their inventionsindicate, unless it be that kind and degree of pride in human skill, which seems scarce compatible with reverential dependence upon the powerabove? Try to rid my mind of it as I may, yet still these chemicalpractitioners with their tinctures, and fumes, and braziers, and occultincantations, seem to me like Pharaoh's vain sorcerers, trying to beatdown the will of heaven. Day and night, in all charity, I intercede forthem, that heaven may not, in its own language, be provoked to angerwith their inventions; may not take vengeance of their inventions. Athousand pities that you should ever have been in the hands of theseEgyptians. "

But again came nothing but the dumb-show look, as much as to say, "Prayleave me; quacks, and indignation against quacks, both are vain. "

But, once more, the other went on: "How different we herb-doctors! whoclaim nothing, invent nothing; but staff in hand, in glades, and uponhillsides, go about in nature, humbly seeking her cures. True Indiandoctors, though not learned in names, we are not unfamiliar withessences--successors of Solomon the Wise, who knew all vegetables, fromthe cedar of Lebanon, to the hyssop on the wall. Yes, Solomon was thefirst of herb-doctors. Nor were the virtues of herbs unhonored by yetolder ages. Is it not writ, that on a moonlight night, "Medea gathered the enchanted herbs That did renew old Æson?"

Ah, would you but have confidence, you should be the new Æson, andI your Medea. A few vials of my Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator would, I amcertain, give you some strength. "

Upon this, indignation and abhorrence seemed to work by their excess theeffect promised of the balsam. Roused from that long apathy ofimpotence, the cadaverous man started, and, in a voice that was as thesound of obstructed air gurgling through a maze of broken honey-combs, cried: "Begone! You are all alike. The name of doctor, the dream ofhelper, condemns you. For years I have been but a gallipot for youexperimentizers to rinse your experiments into, and now, in this lividskin, partake of the nature of my contents. Begone! I hate ye. "

"I were inhuman, could I take affront at a want of confidence, born oftoo bitter an experience of betrayers. Yet, permit one who is notwithout feeling----"

"Begone! Just in that voice talked to me, not six months ago, the Germandoctor at the water cure, from which I now return, six months and sixtypangs nigher my grave. "

"The water-cure? Oh, fatal delusion of the well-meaning Preisnitz!--Sir, trust me----"

"Begone!"

"Nay, an invalid should not always have his own way. Ah, sir, reflecthow untimely this distrust in one like you. How weak you are; andweakness, is it not the time for confidence? Yes, when through weaknesseverything bids despair, then is the time to get strength byconfidence. "

Relenting in his air, the sick man cast upon him a long glance ofbeseeching, as if saying, "With confidence must come hope; and how canhope be?"

The herb-doctor took a sealed paper box from his surtout pocket, andholding it towards him, said solemnly, "Turn not away. This may be thelast time of health's asking. Work upon yourself; invoke confidence, though from ashes; rouse it; for your life, rouse it, and invoke it, Isay. "

The other trembled, was silent; and then, a little commanding himself, asked the ingredients of the medicine. 

"Herbs. "

"What herbs? And the nature of them? And the reason for giving them?"

"It cannot be made known. "

"Then I will none of you. "

Sedately observant of the juiceless, joyless form before him, theherb-doctor was mute a moment, then said:--"I give up. "

"How?"

"You are sick, and a philosopher. "

"No, no;--not the last. "

"But, to demand the ingredient, with the reason for giving, is the markof a philosopher; just as the consequence is the penalty of a fool. Asick philosopher is incurable?"

"Why?"

"Because he has no confidence. "

"How does that make him incurable?"

"Because either he spurns his powder, or, if he take it, it proves ablank cartridge, though the same given to a rustic in like extremity, would act like a charm. I am no materialist; but the mind so acts uponthe body, that if the one have no confidence, neither has the other. "

Again, the sick man appeared not unmoved. He seemed to be thinking whatin candid truth could be said to all this. At length, "You talk ofconfidence. How comes it that when brought low himself, the herb-doctor, who was most confident to prescribe in other cases, proves leastconfident to prescribe in his own; having small confidence in himselffor himself?"

"But he has confidence in the brother he calls in. And that he does so, is no reproach to him, since he knows that when the body is prostrated, the mind is not erect. Yes, in this hour the herb-doctor does distrusthimself, but not his art. "

The sick man's knowledge did not warrant him to gainsay this. But heseemed not grieved at it; glad to be confuted in a way tending towardshis wish. 

"Then you give me hope?" his sunken eye turned up. 

"Hope is proportioned to confidence. How much confidence you give me, somuch hope do I give you. For this, " lifting the box, "if all dependedupon this, I should rest. It is nature's own. "

"Nature!"

"Why do you start?"

"I know not, " with a sort of shudder, "but I have heard of a bookentitled 'Nature in Disease. '"

"A title I cannot approve; it is suspiciously scientific. 'Nature inDisease?' As if nature, divine nature, were aught but health; as ifthrough nature disease is decreed! But did I not before hint of thetendency of science, that forbidden tree? Sir, if despondency is yoursfrom recalling that title, dismiss it. Trust me, nature is health; forhealth is good, and nature cannot work ill. As little can she workerror. Get nature, and you get well. Now, I repeat, this medicine isnature's own. "

Again the sick man could not, according to his light, conscientiouslydisprove what was said. Neither, as before, did he seem over-anxious todo so; the less, as in his sensitiveness it seemed to him, that hardlycould he offer so to do without something like the appearance of a kindof implied irreligion; nor in his heart was he ungrateful, that since aspirit opposite to that pervaded all the herb-doctor's hopeful words, therefore, for hopefulness, he (the sick man) had not alone medicalwarrant, but also doctrinal. 

"Then you do really think, " hectically, "that if I take this medicine, "mechanically reaching out for it, "I shall regain my health?"

"I will not encourage false hopes, " relinquishing to him the box, "Iwill be frank with you. Though frankness is not always the weakness ofthe mineral practitioner, yet the herb doctor must be frank, or nothing. Now then, sir, in your case, a radical cure--such a cure, understand, asshould make you robust--such a cure, sir, I do not and cannot promise. "

"Oh, you need not! only restore me the power of being something else toothers than a burdensome care, and to myself a droning grief. Only cureme of this misery of weakness; only make me so that I can walk about inthe sun and not draw the flies to me, as lured by the coming of decay. Only do that--but that. "

"You ask not much; you are wise; not in vain have you suffered. Thatlittle you ask, I think, can be granted. But remember, not in a day, nora week, nor perhaps a month, but sooner or later; I say not exactlywhen, for I am neither prophet nor charlatan. Still, if, according tothe directions in your box there, you take my medicine steadily, withoutassigning an especial day, near or remote, to discontinue it, then mayyou calmly look for some eventual result of good. But again I say, youmust have confidence. "

Feverishly he replied that he now trusted he had, and hourly should prayfor its increase. When suddenly relapsing into one of those strangecaprices peculiar to some invalids, he added: "But to one like me, it isso hard, so hard. The most confident hopes so often have failed me, andas often have I vowed never, no, never, to trust them again. Oh, " feeblywringing his hands, "you do not know, you do not know. "

"I know this, that never did a right confidence, come to naught. Buttime is short; you hold your cure, to retain or reject. "

"I retain, " with a clinch, "and now how much?"

"As much as you can evoke from your heart and heaven. "

"How?--the price of this medicine?"

"I thought it was confidence you meant; how much confidence you shouldhave. The medicine, --that is half a dollar a vial. Your box holds six. "

The money was paid. 

"Now, sir, " said the herb-doctor, "my business calls me away, and it mayso be that I shall never see you again; if then----"

He paused, for the sick man's countenance fell blank. 

"Forgive me, " cried the other, "forgive that imprudent phrase 'never seeyou again. ' Though I solely intended it with reference to myself, yet Ihad forgotten what your sensitiveness might be. I repeat, then, that itmay be that we shall not soon have a second interview, so thathereafter, should another of my boxes be needed, you may not be able toreplace it except by purchase at the shops; and, in so doing, you mayrun more or less risk of taking some not salutary mixture. For such isthe popularity of the Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator--thriving not by thecredulity of the simple, but the trust of the wise--that certaincontrivers have not been idle, though I would not, indeed, hastilyaffirm of them that they are aware of the sad consequences to thepublic. Homicides and murderers, some call those contrivers; but I donot; for murder (if such a crime be possible) comes from the heart, andthese men's motives come from the purse. Were they not in poverty, Ithink they would hardly do what they do. Still, the public interestsforbid that I should let their needy device for a living succeed. Inshort, I have adopted precautions. Take the wrapper from any of my vialsand hold it to the light, you will see water-marked in capitals the word'_confidence_, ' which is the countersign of the medicine, as I wish itwas of the world. The wrapper bears that mark or else the medicine iscounterfeit. But if still any lurking doubt should remain, pray enclosethe wrapper to this address, " handing a card, "and by return mail I willanswer. "

At first the sick man listened, with the air of vivid interest, butgradually, while the other was still talking, another strange capricecame over him, and he presented the aspect of the most calamitousdejection. 

"How now?" said the herb-doctor. 

"You told me to have confidence, said that confidence was indispensable, and here you preach to me distrust. Ah, truth will out!"

"I told you, you must have confidence, unquestioning confidence, I meantconfidence in the genuine medicine, and the genuine _me_. "

"But in your absence, buying vials purporting to be yours, it seems Icannot have unquestioning confidence. "

"Prove all the vials; trust those which are true. "

"But to doubt, to suspect, to prove--to have all this wearing work tobe doing continually--how opposed to confidence. It is evil!"

"From evil comes good. Distrust is a stage to confidence. How has itproved in our interview? But your voice is husky; I have let you talktoo much. You hold your cure; I will leave you. But stay--when I hearthat health is yours, I will not, like some I know, vainly make boasts;but, giving glory where all glory is due, say, with the devoutherb-doctor, Japus in Virgil, when, in the unseen but efficaciouspresence of Venus, he with simples healed the wound of Æneas:--

 'This is no mortal work, no cure of mine, Nor art's effect, but done by power divine. '"

CHAPTER XVII. 

TOWARDS THE END OF WHICH THE HERB-DOCTOR PROVES HIMSELF A FORGIVER OFINJURIES. 

In a kind of ante-cabin, a number of respectable looking people, maleand female, way-passengers, recently come on board, are listlesslysitting in a mutually shy sort of silence. 

Holding up a small, square bottle, ovally labeled with the engraving ofa countenance full of soft pity as that of the Romish-painted Madonna, the herb-doctor passes slowly among them, benignly urbane, turning thisway and that, saying:--

"Ladies and gentlemen, I hold in my hand here the Samaritan PainDissuader, thrice-blessed discovery of that disinterested friend ofhumanity whose portrait you see. Pure vegetable extract. Warranted toremove the acutest pain within less than ten minutes. Five hundreddollars to be forfeited on failure. Especially efficacious in heartdisease and tic-douloureux. Observe the expression of this pledgedfriend of humanity. --Price only fifty cents. "

In vain. After the first idle stare, his auditors--in pretty goodhealth, it seemed--instead of encouraging his politeness, appeared, ifanything, impatient of it; and, perhaps, only diffidence, or some smallregard for his feelings, prevented them from telling him so. But, insensible to their coldness, or charitably overlooking it, he morewooingly than ever resumed: "May I venture upon a small supposition?Have I your kind leave, ladies and gentlemen?"

To which modest appeal, no one had the kindness to answer a syllable. 

"Well, " said he, resignedly, "silence is at least not denial, and may beconsent. My supposition is this: possibly some lady, here present, has adear friend at home, a bed-ridden sufferer from spinal complaint. If so, what gift more appropriate to that sufferer than this tasteful littlebottle of Pain Dissuader?"

Again he glanced about him, but met much the same reception as before. Those faces, alien alike to sympathy or surprise, seemed patiently tosay, "We are travelers; and, as such, must expect to meet, and quietlyput up with, many antic fools, and more antic quacks. "

"Ladies and gentlemen, " (deferentially fixing his eyes upon their nowself-complacent faces) "ladies and gentlemen, might I, by your kindleave, venture upon one other small supposition? It is this: that thereis scarce a sufferer, this noonday, writhing on his bed, but in his hourhe sat satisfactorily healthy and happy; that the Samaritan PainDissuader is the one only balm for that to which each livingcreature--who knows?--may be a draughted victim, present or prospective. In short:--Oh, Happiness on my right hand, and oh, Security on my left, can ye wisely adore a Providence, and not think it wisdom toprovide?--Provide!" (Uplifting the bottle. )

What immediate effect, if any, this appeal might have had, is uncertain. For just then the boat touched at a houseless landing, scooped, as by aland-slide, out of sombre forests; back through which led a road, thesole one, which, from its narrowness, and its being walled up with storyon story of dusk, matted foliage, presented the vista of some cavernousold gorge in a city, like haunted Cock Lane in London. Issuing from thatroad, and crossing that landing, there stooped his shaggy form in thedoor-way, and entered the ante-cabin, with a step so burdensome thatshot seemed in his pockets, a kind of invalid Titan in homespun; hisbeard blackly pendant, like the Carolina-moss, and dank with cypressdew; his countenance tawny and shadowy as an iron-ore country in aclouded day. In one hand he carried a heavy walking-stick of swamp-oak;with the other, led a puny girl, walking in moccasins, not improbablyhis child, but evidently of alien maternity, perhaps Creole, or evenCamanche. Her eye would have been large for a woman, and was inky as thepools of falls among mountain-pines. An Indian blanket, orange-hued, andfringed with lead tassel-work, appeared that morning to have shieldedthe child from heavy showers. Her limbs were tremulous; she seemed alittle Cassandra, in nervousness. 

No sooner was the pair spied by the herb-doctor, than with a cheerfulair, both arms extended like a host's, he advanced, and taking thechild's reluctant hand, said, trippingly: "On your travels, ah, mylittle May Queen? Glad to see you. What pretty moccasins. Nice to dancein. " Then with a half caper sang--

 "'Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle; The cow jumped over the moon. '

Come, chirrup, chirrup, my little robin!"

Which playful welcome drew no responsive playfulness from the child, norappeared to gladden or conciliate the father; but rather, if anything, to dash the dead weight of his heavy-hearted expression with a smilehypochondriacally scornful. 

Sobering down now, the herb-doctor addressed the stranger in a manly, business-like way--a transition which, though it might seem a littleabrupt, did not appear constrained, and, indeed, served to show that hisrecent levity was less the habit of a frivolous nature, than the froliccondescension of a kindly heart. 

"Excuse me, " said he, "but, if I err not, I was speaking to you theother day;--on a Kentucky boat, wasn't it?"

"Never to me, " was the reply; the voice deep and lonesome enough to havecome from the bottom of an abandoned coal-shaft. 

"Ah!--But am I again mistaken, (his eye falling on the swamp-oak stick, )or don't you go a little lame, sir?"

"Never was lame in my life. "

"Indeed? I fancied I had perceived not a limp, but a hitch, a slighthitch;--some experience in these things--divined some hidden cause ofthe hitch--buried bullet, may be--some dragoons in the Mexican wardischarged with such, you know. --Hard fate!" he sighed, "little pity forit, for who sees it?--have you dropped anything?"

Why, there is no telling, but the stranger was bowed over, and mighthave seemed bowing for the purpose of picking up something, were it notthat, as arrested in the imperfect posture, he for the moment soremained; slanting his tall stature like a mainmast yielding to thegale, or Adam to the thunder. 

The little child pulled him. With a kind of a surge he righted himself, for an instant looked toward the herb-doctor; but, either from emotionor aversion, or both together, withdrew his eyes, saying nothing. Presently, still stooping, he seated himself, drawing his child betweenhis knees, his massy hands tremulous, and still averting his face, whileup into the compassionate one of the herb-doctor the child turned afixed, melancholy glance of repugnance. 

The herb-doctor stood observant a moment, then said:

"Surely you have pain, strong pain, somewhere; in strong frames pain isstrongest. Try, now, my specific, " (holding it up). "Do but look at theexpression of this friend of humanity. Trust me, certain cure for anypain in the world. Won't you look?"

"No, " choked the other. 

"Very good. Merry time to you, little May Queen. "

And so, as if he would intrude his cure upon no one, moved pleasantlyoff, again crying his wares, nor now at last without result. Anew-comer, not from the shore, but another part of the boat, a sicklyyoung man, after some questions, purchased a bottle. Upon this, othersof the company began a little to wake up as it were; the scales ofindifference or prejudice fell from their eyes; now, at last, theyseemed to have an inkling that here was something not undesirable whichmight be had for the buying. 

But while, ten times more briskly bland than ever, the herb-doctor wasdriving his benevolent trade, accompanying each sale with added praisesof the thing traded, all at once the dusk giant, seated at somedistance, unexpectedly raised his voice with--

"What was that you last said?"

The question was put distinctly, yet resonantly, as when a greatclock-bell--stunning admonisher--strikes one; and the stroke, thoughsingle, comes bedded in the belfry clamor. 

All proceedings were suspended. Hands held forth for the specific werewithdrawn, while every eye turned towards the direction whence thequestion came. But, no way abashed, the herb-doctor, elevating his voicewith even more than wonted self-possession, replied--

"I was saying what, since you wish it, I cheerfully repeat, that theSamaritan Pain Dissuader, which I here hold in my hand, will either cureor ease any pain you please, within ten minutes after its application. "

"Does it produce insensibility?"

"By no means. Not the least of its merits is, that it is not an opiate. It kills pain without killing feeling. "

"You lie! Some pains cannot be eased but by producing insensibility, andcannot be cured but by producing death. "

Beyond this the dusk giant said nothing; neither, for impairing theother's market, did there appear much need to. After eying the rudespeaker a moment with an expression of mingled admiration andconsternation, the company silently exchanged glances of mutual sympathyunder unwelcome conviction. Those who had purchased looked sheepish orashamed; and a cynical-looking little man, with a thin flaggy beard, anda countenance ever wearing the rudiments of a grin, seated alone in acorner commanding a good view of the scene, held a rusty hat before hisface. 

But, again, the herb-doctor, without noticing the retort, overbearingthough it was, began his panegyrics anew, and in a tone more assuredthan before, going so far now as to say that his specific was sometimesalmost as effective in cases of mental suffering as in cases ofphysical; or rather, to be more precise, in cases when, throughsympathy, the two sorts of pain coöperated into a climax of both--insuch cases, he said, the specific had done very well. He cited anexample: Only three bottles, faithfully taken, cured a Louisiana widow(for three weeks sleepless in a darkened chamber) of neuralgic sorrowfor the loss of husband and child, swept off in one night by the lastepidemic. For the truth of this, a printed voucher was produced, dulysigned. 

While he was reading it aloud, a sudden side-blow all but felled him. 

It was the giant, who, with a countenance lividly epileptic withhypochondriac mania, exclaimed--

"Profane fiddler on heart-strings! Snake!"

More he would have added, but, convulsed, could not; so, without anotherword, taking up the child, who had followed him, went with a rockingpace out of the cabin. 

"Regardless of decency, and lost to humanity!" exclaimed theherb-doctor, with much ado recovering himself. Then, after a pause, during which he examined his bruise, not omitting to apply externally alittle of his specific, and with some success, as it would seem, plainedto himself:

"No, no, I won't seek redress; innocence is my redress. But, " turningupon them all, "if that man's wrathful blow provokes me to no wrath, should his evil distrust arouse you to distrust? I do devoutly hope, "proudly raising voice and arm, "for the honor of humanity--hope that, despite this coward assault, the Samaritan Pain Dissuader standsunshaken in the confidence of all who hear me!"

But, injured as he was, and patient under it, too, somehow his caseexcited as little compassion as his oratory now did enthusiasm. Still, pathetic to the last, he continued his appeals, notwithstanding thefrigid regard of the company, till, suddenly interrupting himself, asif in reply to a quick summons from without, he said hurriedly, "I come, I come, " and so, with every token of precipitate dispatch, out of thecabin the herb-doctor went. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

INQUEST INTO THE TRUE CHARACTER OF THE HERB-DOCTOR. 

"Sha'n't see that fellow again in a hurry, " remarked an auburn-hairedgentleman, to his neighbor with a hook-nose. "Never knew an operator socompletely unmasked. "

"But do you think it the fair thing to unmask an operator that way?"

"Fair? It is right. "

"Supposing that at high 'change on the Paris Bourse, Asmodeus shouldlounge in, distributing hand-bills, revealing the true thoughts anddesigns of all the operators present--would that be the fair thing inAsmodeus? Or, as Hamlet says, were it 'to consider the thing toocuriously?'"

"We won't go into that. But since you admit the fellow to be aknave----"

"I don't admit it. Or, if I did, I take it back. Shouldn't wonder if, after all, he is no knave at all, or, but little of one. What can youprove against him?"

"I can prove that he makes dupes. "

"Many held in honor do the same; and many, not wholly knaves, do ittoo. "

"How about that last?"

"He is not wholly at heart a knave, I fancy, among whose dupes ishimself. Did you not see our quack friend apply to himself his ownquackery? A fanatic quack; essentially a fool, though effectively aknave. "

Bending over, and looking down between his knees on the floor, theauburn-haired gentleman meditatively scribbled there awhile with hiscane, then, glancing up, said:

"I can't conceive how you, in anyway, can hold him a fool. How hetalked--so glib, so pat, so well. "

"A smart fool always talks well; takes a smart fool to be tonguey. "

In much the same strain the discussion continued--the hook-nosedgentleman talking at large and excellently, with a view of demonstratingthat a smart fool always talks just so. Ere long he talked to suchpurpose as almost to convince. 

Presently, back came the person of whom the auburn-haired gentleman hadpredicted that he would not return. Conspicuous in the door-way hestood, saying, in a clear voice, "Is the agent of the Seminole Widow andOrphan Asylum within here?"

No one replied. 

"Is there within here any agent or any member of any charitableinstitution whatever?"

No one seemed competent to answer, or, no one thought it worth whileto. 

"If there be within here any such person, I have in my hand two dollarsfor him. "

Some interest was manifested. 

"I was called away so hurriedly, I forgot this part of my duty. With theproprietor of the Samaritan Pain Dissuader it is a rule, to devote, onthe spot, to some benevolent purpose, the half of the proceeds of sales. Eight bottles were disposed of among this company. Hence, fourhalf-dollars remain to charity. Who, as steward, takes the money?"

One or two pair of feet moved upon the floor, as with a sort of itching;but nobody rose. 

"Does diffidence prevail over duty? If, I say, there be any gentleman, or any lady, either, here present, who is in any connection with anycharitable institution whatever, let him or her come forward. He or shehappening to have at hand no certificate of such connection, makes nodifference. Not of a suspicious temper, thank God, I shall haveconfidence in whoever offers to take the money. "

A demure-looking woman, in a dress rather tawdry and rumpled, here drewher veil well down and rose; but, marking every eye upon her, thought itadvisable, upon the whole, to sit down again. 

"Is it to be believed that, in this Christian company, there is no onecharitable person? I mean, no one connected with any charity? Well, then, is there no object of charity here?"

Upon this, an unhappy-looking woman, in a sort of mourning, neat, butsadly worn, hid her face behind a meagre bundle, and was heard to sob. Meantime, as not seeing or hearing her, the herb-doctor again spoke, andthis time not unpathetically:

"Are there none here who feel in need of help, and who, in acceptingsuch help, would feel that they, in their time, have given or done morethan may ever be given or done to them? Man or woman, is there none suchhere?"

The sobs of the woman were more audible, though she strove to repressthem. While nearly every one's attention was bent upon her, a man of theappearance of a day-laborer, with a white bandage across his face, concealing the side of the nose, and who, for coolness' sake, had beensitting in his red-flannel shirt-sleeves, his coat thrown across oneshoulder, the darned cuffs drooping behind--this man shufflingly rose, and, with a pace that seemed the lingering memento of the lock-step ofconvicts, went up for a duly-qualified claimant. 

"Poor wounded huzzar!" sighed the herb-doctor, and dropping the moneyinto the man's clam-shell of a hand turned and departed. 

The recipient of the alms was about moving after, when the auburn-hairedgentleman staid him: "Don't be frightened, you; but I want to see thosecoins. Yes, yes; good silver, good silver. There, take them again, andwhile you are about it, go bandage the rest of yourself behindsomething. D'ye hear? Consider yourself, wholly, the scar of a nose, andbe off with yourself. "

Being of a forgiving nature, or else from emotion not daring to trusthis voice, the man silently, but not without some precipitancy, withdrew. 

"Strange, " said the auburn-haired gentleman, returning to his friend, "the money was good money. "

"Aye, and where your fine knavery now? Knavery to devote the half ofone's receipts to charity? He's a fool I say again. "

"Others might call him an original genius. "

"Yes, being original in his folly. Genius? His genius is a cracked pate, and, as this age goes, not much originality about that. "

"May he not be knave, fool, and genius altogether?"

"I beg pardon, " here said a third person with a gossiping expression whohad been listening, "but you are somewhat puzzled by this man, and wellyou may be. "

"Do you know anything about him?" asked the hooked-nosed gentleman. 

"No, but I suspect him for something. "

"Suspicion. We want knowledge. "

"Well, suspect first and know next. True knowledge comes but bysuspicion or revelation. That's my maxim. "

"And yet, " said the auburn-haired gentleman, "since a wise man will keepeven some certainties to himself, much more some suspicions, at least hewill at all events so do till they ripen into knowledge. "

"Do you hear that about the wise man?" said the hook-nosed gentleman, turning upon the new comer. "Now what is it you suspect of this fellow?"

"I shrewdly suspect him, " was the eager response, "for one of thoseJesuit emissaries prowling all over our country. The better toaccomplish their secret designs, they assume, at times, I am told, themost singular masques; sometimes, in appearance, the absurdest. "

This, though indeed for some reason causing a droll smile upon the faceof the hook-nosed gentleman, added a third angle to the discussion, which now became a sort of triangular duel, and ended, at last, with buta triangular result. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE. 

"Mexico? Molino del Rey? Resaca de la Palma?"

"Resaca de la _Tomba_!"

Leaving his reputation to take care of itself, since, as is not seldomthe case, he knew nothing of its being in debate, the herb-doctor, wandering towards the forward part of the boat, had there espied asingular character in a grimy old regimental coat, a countenance at oncegrim and wizened, interwoven paralyzed legs, stiff as icicles, suspendedbetween rude crutches, while the whole rigid body, like a ship's longbarometer on gimbals, swung to and fro, mechanically faithful to themotion of the boat. Looking downward while he swung, the cripple seemedin a brown study. 

As moved by the sight, and conjecturing that here was some battered herofrom the Mexican battle-fields, the herb-doctor had sympatheticallyaccosted him as above, and received the above rather dubious reply. As, with a half moody, half surly sort of air that reply was given, thecripple, by a voluntary jerk, nervously increased his swing (his customwhen seized by emotion), so that one would have thought some squall hadsuddenly rolled the boat and with it the barometer. 

"Tombs? my friend, " exclaimed the herb-doctor in mild surprise. "Youhave not descended to the dead, have you? I had imagined you a scarredcampaigner, one of the noble children of war, for your dear country aglorious sufferer. But you are Lazarus, it seems. "

"Yes, he who had sores. "

"Ah, the _other_ Lazarus. But I never knew that either of them was inthe army, " glancing at the dilapidated regimentals. 

"That will do now. Jokes enough. "

"Friend, " said the other reproachfully, "you think amiss. On principle, I greet unfortunates with some pleasant remark, the better to call offtheir thoughts from their troubles. The physician who is at once wiseand humane seldom unreservedly sympathizes with his patient. But come, Iam a herb-doctor, and also a natural bone-setter. I may be sanguine, butI think I can do something for you. You look up now. Give me your story. Ere I undertake a cure, I require a full account of the case. "

"You can't help me, " returned the cripple gruffly. "Go away. "

"You seem sadly destitute of----"

"No I ain't destitute; to-day, at least, I can pay my way. "

"The Natural Bone-setter is happy, indeed, to hear that. But you werepremature. I was deploring your destitution, not of cash, but ofconfidence. You think the Natural Bone-setter can't help you. Well, suppose he can't, have you any objection to telling him your story? You, my friend, have, in a signal way, experienced adversity. Tell me, then, for my private good, how, without aid from the noble cripple, Epictetus, you have arrived at his heroic sang-froid in misfortune. "

At these words the cripple fixed upon the speaker the hard ironic eye ofone toughened and defiant in misery, and, in the end, grinned upon himwith his unshaven face like an ogre. 

"Come, come, be sociable--be human, my friend. Don't make that face; itdistresses me. "

"I suppose, " with a sneer, "you are the man I've long heard of--TheHappy Man. "

"Happy? my friend. Yes, at least I ought to be. My conscience ispeaceful. I have confidence in everybody. I have confidence that, in myhumble profession, I do some little good to the world. Yes, I thinkthat, without presumption, I may venture to assent to the propositionthat I am the Happy Man--the Happy Bone-setter. "

"Then, you shall hear my story. Many a month I have longed to get holdof the Happy Man, drill him, drop the powder, and leave him to explodeat his leisure. ". 

"What a demoniac unfortunate" exclaimed the herb-doctor retreating. "Regular infernal machine!"

"Look ye, " cried the other, stumping after him, and with his horny handcatching him by a horn button, "my name is Thomas Fry. Until my----"

--"Any relation of Mrs. Fry?" interrupted the other. "I still correspondwith that excellent lady on the subject of prisons. Tell me, are youanyway connected with _my_ Mrs. Fry?"

"Blister Mrs. Fry! What do them sentimental souls know of prisons or anyother black fact? I'll tell ye a story of prisons. Ha, ha!"

The herb-doctor shrank, and with reason, the laugh being strangelystartling. 

"Positively, my friend, " said he, "you must stop that; I can't standthat; no more of that. I hope I have the milk of kindness, but yourthunder will soon turn it. "

"Hold, I haven't come to the milk-turning part yet My name is ThomasFry. Until my twenty-third year I went by the nickname of HappyTom--happy--ha, ha! They called me Happy Tom, d'ye see? because I was sogood-natured and laughing all the time, just as I am now--ha, ha!"

Upon this the herb-doctor would, perhaps, have run, but once more thehyæna clawed him. Presently, sobering down, he continued:

"Well, I was born in New York, and there I lived a steady, hard-workingman, a cooper by trade. One evening I went to a political meeting in thePark--for you must know, I was in those days a great patriot. As badluck would have it, there was trouble near, between a gentleman who hadbeen drinking wine, and a pavior who was sober. The pavior chewedtobacco, and the gentleman said it was beastly in him, and pushed him, wanting to have his place. The pavior chewed on and pushed back. Well, the gentleman carried a sword-cane, and presently the pavior wasdown--skewered. "

"How was that?"

"Why you see the pavior undertook something above his strength. "

"The other must have been a Samson then. 'Strong as a pavior, ' is aproverb. "

"So it is, and the gentleman was in body a rather weakly man, but, forall that, I say again, the pavior undertook something above hisstrength. "

"What are you talking about? He tried to maintain his rights, didn'the?"

"Yes; but, for all that, I say again, he undertook something above hisstrength. "

"I don't understand you. But go on. "

"Along with the gentleman, I, with other witnesses, was taken to theTombs. There was an examination, and, to appear at the trial, thegentleman and witnesses all gave bail--I mean all but me. "

"And why didn't you?"

"Couldn't get it. "

"Steady, hard-working cooper like you; what was the reason you couldn'tget bail?"

"Steady, hard-working cooper hadn't no friends. Well, souse I went intoa wet cell, like a canal-boat splashing into the lock; locked up inpickle, d'ye see? against the time of the trial. "

"But what had you done?"

"Why, I hadn't got any friends, I tell ye. A worse crime than murder, asye'll see afore long. "

"Murder? Did the wounded man die?"

"Died the third night. "

"Then the gentleman's bail didn't help him. Imprisoned now, wasn't he?"

"Had too many friends. No, it was _I_ that was imprisoned. --But I wasgoing on: They let me walk about the corridor by day; but at night Imust into lock. There the wet and the damp struck into my bones. Theydoctored me, but no use. When the trial came, I was boosted up and saidmy say. "

"And what was that?"

"My say was that I saw the steel go in, and saw it sticking in. "

"And that hung the gentleman. "

"Hung him with a gold chain! His friends called a meeting in the Park, and presented him with a gold watch and chain upon his acquittal. "

"Acquittal?"

"Didn't I say he had friends?"

There was a pause, broken at last by the herb-doctor's saying: "Well, there is a bright side to everything. If this speak prosaically forjustice, it speaks romantically for friendship! But go on, my finefellow. "

"My say being said, they told me I might go. I said I could not withouthelp. So the constables helped me, asking _where_ would I go? I toldthem back to the 'Tombs. ' I knew no other place. 'But where are yourfriends?' said they. 'I have none. ' So they put me into a hand-barrowwith an awning to it, and wheeled me down to the dock and on board aboat, and away to Blackwell's Island to the Corporation Hospital. ThereI got worse--got pretty much as you see me now. Couldn't cure me. Afterthree years, I grew sick of lying in a grated iron bed alongside ofgroaning thieves and mouldering burglars. They gave me five silverdollars, and these crutches, and I hobbled off. I had an only brotherwho went to Indiana, years ago. I begged about, to make up a sum to goto him; got to Indiana at last, and they directed me to his grave. Itwas on a great plain, in a log-church yard with a stump fence, the oldgray roots sticking all ways like moose-antlers. The bier, set over thegrave, it being the last dug, was of green hickory; bark on, and greentwigs sprouting from it. Some one had planted a bunch of violets on themound, but it was a poor soil (always choose the poorest soils forgrave-yards), and they were all dried to tinder. I was going to sit andrest myself on the bier and think about my brother in heaven, but thebier broke down, the legs being only tacked. So, after driving some hogsout of the yard that were rooting there, I came away, and, not to maketoo long a story of it, here I am, drifting down stream like any otherbit of wreck. "

The herb-doctor was silent for a time, buried in thought. At last, raising his head, he said: "I have considered your whole story, myfriend, and strove to consider it in the light of a commentary on what Ibelieve to be the system of things; but it so jars with all, is soincompatible with all, that you must pardon me, if I honestly tell you, I cannot believe it. "

"That don't surprise me. "

"How?"

"Hardly anybody believes my story, and so to most I tell a differentone. "

"How, again?"

"Wait here a bit and I'll show ye. "

With that, taking off his rag of a cap, and arranging his tatteredregimentals the best he could, off he went stumping among the passengersin an adjoining part of the deck, saying with a jovial kind of air:"Sir, a shilling for Happy Tom, who fought at Buena Vista. Lady, something for General Scott's soldier, crippled in both pins at gloriousContreras. "

Now, it so chanced that, unbeknown to the cripple, a prim-lookingstranger had overheard part of his story. Beholding him, then, on hispresent begging adventure, this person, turning to the herb-doctor, indignantly said: "Is it not too bad, sir, that yonder rascal should lieso?"

"Charity never faileth, my good sir, " was the reply. "The vice of thisunfortunate is pardonable. Consider, he lies not out of wantonness. "

"Not out of wantonness. I never heard more wanton lies. In one breath totell you what would appear to be his true story, and, in the next, awayand falsify it. "

"For all that, I repeat he lies not out of wantonness. A ripephilosopher, turned out of the great Sorbonne of hard times, he thinksthat woes, when told to strangers for money, are best sugared. Thoughthe inglorious lock-jaw of his knee-pans in a wet dungeon is a far morepitiable ill than to have been crippled at glorious Contreras, yet he isof opinion that this lighter and false ill shall attract, while theheavier and real one might repel. "

"Nonsense; he belongs to the Devil's regiment; and I have a great mindto expose him. "

"Shame upon you. Dare to expose that poor unfortunate, and byheaven--don't you do it, sir. "

Noting something in his manner, the other thought it more prudent toretire than retort. By-and-by, the cripple came back, and with glee, having reaped a pretty good harvest. 

"There, " he laughed, "you know now what sort of soldier I am. "

"Aye, one that fights not the stupid Mexican, but a foe worthy yourtactics--Fortune!"

"Hi, hi!" clamored the cripple, like a fellow in the pit of a sixpennytheatre, then said, "don't know much what you meant, but it went offwell. "

This over, his countenance capriciously put on a morose ogreness. Tokindly questions he gave no kindly answers. Unhandsome notions werethrown out about "free Ameriky, " as he sarcastically called his country. These seemed to disturb and pain the herb-doctor, who, after an intervalof thoughtfulness, gravely addressed him in these words:

"You, my Worthy friend, to my concern, have reflected upon thegovernment under which you live and suffer. Where is your patriotism?Where your gratitude? True, the charitable may find something in yourcase, as you put it, partly to account for such reflections as comingfrom you. Still, be the facts how they may, your reflections are nonethe less unwarrantable. Grant, for the moment, that your experiences areas you give them; in which case I would admit that government might bethought to have more or less to do with what seems undesirable in them. But it is never to be forgotten that human government, being subordinateto the divine, must needs, therefore, in its degree, partake of thecharacteristics of the divine. That is, while in general efficacious tohappiness, the world's law may yet, in some cases, have, to the eye ofreason, an unequal operation, just as, in the same imperfect view, someinequalities may appear in the operations of heaven's law; nevertheless, to one who has a right confidence, final benignity is, in everyinstance, as sure with the one law as the other. I expound the point atsome length, because these are the considerations, my poor fellow, which, weighed as they merit, will enable you to sustain with unimpairedtrust the apparent calamities which are yours. "

"What do you talk your hog-latin to me for?" cried the cripple, who, throughout the address, betrayed the most illiterate obduracy; and, withan incensed look, anew he swung himself. 

Glancing another way till the spasm passed, the other continued:

"Charity marvels not that you should be somewhat hard of conviction, myfriend, since you, doubtless, believe yourself hardly dealt by; butforget not that those who are loved are chastened. "

"Mustn't chasten them too much, though, and too long, because their skinand heart get hard, and feel neither pain nor tickle. "

"To mere reason, your case looks something piteous, I grant. But neverdespond; many things--the choicest--yet remain. You breathe thisbounteous air, are warmed by this gracious sun, and, though poor andfriendless, indeed, nor so agile as in your youth, yet, how sweet toroam, day by day, through the groves, plucking the bright mosses andflowers, till forlornness itself becomes a hilarity, and, in yourinnocent independence, you skip for joy. "

"Fine skipping with these 'ere horse-posts--ha ha!"

"Pardon; I forgot the crutches. My mind, figuring you after receivingthe benefit of my art, overlooked you as you stand before me. "

"Your art? You call yourself a bone-setter--a natural bone-setter, doye? Go, bone-set the crooked world, and then come bone-set crooked me. "

"Truly, my honest friend, I thank you for again recalling me to myoriginal object. Let me examine you, " bending down; "ah, I see, I see;much such a case as the negro's. Did you see him? Oh no, you came aboardsince. Well, his case was a little something like yours. I prescribedfor him, and I shouldn't wonder at all if, in a very short time, he wereable to walk almost as well as myself. Now, have you no confidence in myart?"

"Ha, ha!"

The herb-doctor averted himself; but, the wild laugh dying away, resumed:

"I will not force confidence on you. Still, I would fain do the friendlything by you. Here, take this box; just rub that liniment on the jointsnight and morning. Take it. Nothing to pay. God bless you. Good-bye. "

"Stay, " pausing in his swing, not untouched by so unexpected an act;"stay--thank'ee--but will this really do me good? Honor bright, now;will it? Don't deceive a poor fellow, " with changed mien and glisteningeye. 

"Try it. Good-bye. "

"Stay, stay! _Sure_ it will do me good?"

"Possibly, possibly; no harm in trying. Good-bye. "

"Stay, stay; give me three more boxes, and here's the money. "

"My friend, " returning towards him with a sadly pleased sort of air, "Irejoice in the birth of your confidence and hopefulness. Believe methat, like your crutches, confidence and hopefulness will long support aman when his own legs will not. Stick to confidence and hopefulness, then, since how mad for the cripple to throw his crutches away. You askfor three more boxes of my liniment. Luckily, I have just that numberremaining. Here they are. I sell them at half-a-dollar apiece. But Ishall take nothing from you. There; God bless you again; good-bye. "

"Stay, " in a convulsed voice, and rocking himself, "stay, stay! You havemade a better man of me. You have borne with me like a good Christian, and talked to me like one, and all that is enough without making me apresent of these boxes. Here is the money. I won't take nay. There, there; and may Almighty goodness go with you. "

As the herb-doctor withdrew, the cripple gradually subsided from hishard rocking into a gentle oscillation. It expressed, perhaps, thesoothed mood of his reverie. 

CHAPTER XX. 

REAPPEARANCE OF ONE WHO MAY BE REMEMBERED. 

The herb-doctor had not moved far away, when, in advance of him, thisspectacle met his eye. A dried-up old man, with the stature of a boy oftwelve, was tottering about like one out of his mind, in rumpled clothesof old moleskin, showing recent contact with bedding, his ferret eyes, blinking in the sunlight of the snowy boat, as imbecilely eager, and, atintervals, coughing, he peered hither and thither as if in alarmedsearch for his nurse. He presented the aspect of one who, bed-rid, has, through overruling excitement, like that of a fire, been stimulated tohis feet. 

"You seek some one, " said the herb-doctor, accosting him. "Can I assistyou?"

"Do, do; I am so old and miserable, " coughed the old man. "Where is he?This long time I've been trying to get up and find him. But I haven'tany friends, and couldn't get up till now. Where is he?"

"Who do you mean?" drawing closer, to stay the further wanderings of oneso weakly. 

"Why, why, why, " now marking the other's dress, "why you, yes you--you, you--ugh, ugh, ugh!"

"I?"

"Ugh, ugh, ugh!--you are the man he spoke of. Who is he?"

"Faith, that is just what I want to know. "

"Mercy, mercy!" coughed the old man, bewildered, "ever since seeing him, my head spins round so. I ought to have a guard_ee_an. Is this asnuff-colored surtout of yours, or ain't it? Somehow, can't trust mysenses any more, since trusting him--ugh, ugh, ugh!"

"Oh, you have trusted somebody? Glad to hear it. Glad to hear of anyinstance, of that sort. Reflects well upon all men. But you inquirewhether this is a snuff-colored surtout. I answer it is; and will addthat a herb-doctor wears it. "

Upon this the old man, in his broken way, replied that then he (theherb-doctor) was the person he sought--the person spoken of by the otherperson as yet unknown. He then, with flighty eagerness, wanted to knowwho this last person was, and where he was, and whether he could betrusted with money to treble it. 

"Aye, now, I begin to understand; ten to one you mean my worthy friend, who, in pure goodness of heart, makes people's fortunes for them--theireverlasting fortunes, as the phrase goes--only charging his one smallcommission of confidence. Aye, aye; before intrusting funds with myfriend, you want to know about him. Very proper--and, I am glad toassure you, you need have no hesitation; none, none, just none in theworld; bona fide, none. Turned me in a trice a hundred dollars the otherday into as many eagles. "

"Did he? did he? But where is he? Take me to him. "

"Pray, take my arm! The boat is large! We may have something of a hunt!Come on! Ah, is that he?"

"Where? where?"

"O, no; I took yonder coat-skirts for his. But no, my honest friendwould never turn tail that way. Ah!----"

"Where? where?"

"Another mistake. Surprising resemblance. I took yonder clergyman forhim. Come on!"

Having searched that part of the boat without success, they went toanother part, and, while exploring that, the boat sided up to a landing, when, as the two were passing by the open guard, the herb-doctorsuddenly rushed towards the disembarking throng, crying out: "Mr. Truman, Mr. Truman! There he goes--that's he. Mr. Truman, Mr. Truman!--Confound that steam-pipe. , Mr. Truman! for God's sake, Mr. Truman!--No, no. --There, the plank's in--too late--we're off. "

With that, the huge boat, with a mighty, walrus wallow, rolled away fromthe shore, resuming her course. 

"How vexatious!" exclaimed the herb-doctor, returning. "Had we been butone single moment sooner. --There he goes, now, towards yon hotel, hisportmanteau following. You see him, don't you?"

"Where? where?"

"Can't see him any more. Wheel-house shot between. I am very sorry. Ishould have so liked you to have let him have a hundred or so of yourmoney. You would have been pleased with the investment, believe me. "

"Oh, I _have_ let him have some of my money, " groaned the old man. 

"You have? My dear sir, " seizing both the miser's hands in both his ownand heartily shaking them. "My dear sir, how I congratulate you. Youdon't know. "

"Ugh, ugh! I fear I don't, " with another groan. "His name is Truman, isit?"

"John Truman. "

"Where does he live?"

"In St. Louis. "

"Where's his office?"

"Let me see. Jones street, number one hundred and--no, no--anyway, it'ssomewhere or other up-stairs in Jones street. "

"Can't you remember the number? Try, now. "

"One hundred--two hundred--three hundred--"

"Oh, my hundred dollars! I wonder whether it will be one hundred, twohundred, three hundred, with them! Ugh, ugh! Can't remember the number?"

"Positively, though I once knew, I have forgotten, quite forgotten it. Strange. But never mind. You will easily learn in St. Louis. He is wellknown there. "

"But I have no receipt--ugh, ugh! Nothing to show--don't know where Istand--ought to have a guard_ee_an--ugh, ugh! Don't know anything. Ugh, ugh!"

"Why, you know that you gave him your confidence, don't you?"

"Oh, yes. "

"Well, then?"

"But what, what--how, how--ugh, ugh!"

"Why, didn't he tell you?"

"No. "

"What! Didn't he tell you that it was a secret, a mystery?"

"Oh--yes. "

"Well, then?"

"But I have no bond. "

"Don't need any with Mr. Truman. Mr. Truman's word is his bond. "

"But how am I to get my profits--ugh, ugh!--and my money back? Don'tknow anything. Ugh, ugh!"

"Oh, you must have confidence. "

"Don't say that word again. Makes my head spin so. Oh, I'm so old andmiserable, nobody caring for me, everybody fleecing me, and my headspins so--ugh, ugh!--and this cough racks me so. I say again, I ought tohave a guard_ee_an. "

"So you ought; and Mr. Truman is your guardian to the extent youinvested with him. Sorry we missed him just now. But you'll hear fromhim. All right. It's imprudent, though, to expose yourself this way. Letme take you to your berth. "

Forlornly enough the old miser moved slowly away with him. But, whiledescending a stairway, he was seized with such coughing that he was fainto pause. 

"That is a very bad cough. "

"Church-yard--ugh, ugh!--church-yard cough. --Ugh!"

"Have you tried anything for it?"

"Tired of trying. Nothing does me any good--ugh! ugh! Not even theMammoth Cave. Ugh! ugh! Denned there six months, but coughed so bad therest of the coughers--ugh! ugh!--black-balled me out. Ugh, ugh! Nothingdoes me good. "

"But have you tried the Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator, sir?"

"That's what that Truman--ugh, ugh!--said I ought to take. Yarb-medicine; you are that yarb-doctor, too?"

"The same. Suppose you try one of my boxes now. Trust me, from what Iknow of Mr. Truman, he is not the gentleman to recommend, even in behalfof a friend, anything of whose excellence he is not conscientiouslysatisfied. "

"Ugh!--how much?"

"Only two dollars a box. "

"Two dollars? Why don't you say two millions? ugh, ugh! Two dollars, that's two hundred cents; that's eight hundred farthings; that's twothousand mills; and all for one little box of yarb-medicine. My head, myhead!--oh, I ought to have a guard_ee_an for; my head. Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh!"

"Well, if two dollars a box seems too much, take a dozen boxes at twentydollars; and that will be getting four boxes for nothing, and you needuse none but those four, the rest you can retail out at a premium, andso cure your cough, and make money by it. Come, you had better do it. Cash down. Can fill an order in a day or two. Here now, " producing abox; "pure herbs. "

At that moment, seized with another spasm, the miser snatched eachinterval to fix his half distrustful, half hopeful eye upon themedicine, held alluringly up. "Sure--ugh! Sure it's all nat'ral? Nothingbut yarbs? If I only thought it was a purely nat'ral medicine now--allyarbs--ugh, ugh!--oh this cough, this cough--ugh, ugh!--shatters mywhole body. Ugh, ugh, ugh!"

"For heaven's sake try my medicine, if but a single box. That it is purenature you may be confident, Refer you to Mr. Truman. "

"Don't know his number--ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh! Oh this cough. He did speakwell of this medicine though; said solemnly it would cure me--ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh!--take off a dollar and I'll have a box. "

"Can't sir, can't. "

"Say a dollar-and-half. Ugh!"

"Can't. Am pledged to the one-price system, only honorable one. "

"Take off a shilling--ugh, ugh!"

"Can't. "

"Ugh, ugh, ugh--I'll take it. --There. "

Grudgingly he handed eight silver coins, but while still in his hand, his cough took him and they were shaken upon the deck. 

One by one, the herb-doctor picked them up, and, examining them, said:"These are not quarters, these are pistareens; and clipped, and sweated, at that. "

"Oh don't be so miserly--ugh, ugh!--better a beast than a miser--ugh, ugh!"

"Well, let it go. Anything rather than the idea of your not being curedof such a cough. And I hope, for the credit of humanity, you have notmade it appear worse than it is, merely with a view to working upon theweak point of my pity, and so getting my medicine the cheaper. Now, mind, don't take it till night. Just before retiring is the time. There, you can get along now, can't you? I would attend you further, but I landpresently, and must go hunt up my luggage. "

CHAPTER XXI. 

A HARD CASE. 

"Yarbs, yarbs; natur, natur; you foolish old file you! He diddled youwith that hocus-pocus, did he? Yarbs and natur will cure your incurablecough, you think. "

It was a rather eccentric-looking person who spoke; somewhat ursine inaspect; sporting a shaggy spencer of the cloth called bear's-skin; ahigh-peaked cap of raccoon-skin, the long bushy tail switching overbehind; raw-hide leggings; grim stubble chin; and to end, adouble-barreled gun in hand--a Missouri bachelor, a Hoosier gentleman, of Spartan leisure and fortune, and equally Spartan manners andsentiments; and, as the sequel may show, not less acquainted, in aSpartan way of his own, with philosophy and books, than with woodcraftand rifles. 

He must have overheard some of the talk between the miser and theherb-doctor; for, just after the withdrawal of the one, he made up tothe other--now at the foot of the stairs leaning against the balusterthere--with the greeting above. 

"Think it will cure me?" coughed the miser in echo; "why shouldn't it?The medicine is nat'ral yarbs, pure yarbs; yarbs must cure me. "

"Because a thing is nat'ral, as you call it, you think it must be good. But who gave you that cough? Was it, or was it not, nature?"

"Sure, you don't think that natur, Dame Natur, will hurt a body, doyou?"

"Natur is good Queen Bess; but who's responsible for the cholera?"

"But yarbs, yarbs; yarbs are good?"

"What's deadly-nightshade? Yarb, ain't it?"

"Oh, that a Christian man should speak agin natur and yarbs--ugh, ugh, ugh!--ain't sick men sent out into the country; sent out to natur andgrass?"

"Aye, and poets send out the sick spirit to green pastures, like lamehorses turned out unshod to the turf to renew their hoofs. A sort ofyarb-doctors in their way, poets have it that for sore hearts, as forsore lungs, nature is the grand cure. But who froze to death my teamsteron the prairie? And who made an idiot of Peter the Wild Boy?"

"Then you don't believe in these 'ere yarb-doctors?"

"Yarb-doctors? I remember the lank yarb-doctor I saw once on ahospital-cot in Mobile. One of the faculty passing round and seeing wholay there, said with professional triumph, 'Ah, Dr. Green, your yarbsdon't help ye now, Dr. Green. Have to come to us and the mercury now, Dr. Green. --Natur! Y-a-r-b-s!'"

"Did I hear something about herbs and herb-doctors?" here said aflute-like voice, advancing. 

It was the herb-doctor in person. Carpet-bag in hand, he happened to bestrolling back that way. 

"Pardon me, " addressing the Missourian, "but if I caught your wordsaright, you would seem to have little confidence in nature; which, really, in my way of thinking, looks like carrying the spirit ofdistrust pretty far. "

"And who of my sublime species may you be?" turning short round uponhim, clicking his rifle-lock, with an air which would have seemed halfcynic, half wild-cat, were it not for the grotesque excess of theexpression, which made its sincerity appear more or less dubious. 

"One who has confidence in nature, and confidence in man, with somelittle modest confidence in himself. "

"That's your Confession of Faith, is it? Confidence in man, eh? Pray, which do you think are most, knaves or fools?"

"Having met with few or none of either, I hardly think I am competent toanswer. "

"I will answer for you. Fools are most. "

"Why do you think so?"

"For the same reason that I think oats are numerically more than horses. Don't knaves munch up fools just as horses do oats?"

"A droll, sir; you are a droll. I can appreciate drollery--ha, ha, ha!"

"But I'm in earnest. "

"That's the drollery, to deliver droll extravagance with an earnestair--knaves munching up fools as horses oats. --Faith, very droll, indeed, ha, ha, ha! Yes, I think I understand you now, sir. How silly Iwas to have taken you seriously, in your droll conceits, too, abouthaving no confidence in nature. In reality you have just as much as Ihave. "

"_I_ have confidence in nature? _I?_ I say again there is nothing I ammore suspicious of. I once lost ten thousand dollars by nature. Natureembezzled that amount from me; absconded with ten thousand dollars'worth of my property; a plantation on this stream, swept clean away byone of those sudden shiftings of the banks in a freshet; ten thousanddollars' worth of alluvion thrown broad off upon the waters. "

"But have you no confidence that by a reverse shifting that soil willcome back after many days?--ah, here is my venerable friend, " observingthe old miser, "not in your berth yet? Pray, if you _will_ keep afoot, don't lean against that baluster; take my arm. "

It was taken; and the two stood together; the old miser leaning againstthe herb-doctor with something of that air of trustful fraternity withwhich, when standing, the less strong of the Siamese twins habituallyleans against the other. 

The Missourian eyed them in silence, which was broken by theherb-doctor. 

"You look surprised, sir. Is it because I publicly take under myprotection a figure like this? But I am never ashamed of honesty, whatever his coat. "

"Look you, " said the Missourian, after a scrutinizing pause, "you are aqueer sort of chap. Don't know exactly what to make of you. Upon thewhole though, you somewhat remind me of the last boy I had on my place. "

"Good, trustworthy boy, I hope?"

"Oh, very! I am now started to get me made some kind of machine to dothe sort of work which boys are supposed to be fitted for. "

"Then you have passed a veto upon boys?"

"And men, too. "

"But, my dear sir, does not that again imply more or less lack ofconfidence?--(Stand up a little, just a very little, my venerablefriend; you lean rather hard. )--No confidence in boys, no confidence inmen, no confidence in nature. Pray, sir, who or what may you haveconfidence in?"

"I have confidence in distrust; more particularly as applied to you andyour herbs. "

"Well, " with a forbearing smile, "that is frank. But pray, don't forgetthat when you suspect my herbs you suspect nature. "

"Didn't I say that before?"

"Very good. For the argument's sake I will suppose you are in earnest. Now, can you, who suspect nature, deny, that this same nature not onlykindly brought you into being, but has faithfully nursed you to yourpresent vigorous and independent condition? Is it not to nature that youare indebted for that robustness of mind which you so unhandsomely useto her scandal? Pray, is it not to nature that you owe the very eyes bywhich you criticise her?"

"No! for the privilege of vision I am indebted to an oculist, who in mytenth year operated upon me in Philadelphia. Nature made me blind andwould have kept me so. My oculist counterplotted her. "

"And yet, sir, by your complexion, I judge you live an out-of-door life;without knowing it, you are partial to nature; you fly to nature, theuniversal mother. "

"Very motherly! Sir, in the passion-fits of nature, I've known birds flyfrom nature to me, rough as I look; yes, sir, in a tempest, refugehere, " smiting the folds of his bearskin. "Fact, sir, fact. Come, come, Mr. Palaverer, for all your palavering, did you yourself never shut outnature of a cold, wet night? Bar her out? Bolt her out? Lint her out?"

"As to that, " said the herb-doctor calmly, "much may be said. "

"Say it, then, " ruffling all his hairs. "You can't, sir, can't. " Then, as in apostrophe: "Look you, nature! I don't deny but your clover issweet, and your dandelions don't roar; but whose hailstones smashed mywindows?"

"Sir, " with unimpaired affability, producing one of his boxes, "I ampained to meet with one who holds nature a dangerous character. Thoughyour manner is refined your voice is rough; in short, you seem to have asore throat. In the calumniated name of nature, I present you with thisbox; my venerable friend here has a similar one; but to you, a freegift, sir. Through her regularly-authorized agents, of whom I happen tobe one, Nature delights in benefiting those who most abuse her. Pray, take it. "

"Away with it! Don't hold it so near. Ten to one there is a torpedo init. Such things have been. Editors been killed that way. Take it furtheroff, I say. "

"Good heavens! my dear sir----"

"I tell you I want none of your boxes, " snapping his rifle. 

"Oh, take it--ugh, ugh! do take it, " chimed in the old miser; "I wish hewould give me one for nothing. "

"You find it lonely, eh, " turning short round; "gulled yourself, youwould have a companion. "

"How can he find it lonely, " returned the herb-doctor, "or how desire acompanion, when here I stand by him; I, even I, in whom he has trust. For the gulling, tell me, is it humane to talk so to this poor old man?Granting that his dependence on my medicine is vain, is it kind todeprive him of what, in mere imagination, if nothing more, may help ekeout, with hope, his disease? For you, if you have no confidence, and, thanks to your native health, can get along without it, so far, atleast, as trusting in my medicine goes; yet, how cruel an argument touse, with this afflicted one here. Is it not for all the world as ifsome brawny pugilist, aglow in December, should rush in and put out ahospital-fire, because, forsooth, he feeling no need of artificial heat, the shivering patients shall have none? Put it to your conscience, sir, and you will admit, that, whatever be the nature of this afflicted one'strust, you, in opposing it, evince either an erring head or a heartamiss. Come, own, are you not pitiless?"

"Yes, poor soul, " said the Missourian, gravely eying the old man--"yes, it _is_ pitiless in one like me to speak too honestly to one like you. You are a late sitter-up in this life; past man's usual bed-time; andtruth, though with some it makes a wholesome breakfast, proves to all asupper too hearty. Hearty food, taken late, gives bad dreams. "

"What, in wonder's name--ugh, ugh!--is he talking about?" asked the oldmiser, looking up to the herb-doctor. 

"Heaven be praised for that!" cried the Missourian. 

"Out of his mind, ain't he?" again appealed the old miser. 

"Pray, sir, " said the herb-doctor to the Missourian, "for what were yougiving thanks just now?"

"For this: that, with some minds, truth is, in effect, not so cruel athing after all, seeing that, like a loaded pistol found by poor devilsof savages, it raises more wonder than terror--its peculiar virtue beingunguessed, unless, indeed, by indiscreet handling, it should happen togo off of itself. "

"I pretend not to divine your meaning there, " said the herb-doctor, after a pause, during which he eyed the Missourian with a kind ofpinched expression, mixed of pain and curiosity, as if he grieved at hisstate of mind, and, at the same time, wondered what had brought him toit, "but this much I know, " he added, "that the general cast of yourthoughts is, to say the least, unfortunate. There is strength in them, but a strength, whose source, being physical, must wither. You will yetrecant. "

"Recant?"

"Yes, when, as with this old man, your evil days of decay come on, whena hoary captive in your chamber, then will you, something like thedungeoned Italian we read of, gladly seek the breast of that confidencebegot in the tender time of your youth, blessed beyond telling if itreturn to you in age. "

"Go back to nurse again, eh? Second childhood, indeed. You are soft. "

"Mercy, mercy!" cried the old miser, "what is all this!--ugh, ugh! Dotalk sense, my good friends. Ain't you, " to the Missourian, "going tobuy some of that medicine?"

"Pray, my venerable friend, " said the herb-doctor, now trying tostraighten himself, "don't lean _quite_ so hard; my arm grows numb;abate a little, just a very little. "

"Go, " said the Missourian, "go lay down in your grave, old man, if youcan't stand of yourself. It's a hard world for a leaner. "

"As to his grave, " said the herb-doctor, "that is far enough off, so hebut faithfully take my medicine. "

"Ugh, ugh, ugh!--He says true. No, I ain't--ugh! a going to dieyet--ugh, ugh, ugh! Many years to live yet, ugh, ugh, ugh!"

"I approve your confidence, " said the herb-doctor; "but your coughingdistresses me, besides being injurious to you. Pray, let me conduct youto your berth. You are best there. Our friend here will wait till myreturn, I know. "

With which he led the old miser away, and then, coming back, the talkwith the Missourian was resumed. 

"Sir, " said the herb-doctor, with some dignity and more feeling, "nowthat our infirm friend is withdrawn, allow me, to the full, to expressmy concern at the words you allowed to escape you in his hearing. Someof those words, if I err not, besides being calculated to begetdeplorable distrust in the patient, seemed fitted to convey unpleasantimputations against me, his physician. "

"Suppose they did?" with a menacing air. 

"Why, then--then, indeed, " respectfully retreating, "I fall back upon myprevious theory of your general facetiousness. I have the fortune to bein company with a humorist--a wag. "

"Fall back you had better, and wag it is, " cried the Missourian, following him up, and wagging his raccoon tail almost into theherb-doctor's face, "look you!"

"At what?"

"At this coon. Can you, the fox, catch him?"

"If you mean, " returned the other, not unselfpossessed, "whether Iflatter myself that I can in any way dupe you, or impose upon you, orpass myself off upon you for what I am not, I, as an honest man, answerthat I have neither the inclination nor the power to do aught of thekind. "

"Honest man? Seems to me you talk more like a craven. "

"You in vain seek to pick a quarrel with me, or put any affront upon me. The innocence in me heals me. "

"A healing like your own nostrums. But you are a queer man--a very queerand dubious man; upon the whole, about the most so I ever met. "

The scrutiny accompanying this seemed unwelcome to the diffidence of theherb-doctor. As if at once to attest the absence of resentment, as wellas to change the subject, he threw a kind of familiar cordiality intohis air, and said: "So you are going to get some machine made to do yourwork? Philanthropic scruples, doubtless, forbid your going as far as NewOrleans for slaves?"

"Slaves?" morose again in a twinkling, "won't have 'em! Bad enough tosee whites ducking and grinning round for a favor, without having thosepoor devils of niggers congeeing round for their corn. Though, to me, the niggers are the freer of the two. You are an abolitionist, ain'tyou?" he added, squaring himself with both hands on his rifle, used fora staff, and gazing in the herb-doctor's face with no more reverencethan if it were a target. "You are an abolitionist, ain't you?"

"As to that, I cannot so readily answer. If by abolitionist you mean azealot, I am none; but if you mean a man, who, being a man, feels forall men, slaves included, and by any lawful act, opposed to nobody'sinterest, and therefore, rousing nobody's enmity, would willinglyabolish suffering (supposing it, in its degree, to exist) from amongmankind, irrespective of color, then am I what you say. "

"Picked and prudent sentiments. You are the moderate man, the invaluableunderstrapper of the wicked man. You, the moderate man, may be used forwrong, but are useless for right. "

"From all this, " said the herb-doctor, still forgivingly, "I infer, thatyou, a Missourian, though living in a slave-state, are without slavesentiments. "

"Aye, but are you? Is not that air of yours, so spiritlessly enduringand yielding, the very air of a slave? Who is your master, pray; or areyou owned by a company?"

"_My_ master?"

"Aye, for come from Maine or Georgia, you come from a slave-state, and aslave-pen, where the best breeds are to be bought up at any price from alivelihood to the Presidency. Abolitionism, ye gods, but expresses thefellow-feeling of slave for slave. "

"The back-woods would seem to have given you rather eccentric notions, "now with polite superiority smiled the herb-doctor, still with manlyintrepidity forbearing each unmanly thrust, "but to return; since, foryour purpose, you will have neither man nor boy, bond nor free, truly, then some sort of machine for you is all there is left. My desires foryour success attend you, sir. --Ah!" glancing shoreward, "here is CapeGirádeau; I must leave you. "

CHAPTER XXII. 

IN THE POLITE SPIRIT OF THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS. 

--"'Philosophical Intelligence Office'--novel idea! But how did you cometo dream that I wanted anything in your absurd line, eh?"

About twenty minutes after leaving Cape Girádeau, the above was growledout over his shoulder by the Missourian to a chance stranger who hadjust accosted him; a round-backed, baker-kneed man, in a meanfive-dollar suit, wearing, collar-wise by a chain, a small brass plate, inscribed P. I. O. , and who, with a sort of canine deprecation, slunkobliquely behind. 

"How did you come to dream that I wanted anything in your line, eh?"

"Oh, respected sir, " whined the other, crouching a pace nearer, and, inhis obsequiousness, seeming to wag his very coat-tails behind him, shabby though they were, "oh, sir, from long experience, one glancetells me the gentleman who is in need of our humble services. "

"But suppose I did want a boy--what they jocosely call a good boy--howcould your absurd office help me?--Philosophical Intelligence Office?"

"Yes, respected sir, an office founded on strictly philosophical andphysio----"

"Look you--come up here--how, by philosophy or physiology either, makegood boys to order? Come up here. Don't give me a crick in the neck. Come up here, come, sir, come, " calling as if to his pointer. "Tell me, how put the requisite assortment of good qualities into a boy, as theassorted mince into the pie?"

"Respected sir, our office----"

"You talk much of that office. Where is it? On board this boat?"

"Oh no, sir, I just came aboard. Our office----"

"Came aboard at that last landing, eh? Pray, do you know a herb-doctorthere? Smooth scamp in a snuff-colored surtout?"

"Oh, sir, I was but a sojourner at Cape Girádeau. Though, now that youmention a snuff-colored surtout, I think I met such a man as you speakof stepping ashore as I stepped aboard, and 'pears to me I have seen himsomewhere before. Looks like a very mild Christian sort of person, Ishould say. Do you know him, respected sir?"

"Not much, but better than you seem to. Proceed with your business. "

With a low, shabby bow, as grateful for the permission, the other began:"Our office----"

"Look you, " broke in the bachelor with ire, "have you the spinalcomplaint? What are you ducking and groveling about? Keep still. Where'syour office?"

"The branch one which I represent, is at Alton, sir, in the free statewe now pass, " (pointing somewhat proudly ashore). 

"Free, eh? You a freeman, you flatter yourself? With those coat-tailsand that spinal complaint of servility? Free? Just cast up in yourprivate mind who is your master, will you?"

"Oh, oh, oh! I don't understand--indeed--indeed. But, respected sir, asbefore said, our office, founded on principles wholly new----"

"To the devil with your principles! Bad sign when a man begins to talkof his principles. Hold, come back, sir; back here, back, sir, back! Itell you no more boys for me. Nay, I'm a Mede and Persian. In my oldhome in the woods I'm pestered enough with squirrels, weasels, chipmunks, skunks. I want no more wild vermin to spoil my temper andwaste my substance. Don't talk of boys; enough of your boys; a plague ofyour boys; chilblains on your boys! As for Intelligence Offices, I'velived in the East, and know 'em. Swindling concerns kept by low-borncynics, under a fawning exterior wreaking their cynic malice uponmankind. You are a fair specimen of 'em. "

"Oh dear, dear, dear!"

"Dear? Yes, a thrice dear purchase one of your boys would be to me. Arot on your boys!"

"But, respected sir, if you will not have boys, might we not, in oursmall way, accommodate you with a man?"

"Accommodate? Pray, no doubt you could accommodate me with abosom-friend too, couldn't you? Accommodate! Obliging word accommodate:there's accommodation notes now, where one accommodates another with aloan, and if he don't pay it pretty quickly, accommodates him, with achain to his foot. Accommodate! God forbid that I should ever beaccommodated. No, no. Look you, as I told that cousin-german of yours, the herb-doctor, I'm now on the road to get me made some sort of machineto do my work. Machines for me. My cider-mill--does that ever steal mycider? My mowing-machine--does that ever lay a-bed mornings? Mycorn-husker--does that ever give me insolence? No: cider-mill, mowing-machine, corn-husker--all faithfully attend to their business. Disinterested, too; no board, no wages; yet doing good all their liveslong; shining examples that virtue is its own reward--the only practicalChristians I know. "

"Oh dear, dear, dear, dear!"

"Yes, sir:--boys? Start my soul-bolts, what a difference, in a moralpoint of view, between a corn-husker and a boy! Sir, a corn-husker, forits patient continuance in well-doing, might not unfitly go to heaven. Do you suppose a boy will?"

"A corn-husker in heaven! (turning up the whites of his eyes). Respectedsir, this way of talking as if heaven were a kind of Washingtonpatent-office museum--oh, oh, oh!--as if mere machine-work andpuppet-work went to heaven--oh, oh, oh! Things incapable of free agency, to receive the eternal reward of well-doing--oh, oh, oh!"

"You Praise-God-Barebones you, what are you groaning about? Did I sayanything of that sort? Seems to me, though you talk so good, you aremighty quick at a hint the other way, or else you want to pick a polemicquarrel with me. "

"It may be so or not, respected sir, " was now the demure reply; "but ifit be, it is only because as a soldier out of honor is quick in takingaffront, so a Christian out of religion is quick, sometimes perhaps alittle too much so, in spying heresy. "

"Well, " after an astonished pause, "for an unaccountable pair, you andthe herb-doctor ought to yoke together. "

So saying, the bachelor was eying him rather sharply, when he with thebrass plate recalled him to the discussion by a hint, not unflattering, that he (the man with the brass plate) was all anxiety to hear himfurther on the subject of servants. 

"About that matter, " exclaimed the impulsive bachelor, going offat the hint like a rocket, "all thinking minds are, now-a-days, coming to the conclusion--one derived from an immense hereditaryexperience--see what Horace and others of the ancients say ofservants--coming to the conclusion, I say, that boy or man, thehuman animal is, for most work-purposes, a losing animal. Can't betrusted; less trustworthy than oxen; for conscientiousness a turn-spitdog excels him. Hence these thousand new inventions--carding machines, horseshoe machines, tunnel-boring machines, reaping machines, apple-paring machines, boot-blacking machines, sewing machines, shavingmachines, run-of-errand machines, dumb-waiter machines, and theLord-only-knows-what machines; all of which announce the era when thatrefractory animal, the working or serving man, shall be a buriedby-gone, a superseded fossil. Shortly prior to which glorious time, Idoubt not that a price will be put upon their peltries as upon theknavish 'possums, ' especially the boys. Yes, sir (ringing his rifle downon the deck), I rejoice to think that the day is at hand, when, promptedto it by law, I shall shoulder this gun and go out a boy-shooting. "

"Oh, now! Lord, Lord, Lord!--But _our_ office, respected sir, conductedas I ventured to observe----"

"No, sir, " bristlingly settling his stubble chin in his coon-skins. "Don't try to oil me; the herb-doctor tried that. My experience, carriednow through a course--worse than salivation--a course of five and thirtyboys, proves to me that boyhood is a natural state of rascality. "

"Save us, save us!"

"Yes, sir, yes. My name is Pitch; I stick to what I say. I speak fromfifteen years' experience; five and thirty boys; American, Irish, English, German, African, Mulatto; not to speak of that China boy sentme by one who well knew my perplexities, from California; and thatLascar boy from Bombay. Thug! I found him sucking the embryo life frommy spring eggs. All rascals, sir, every soul of them; Caucasian orMongol. Amazing the endless variety of rascality in human nature of thejuvenile sort. I remember that, having discharged, one after another, twenty-nine boys--each, too, for some wholly unforeseen species ofviciousness peculiar to that one peculiar boy--I remember saying tomyself: Now, then, surely, I have got to the end of the list, whollyexhausted it; I have only now to get me a boy, any boy different fromthose twenty-nine preceding boys, and he infallibly shall be thatvirtuous boy I have so long been seeking. But, bless me! this thirtiethboy--by the way, having at the time long forsworn your intelligenceoffices, I had him sent to me from the Commissioners of Emigration, allthe way from New York, culled out carefully, in fine, at my particularrequest, from a standing army of eight hundred boys, the flowers of allnations, so they wrote me, temporarily in barracks on an East Riverisland--I say, this thirtieth boy was in person not ungraceful; hisdeceased mother a lady's maid, or something of that sort; and in manner, why, in a plebeian way, a perfect Chesterfield; very intelligent, too--quick as a flash. But, such suavity! 'Please sir! please sir!'always bowing and saying, 'Please sir. ' In the strangest way, too, combining a filial affection with a menial respect. Took such warm, singular interest in my affairs. Wanted to be considered one of thefamily--sort of adopted son of mine, I suppose. Of a morning, when Iwould go out to my stable, with what childlike good nature he would trotout my nag, 'Please sir, I think he's getting fatter and fatter. ' 'But, he don't look very clean, does he?' unwilling to be downright harsh withso affectionate a lad; 'and he seems a little hollow inside the haunchthere, don't he? or no, perhaps I don't see plain this morning. ' 'Oh, please sir, it's just there I think he's gaining so, please. ' Politescamp! I soon found he never gave that wretched nag his oats of nights;didn't bed him either. Was above that sort of chambermaid work. No endto his willful neglects. But the more he abused my service, the morepolite he grew. "

"Oh, sir, some way you mistook him. "

"Not a bit of it. Besides, sir, he was a boy who under a Chesterfieldianexterior hid strong destructive propensities. He cut up my horse-blanketfor the bits of leather, for hinges to his chest. Denied it point-blank. After he was gone, found the shreds under his mattress. Wouldslyly break his hoe-handle, too, on purpose to get rid of hoeing. Then be so gracefully penitent for his fatal excess of industriousstrength. Offer to mend all by taking a nice stroll to the nighestsettlement--cherry-trees in full bearing all the way--to get the brokenthing cobbled. Very politely stole my pears, odd pennies, shillings, dollars, and nuts; regular squirrel at it. But I could prove nothing. Expressed to him my suspicions. Said I, moderately enough, 'A littleless politeness, and a little more honesty would suit me better. ' Hefired up; threatened to sue for libel. I won't say anything about hisafterwards, in Ohio, being found in the act of gracefully putting a baracross a rail-road track, for the reason that a stoker called him therogue that he was. But enough: polite boys or saucy boys, white boys orblack boys, smart boys or lazy boys, Caucasian boys or Mongol boys--allare rascals. "

"Shocking, shocking!" nervously tucking his frayed cravat-end out ofsight. "Surely, respected sir, you labor under a deplorablehallucination. Why, pardon again, you seem to have not the slightestconfidence in boys, I admit, indeed, that boys, some of them at least, are but too prone to one little foolish foible or other. But, what then, respected sir, when, by natural laws, they finally outgrow such things, and wholly?"

Having until now vented himself mostly in plaintive dissent of caninewhines and groans, the man with the brass-plate seemed beginning tosummon courage to a less timid encounter. But, upon his maiden essay, was not very encouragingly handled, since the dialogue immediatelycontinued as follows:

"Boys outgrow what is amiss in them? From bad boys spring good men? Sir, 'the child is father of the man;' hence, as all boys are rascals, so areall men. But, God bless me, you must know these things better than I;keeping an intelligence office as you do; a business which must furnishpeculiar facilities for studying mankind. Come, come up here, sir;confess you know these things pretty well, after all. Do you not knowthat all men are rascals, and all boys, too?"

"Sir, " replied the other, spite of his shocked feelings seeming to pluckup some spirit, but not to an indiscreet degree, "Sir, heaven bepraised, I am far, very far from knowing what you say. True, " hethoughtfully continued, "with my associates, I keep an intelligenceoffice, and for ten years, come October, have, one way or other, beenconcerned in that line; for no small period in the great city ofCincinnati, too; and though, as you hint, within that long interval, Imust have had more or less favorable opportunity for studyingmankind--in a business way, scanning not only the faces, but ransackingthe lives of several thousands of human beings, male and female, ofvarious nations, both employers and employed, genteel and ungenteel, educated and uneducated; yet--of course, I candidly admit, with somerandom exceptions, I have, so far as my small observation goes, foundthat mankind thus domestically viewed, confidentially viewed, I may say;they, upon the whole--making some reasonable allowances for humanimperfection--present as pure a moral spectacle as the purest angelcould wish. I say it, respected sir, with confidence. "

"Gammon! You don't mean what you say. Else you are like a landsman atsea: don't know the ropes, the very things everlastingly pulled beforeyour eyes. Serpent-like, they glide about, traveling blocks too subtlefor you. In short, the entire ship is a riddle. Why, you green oneswouldn't know if she were unseaworthy; but still, with thumbs stuck backinto your arm-holes, pace the rotten planks, singing, like a fool, wordsput into your green mouth by the cunning owner, the man who, heavilyinsuring it, sends his ship to be wrecked--

 'A wet sheet and a flowing sea!'--

and, sir, now that it occurs to me, your talk, the whole of it, isbut a wet sheet and a flowing sea, and an idle wind that follows fast, offering a striking contrast to my own discourse. "

"Sir, " exclaimed the man with the brass-plate, his patience now more orless tasked, "permit me with deference to hint that some of your remarksare injudiciously worded. And thus we say to our patrons, when theyenter our office full of abuse of us because of some worthy boy we mayhave sent them--some boy wholly misjudged for the time. Yes, sir, permitme to remark that you do not sufficiently consider that, though a smallman, I may have my small share of feelings. "

"Well, well, I didn't mean to wound your feelings at all. And that theyare small, very small, I take your word for it. Sorry, sorry. But truthis like a thrashing-machine; tender sensibilities must keep out of theway. Hope you understand me. Don't want to hurt you. All I say is, whatI said in the first place, only now I swear it, that all boys arerascals. "

"Sir, " lowly replied the other, still forbearing like an old lawyerbadgered in court, or else like a good-hearted simpleton, the butt ofmischievous wags, "Sir, since you come back to the point, will you allowme, in my small, quiet way, to submit to you certain small, quiet viewsof the subject in hand?"

"Oh, yes!" with insulting indifference, rubbing his chin and looking theother way. "Oh, yes; go on. "

"Well, then, respected sir, " continued the other, now assuming asgenteel an attitude as the irritating set of his pinched five-dollarsuit would permit; "well, then, sir, the peculiar principles, thestrictly philosophical principles, I may say, " guardedly rising indignity, as he guardedly rose on his toes, "upon which our office isfounded, has led me and my associates, in our small, quiet way, to acareful analytical study of man, conducted, too, on a quiet theory, andwith an unobtrusive aim wholly our own. That theory I will not now atlarge set forth. But some of the discoveries resulting from it, I will, by your permission, very briefly mention; such of them, I mean, as referto the state of boyhood scientifically viewed. "

"Then you have studied the thing? expressly studied boys, eh? Why didn'tyou out with that before?"

"Sir, in my small business way, I have not conversed with so manymasters, gentlemen masters, for nothing. I have been taught that in thisworld there is a precedence of opinions as well as of persons. You havekindly given me your views, I am now, with modesty, about to give youmine. "

"Stop flunkying--go on. "

"In the first place, sir, our theory teaches us to proceed by analogyfrom the physical to the moral. Are we right there, sir? Now, sir, takea young boy, a young male infant rather, a man-child in short--what sir, I respectfully ask, do you in the first place remark?"

"A rascal, sir! present and prospective, a rascal!"

"Sir, if passion is to invade, surely science must evacuate. May Iproceed? Well, then, what, in the first place, in a general view, do youremark, respected sir, in that male baby or man-child?"

The bachelor privily growled, but this time, upon the whole, bettergoverned himself than before, though not, indeed, to the degree ofthinking it prudent to risk an articulate response. 

"What do you remark? I respectfully repeat. " But, as no answer came, only the low, half-suppressed growl, as of Bruin in a hollow trunk, thequestioner continued: "Well, sir, if you will permit me, in my smallway, to speak for you, you remark, respected sir, an incipient creation;loose sort of sketchy thing; a little preliminary rag-paper study, orcareless cartoon, so to speak, of a man. The idea, you see, respectedsir, is there; but, as yet, wants filling out. In a word, respected sir, the man-child is at present but little, every way; I don't pretend todeny it; but, then, he _promises_ well, does he not? Yes, promises verywell indeed, I may say. (So, too, we say to our patrons in reference tosome noble little youngster objected to for being a _dwarf_. ) But, toadvance one step further, " extending his thread-bare leg, as he drew apace nearer, "we must now drop the figure of the rag-paper cartoon, andborrow one--to use presently, when wanted--from the horticulturalkingdom. Some bud, lily-bud, if you please. Now, such points as thenew-born man-child has--as yet not all that could be desired, I am freeto confess--still, such as they are, there they are, and palpable asthose of an adult. But we stop not here, " taking another step. "Theman-child not only possesses these present points, small though theyare, but, likewise--now our horticultural image comes into play--likethe bud of the lily, he contains concealed rudiments of others; thatis, points at present invisible, with beauties at present dormant. "

"Come, come, this talk is getting too horticultural and beautifulaltogether. Cut it short, cut it short!"

"Respected sir, " with a rustily martial sort of gesture, like a decayedcorporal's, "when deploying into the field of discourse the vanguard ofan important argument, much more in evolving the grand central forces ofa hew philosophy of boys, as I may say, surely you will kindly allowscope adequate to the movement in hand, small and humble in its way asthat movement may be. Is it worth my while to go on, respected sir?"

"Yes, stop flunkying and go on. "

Thus encouraged, again the philosopher with the brass-plate proceeded:

"Supposing, sir, that worthy gentleman (in such terms, to an applicantfor service, we allude to some patron we chance to have in our eye), supposing, respected sir, that worthy gentleman, Adam, to have beendropped overnight in Eden, as a calf in the pasture; supposing that, sir--then how could even the learned serpent himself have foreknown thatsuch a downy-chinned little innocent would eventually rival the goat ina beard? Sir, wise as the serpent was, that eventuality would have beenentirely hidden from his wisdom. "

"I don't know about that. The devil is very sagacious. To judge by theevent, he appears to have understood man better even than the Being whomade him. "

"For God's sake, don't say that, sir! To the point. Can it now withfairness be denied that, in his beard, the man-child prospectivelypossesses an appendix, not less imposing than patriarchal; and for thisgoodly beard, should we not by generous anticipation give the man-child, even in his cradle, credit? Should we not now, sir? respectfully I putit. "

"Yes, if like pig-weed he mows it down soon as it shoots, " porcinelyrubbing his stubble-chin against his coon-skins. 

"I have hinted at the analogy, " continued the other, calmly disregardfulof the digression; "now to apply it. Suppose a boy evince no noblequality. Then generously give him credit for his prospective one. Don'tyou see? So we say to our patrons when they would fain return a boy uponus as unworthy: 'Madam, or sir, (as the case may be) has this boy abeard?' 'No. ' 'Has he, we respectfully ask, as yet, evinced any noblequality?' 'No, indeed. ' 'Then, madam, or sir, take him back, we humblybeseech; and keep him till that same noble quality sprouts; for, haveconfidence, it, like the beard, is in him. '"

"Very fine theory, " scornfully exclaimed the bachelor, yet in secret, perhaps, not entirely undisturbed by these strange new views of thematter; "but what trust is to be placed in it?"

"The trust of perfect confidence, sir. To proceed. Once more, if youplease, regard the man-child. "

"Hold!" paw-like thrusting put his bearskin arm, "don't intrude thatman-child upon me too often. He who loves not bread, dotes not ondough. As little of your man-child as your logical arrangements willadmit. "

"Anew regard the man-child, " with inspired intrepidity repeated he withthe brass-plate, "in the perspective of his developments, I mean. Atfirst the man-child has no teeth, but about the sixth month--am I right, sir?"

"Don't know anything about it. "

"To proceed then: though at first deficient in teeth, about the sixthmonth the man-child begins to put forth in that particular. And sweetthose tender little puttings-forth are. "

"Very, but blown out of his mouth directly, worthless enough. "

"Admitted. And, therefore, we say to our patrons returning with a boyalleged not only to be deficient in goodness, but redundant in ill: 'Thelad, madam or sir, evinces very corrupt qualities, does he? No end tothem. ' 'But, have confidence, there will be; for pray, madam, in thislad's early childhood, were not those frail first teeth, then his, followed by his present sound, even, beautiful and permanent set. Andthe more objectionable those first teeth became, was not that, madam, werespectfully submit, so much the more reason to look for their speedysubstitution by the present sound, even, beautiful and permanent ones. ''True, true, can't deny that. ' 'Then, madam, take him back, werespectfully beg, and wait till, in the now swift course of nature, dropping those transient moral blemishes you complain of, hereplacingly buds forth in the sound, even, beautiful and permanentvirtues. '"

"Very philosophical again, " was the contemptuous reply--the outwardcontempt, perhaps, proportioned to the inward misgiving. "Vastlyphilosophical, indeed, but tell me--to continue your analogy--since thesecond teeth followed--in fact, came from--the first, is there no chancethe blemish may be transmitted?"

"Not at all. " Abating in humility as he gained in the argument. "Thesecond teeth follow, but do not come from, the first; successors, notsons. The first teeth are not like the germ blossom of the apple, atonce the father of, and incorporated into, the growth it foreruns; butthey are thrust from their place by the independent undergrowth of thesucceeding set--an illustration, by the way, which shows more for methan I meant, though not more than I wish. "

"What does it show?" Surly-looking as a thundercloud with the inkeptunrest of unacknowledged conviction. 

"It shows this, respected sir, that in the case of any boy, especiallyan ill one, to apply unconditionally the saying, that the 'child isfather of the man', is, besides implying an uncharitable aspersion ofthe race, affirming a thing very wide of----"

"--Your analogy, " like a snapping turtle. 

"Yes, respected sir. "

"But is analogy argument? You are a punster. "

"Punster, respected sir?" with a look of being aggrieved. 

"Yes, you pun with ideas as another man may with words. "

"Oh well, sir, whoever talks in that strain, whoever has no confidencein human reason, whoever despises human reason, in vain to reason withhim. Still, respected sir, " altering his air, "permit me to hint that, had not the force of analogy moved you somewhat, you would hardly haveoffered to contemn it. "

"Talk away, " disdainfully; "but pray tell me what has that last analogyof yours to do with your intelligence office business?"

"Everything to do with it, respected sir. From that analogy we derivethe reply made to such a patron as, shortly after being supplied by uswith an adult servant, proposes to return him upon our hands; not that, while with the patron, said adult has given any cause ofdissatisfaction, but the patron has just chanced to hear somethingunfavorable concerning him from some gentleman who employed said adult, long before, while a boy. To which too fastidious patron, we, takingsaid adult by the hand, and graciously reintroducing him to the patron, say: 'Far be it from you, madam, or sir, to proceed in your censureagainst this adult, in anything of the spirit of an ex-post-facto law. Madam, or sir, would you visit upon the butterfly the caterpillar? Inthe natural advance of all creatures, do they not bury themselves overand over again in the endless resurrection of better and better? Madam, or sir, take back this adult; he may have been a caterpillar, but is nowa butterfly. "

"Pun away; but even accepting your analogical pun, what does it amountto? Was the caterpillar one creature, and is the butterfly another? Thebutterfly is the caterpillar in a gaudy cloak; stripped of which, therelies the impostor's long spindle of a body, pretty much worm-shaped asbefore. "

"You reject the analogy. To the facts then. You deny that a youth of onecharacter can be transformed into a man of an opposite character. Nowthen--yes, I have it. There's the founder of La Trappe, and IgnatiusLoyola; in boyhood, and someway into manhood, both devil-may-carebloods, and yet, in the end, the wonders of the world for anchoritishself-command. These two examples, by-the-way, we cite to such patrons aswould hastily return rakish young waiters upon us. 'Madam, orsir--patience; patience, ' we say; 'good madam, or sir, would youdischarge forth your cask of good wine, because, while working, it rilesmore or less? Then discharge not forth this young waiter; the good inhim is working. ' 'But he is a sad rake. ' 'Therein is his promise; therake being crude material for the saint. '"

"Ah, you are a talking man--what I call a wordy man. You talk, talk. "

"And with submission, sir, what is the greatest judge, bishop orprophet, but a talking man? He talks, talks. It is the peculiar vocationof a teacher to talk. What's wisdom itself but table-talk? The bestwisdom in this world, and the last spoken by its teacher, did it notliterally and truly come in the form of table-talk?"

"You, you, you!" rattling down his rifle. 

"To shift the subject, since we cannot agree. Pray, what is youropinion, respected sir, of St. Augustine?"

"St. Augustine? What should I, or you either, know of him? Seems to me, for one in such a business, to say nothing of such a coat, that thoughyou don't know a great deal, indeed, yet you know a good deal more thanyou ought to know, or than you have a right to know, or than it is safeor expedient for you to know, or than, in the fair course of life, youcould have honestly come to know. I am of opinion you should be servedlike a Jew in the middle ages with his gold; this knowledge of yours, which you haven't enough knowledge to know how to make a right use of, it should be taken from you. And so I have been thinking all along. "

"You are merry, sir. But you have a little looked into St. Augustine Isuppose. "

"St. Augustine on Original Sin is my text book. But you, I ask again, where do you find time or inclination for these out-of-the-wayspeculations? In fact, your whole talk, the more I think of it, isaltogether unexampled and extraordinary. "

"Respected sir, have I not already informed you that the quite newmethod, the strictly philosophical one, on which our office is founded, has led me and my associates to an enlarged study of mankind. It was myfault, if I did not, likewise, hint, that these studies directed alwaysto the scientific procuring of good servants of all sorts, boysincluded, for the kind gentlemen, our patrons--that these studies, Isay, have been conducted equally among all books of all libraries, asamong all men of all nations. Then, you rather like St. Augustine, sir?"

"Excellent genius!"

"In some points he was; yet, how comes it that under his own hand, St. Augustine confesses that, until his thirtieth year, he was a very saddog?"

"A saint a sad dog?"

"Not the saint, but the saint's irresponsible little forerunner--theboy. "

"All boys are rascals, and so are all men, " again flying off at histangent; "my name is Pitch; I stick to what I say. "

"Ah, sir, permit me--when I behold you on this mild summer's eve, thuseccentrically clothed in the skins of wild beasts, I cannot but concludethat the equally grim and unsuitable habit of your mind is likewise butan eccentric assumption, having no basis in your genuine soul, no morethan in nature herself. "

"Well, really, now--really, " fidgeted the bachelor, not unaffected inhis conscience by these benign personalities, "really, really, now, Idon't know but that I may have been a little bit too hard upon thosefive and thirty boys of mine. "

"Glad to find you a little softening, sir. Who knows now, but thatflexile gracefulness, however questionable at the time of that thirtiethboy of yours, might have been the silky husk of the most solid qualitiesof maturity. It might have been with him as with the ear of the Indiancorn. "

"Yes, yes, yes, " excitedly cried the bachelor, as the light of this newillustration broke in, "yes, yes; and now that I think of it, how oftenI've sadly watched my Indian corn in May, wondering whether such sickly, half-eaten sprouts, could ever thrive up into the stiff, stately spearof August. "

"A most admirable reflection, sir, and you have only, according to theanalogical theory first started by our office, to apply it to thatthirtieth boy in question, and see the result. Had you but kept thatthirtieth boy--been patient with his sickly virtues, cultivated them, hoed round them, why what a glorious guerdon would have been yours, whenat last you should have had a St. Augustine for an ostler. "

"Really, really--well, I am glad I didn't send him to jail, as at firstI intended. "

"Oh that would have been too bad. Grant he was vicious. The petty vicesof boys are like the innocent kicks of colts, as yet imperfectly broken. Some boys know not virtue only for the same reason they know not French;it was never taught them. Established upon the basis of parentalcharity, juvenile asylums exist by law for the benefit of lads convictedof acts which, in adults, would have received other requital. Why?Because, do what they will, society, like our office, at bottom has aChristian confidence in boys. And all this we say to our patrons. "

"Your patrons, sir, seem your marines to whom you may say anything, "said the other, relapsing. "Why do knowing employers shun youths fromasylums, though offered them at the smallest wages? I'll none of yourreformado boys. "

"Such a boy, respected sir, I would not get for you, but a boy thatnever needed reform. Do not smile, for as whooping-cough and measles arejuvenile diseases, and yet some juveniles never have them, so are thereboys equally free from juvenile vices. True, for the best of boys'measles may be contagious, and evil communications corrupt good manners;but a boy with a sound mind in a sound body--such is the boy I would getyou. If hitherto, sir, you have struck upon a peculiarly bad vein ofboys, so much the more hope now of your hitting a good one. "

"That sounds a kind of reasonable, as it were--a little so, really. Infact, though you have said a great many foolish things, very foolish andabsurd things, yet, upon the whole, your conversation has been such asmight almost lead one less distrustful than I to repose a certainconditional confidence in you, I had almost added in your office, also. Now, for the humor of it, supposing that even I, I myself, really hadthis sort of conditional confidence, though but a grain, what sort of aboy, in sober fact, could you send me? And what would be your fee?"

"Conducted, " replied the other somewhat loftily, rising now in eloquenceas his proselyte, for all his pretenses, sunk in conviction, "conductedupon principles involving care, learning, and labor, exceeding what isusual in kindred institutions, the Philosophical Intelligence Office isforced to charge somewhat higher than customary. Briefly, our fee isthree dollars in advance. As for the boy, by a lucky chance, I have avery promising little fellow now in my eye--a very likely little fellow, indeed. "

"Honest?"

"As the day is long. Might trust him with untold millions. Such, atleast, were the marginal observations on the phrenological chart of hishead, submitted to me by the mother. "

"How old?"

"Just fifteen. "

"Tall? Stout?"

"Uncommonly so, for his age, his mother remarked. "

"Industrious?"

"The busy bee. "

The bachelor fell into a troubled reverie. At last, with much hesitancy, he spoke:

"Do you think now, candidly, that--I say candidly--candidly--could Ihave some small, limited--some faint, conditional degree of confidencein that boy? Candidly, now?"

"Candidly, you could. "

"A sound boy? A good boy?"

"Never knew one more so. "

The bachelor fell into another irresolute reverie; then said: "Well, now, you have suggested some rather new views of boys, and men, too. Upon those views in the concrete I at present decline to determine. Nevertheless, for the sake purely of a scientific experiment, I will trythat boy. I don't think him an angel, mind. No, no. But I'll try him. There are my three dollars, and here is my address. Send him along thisday two weeks. Hold, you will be wanting the money for his passage. There, " handing it somewhat reluctantly. 

"Ah, thank you. I had forgotten his passage;" then, altering in manner, and gravely holding the bills, continued: "Respected sir, neverwillingly do I handle money not with perfect willingness, nay, with acertain alacrity, paid. Either tell me that you have a perfect andunquestioning confidence in me (never mind the boy now) or permit merespectfully to return these bills. "

"Put 'em up, put 'em-up!"

"Thank you. Confidence is the indispensable basis of all sorts ofbusiness transactions. Without it, commerce between man and man, asbetween country and country, would, like a watch, run down and stop. Andnow, supposing that against present expectation the lad should, afterall, evince some little undesirable trait, do not, respected sir, rashlydismiss him. Have but patience, have but confidence. Those transientvices will, ere long, fall out, and be replaced by the sound, firm, evenand permanent virtues. Ah, " glancing shoreward, towards agrotesquely-shaped bluff, "there's the Devil's Joke, as they call it:the bell for landing will shortly ring. I must go look up the cook Ibrought for the innkeeper at Cairo. "

CHAPTER XXIII. 

IN WHICH THE POWERFUL EFFECT OF NATURAL SCENERY IS EVINCED IN THE CASEOF THE MISSOURIAN, WHO, IN VIEW OF THE REGION ROUND-ABOUT CAIRO, HAS ARETURN OF HIS CHILLY FIT. 

At Cairo, the old established firm of Fever & Ague is still settling upits unfinished business; that Creole grave-digger, Yellow Jack--his handat the mattock and spade has not lost its cunning; while Don SaturninusTyphus taking his constitutional with Death, Calvin Edson and threeundertakers, in the morass, snuffs up the mephitic breeze with zest. 

In the dank twilight, fanned with mosquitoes, and sparkling withfire-flies, the boat now lies before Cairo. She has landed certainpassengers, and tarries for the coming of expected ones. Leaning overthe rail on the inshore side, the Missourian eyes through the dubiousmedium that swampy and squalid domain; and over it audibly mumbles hiscynical mind to himself, as Apermantus' dog may have mumbled his bone. He bethinks him that the man with the brass-plate was to land on thisvillainous bank, and for that cause, if no other, begins to suspect him. Like one beginning to rouse himself from a dose of chloroformtreacherously given, he half divines, too, that he, the philosopher, had unwittingly been betrayed into being an unphilosophical dupe. Towhat vicissitudes of light and shade is man subject! He ponders themystery of human subjectivity in general. He thinks he perceives withCrossbones, his favorite author, that, as one may wake up well in themorning, very well, indeed, and brisk as a buck, I thank you, but erebed-time get under the weather, there is no telling how--so one may wakeup wise, and slow of assent, very wise and very slow, I assure you, andfor all that, before night, by like trick in the atmosphere, be left inthe lurch a ninny. Health and wisdom equally precious, and equallylittle as unfluctuating possessions to be relied on. 

But where was slipped in the entering wedge? Philosophy, knowledge, experience--were those trusty knights of the castle recreant? No, butunbeknown to them, the enemy stole on the castle's south side, itsgenial one, where Suspicion, the warder, parleyed. In fine, his tooindulgent, too artless and companionable nature betrayed him. Admonishedby which, he thinks he must be a little splenetic in his intercoursehenceforth. 

He revolves the crafty process of sociable chat, by which, as hefancies, the man with the brass-plate wormed into him, and made such afool of him as insensibly to persuade him to waive, in his exceptionalcase, that general law of distrust systematically applied to the race. He revolves, but cannot comprehend, the operation, still less theoperator. Was the man a trickster, it must be more for the love than thelucre. Two or three dirty dollars the motive to so many nice wiles? Andyet how full of mean needs his seeming. Before his mental vision theperson of that threadbare Talleyrand, that impoverished Machiavelli, that seedy Rosicrucian--for something of all these he vaguely deemshim--passes now in puzzled review. Fain, in his disfavor, would he makeout a logical case. The doctrine of analogies recurs. Fallacious enoughdoctrine when wielded against one's prejudices, but in corroboration ofcherished suspicions not without likelihood. Analogically, he couplesthe slanting cut of the equivocator's coat-tails with the sinister castin his eye; he weighs slyboot's sleek speech in the light imparted bythe oblique import of the smooth slope of his worn boot-heels; theinsinuator's undulating flunkyisms dovetail into those of the flunkybeast that windeth his way on his belly. 

From these uncordial reveries he is roused by a cordial slap on theshoulder, accompanied by a spicy volume of tobacco-smoke, out of whichcame a voice, sweet as a seraph's:

"A penny for your thoughts, my fine fellow. "

CHAPTER XXIV. 

A PHILANTHROPIST UNDERTAKES TO CONVERT A MISANTHROPE, BUT DOES NOT GETBEYOND CONFUTING HIM. 

"Hands off!" cried the bachelor, involuntarily covering dejection withmoroseness. 

"Hands off? that sort of label won't do in our Fair. Whoever in our Fairhas fine feelings loves to feel the nap of fine cloth, especially when afine fellow wears it. "

"And who of my fine-fellow species may you be? From the Brazils, ain'tyou? Toucan fowl. Fine feathers on foul meat. "

This ungentle mention of the toucan was not improbably suggested by theparti-hued, and rather plumagy aspect of the stranger, no bigot it wouldseem, but a liberalist, in dress, and whose wardrobe, almost anywherethan on the liberal Mississippi, used to all sorts of fantasticinformalities, might, even to observers less critical than the bachelor, have looked, if anything, a little out of the common; but not more soperhaps, than, considering the bear and raccoon costume, the bachelor'sown appearance. In short, the stranger sported a vesture barred withvarious hues, that of the cochineal predominating, in styleparticipating of a Highland plaid, Emir's robe, and French blouse; fromits plaited sort of front peeped glimpses of a flowered regatta-shirt, while, for the rest, white trowsers of ample duck flowed overmaroon-colored slippers, and a jaunty smoking-cap of regal purplecrowned him off at top; king of traveled good-fellows, evidently. Grotesque as all was, nothing looked stiff or unused; all showed signsof easy service, the least wonted thing setting like a wonted glove. That genial hand, which had just been laid on the ungenial shoulder, wasnow carelessly thrust down before him, sailor-fashion, into a sort ofIndian belt, confining the redundant vesture; the other held, by itslong bright cherry-stem, a Nuremburgh pipe in blast, its great porcelainbowl painted in miniature with linked crests and arms of interlinkednations--a florid show. As by subtle saturations of its mellowingessence the tobacco had ripened the bowl, so it looked as if somethingsimilar of the interior spirit came rosily out on the cheek. But rosypipe-bowl, or rosy countenance, all was lost on that unrosy man, thebachelor, who, waiting a moment till the commotion, caused by the boat'srenewed progress, had a little abated, thus continued:

"Hark ye, " jeeringly eying the cap and belt, "did you ever see SignorMarzetti in the African pantomime?"

"No;--good performer?"

"Excellent; plays the intelligent ape till he seems it. With suchnaturalness can a being endowed with an immortal spirit enter into thatof a monkey. But where's your tail? In the pantomime, Marzetti, nohypocrite in his monkery, prides himself on that. "

The stranger, now at rest, sideways and genially, on one hip, his rightleg cavalierly crossed before the other, the toe of his vertical slipperpointed easily down on the deck, whiffed out a long, leisurely sort ofindifferent and charitable puff, betokening him more or less of themature man of the world, a character which, like its opposite, thesincere Christian's, is not always swift to take offense; and then, drawing near, still smoking, again laid his hand, this time with mildimpressiveness, on the ursine shoulder, and not unamiably said: "That inyour address there is a sufficiency of the _fortiter in re_ few unbiasedobservers will question; but that this is duly attempered with the_suaviter in modo_ may admit, I think, of an honest doubt. My dearfellow, " beaming his eyes full upon him, "what injury have I done you, that you should receive my greeting with a curtailed civility?"

"Off hands;" once more shaking the friendly member from him. "Who in thename of the great chimpanzee, in whose likeness, you, Marzetti, and theother chatterers are made, who in thunder are you?"

"A cosmopolitan, a catholic man; who, being such, ties himself to nonarrow tailor or teacher, but federates, in heart as in costume, something of the various gallantries of men under various suns. Oh, oneroams not over the gallant globe in vain. Bred by it, is a fraternal andfusing feeling. No man is a stranger. You accost anybody. Warm andconfiding, you wait not for measured advances. And though, indeed, mine, in this instance, have met with no very hilarious encouragement, yet the principle of a true citizen of the world is still to return goodfor ill. --My dear fellow, tell me how I can serve you. "

"By dispatching yourself, Mr. Popinjay-of-the-world, into the heart ofthe Lunar Mountains. You are another of them. Out of my sight!"

"Is the sight of humanity so very disagreeable to you then? Ah, I may befoolish, but for my part, in all its aspects, I love it. Served up à laPole, or à la Moor, à la Ladrone, or à la Yankee, that good dish, man, still delights me; or rather is man a wine I never weary of comparingand sipping; wherefore am I a pledged cosmopolitan, a sort ofLondon-Dock-Vault connoisseur, going about from Teheran to Natchitoches, a taster of races; in all his vintages, smacking my lips over this racycreature, man, continually. But as there are teetotal palates which havea distaste even for Amontillado, so I suppose there may be teetotalsouls which relish not even the very best brands of humanity. Excuse me, but it just occurs to me that you, my dear fellow, possibly lead asolitary life. "

"Solitary?" starting as at a touch of divination. 

"Yes: in a solitary life one insensibly contracts oddities, --talking toone's self now. "

"Been eaves-dropping, eh?"

"Why, a soliloquist in a crowd can hardly but be overheard, and withoutmuch reproach to the hearer. "

"You are an eaves-dropper. "

"Well. Be it so. "

"Confess yourself an eaves-dropper?"

"I confess that when you were muttering here I, passing by, caught aword or two, and, by like chance, something previous of your chat withthe Intelligence-office man;--a rather sensible fellow, by the way; muchof my style of thinking; would, for his own sake, he were of my style ofdress. Grief to good minds, to see a man of superior sense forced tohide his light under the bushel of an inferior coat. --Well, from whatlittle I heard, I said to myself, Here now is one with the unprofitablephilosophy of disesteem for man. Which disease, in the main, I haveobserved--excuse me--to spring from a certain lowness, if not sourness, of spirits inseparable from sequestration. Trust me, one had better mixin, and do like others. Sad business, this holding out against having agood time. Life is a pic-nic _en costume_; one must take a part, assumea character, stand ready in a sensible way to play the fool. To come inplain clothes, with a long face, as a wiseacre, only makes one adiscomfort to himself, and a blot upon the scene. Like your jug of coldwater among the wine-flasks, it leaves you unelated among the elatedones. No, no. This austerity won't do. Let me tell you too--_enconfiance_--that while revelry may not always merge into ebriety, soberness, in too deep potations, may become a sort of sottishness. Which sober sottishness, in my way of thinking, is only to be cured bybeginning at the other end of the horn, to tipple a little. "

"Pray, what society of vintners and old topers are you hired to lecturefor?"

"I fear I did not give my meaning clearly. A little story may help. Thestory of the worthy old woman of Goshen, a very moral old woman, whowouldn't let her shoats eat fattening apples in fall, for fear the fruitmight ferment upon their brains, and so make them swinish. Now, during agreen Christmas, inauspicious to the old, this worthy old woman fellinto a moping decline, took to her bed, no appetite, and refused to seeher best friends. In much concern her good man sent for the doctor, who, after seeing the patient and putting a question or two, beckoned thehusband out, and said: 'Deacon, do you want her cured?' 'Indeed I do. ''Go directly, then, and buy a jug of Santa Cruz. ' 'Santa Cruz? my wifedrink Santa Cruz?' 'Either that or die. ' 'But how much?' 'As much as shecan get down. ' 'But she'll get drunk!' 'That's the cure. ' Wise men, likedoctors, must be obeyed. Much against the grain, the sober deacon gotthe unsober medicine, and, equally against her conscience, the poor oldwoman took it; but, by so doing, ere long recovered health and spirits, famous appetite, and glad again to see her friends; and having by thisexperience broken the ice of arid abstinence, never afterwards keptherself a cup too low. "

This story had the effect of surprising the bachelor into interest, though hardly into approval. 

"If I take your parable right, " said he, sinking no little of his formerchurlishness, "the meaning is, that one cannot enjoy life with gustounless he renounce the too-sober view of life. But since the too-soberview is, doubtless, nearer true than the too-drunken; I, who rate truth, though cold water, above untruth, though Tokay, will stick to my earthenjug. "

"I see, " slowly spirting upward a spiral staircase of lazy smoke, "Isee; you go in for the lofty. "

"How?"

"Oh, nothing! but if I wasn't afraid of prosing, I might tell anotherstory about an old boot in a pieman's loft, contracting there betweensun and oven an unseemly, dry-seasoned curl and warp. You've seen suchleathery old garretteers, haven't you? Very high, sober, solitary, philosophic, grand, old boots, indeed; but I, for my part, would ratherbe the pieman's trodden slipper on the ground. Talking of piemen, humble-pie before proud-cake for me. This notion of being lone and loftyis a sad mistake. Men I hold in this respect to be like roosters; theone that betakes himself to a lone and lofty perch is the hen-peckedone, or the one that has the pip. "

"You are abusive!" cried the bachelor, evidently touched. 

"Who is abused? You, or the race? You won't stand by and see the humanrace abused? Oh, then, you have some respect for the human race. "

"I have some respect for _myself_" with a lip not so firm as before. 

"And what race may _you_ belong to? now don't you see, my dear fellow, in what inconsistencies one involves himself by affecting disesteem formen. To a charm, my little stratagem succeeded. Come, come, think betterof it, and, as a first step to a new mind, give up solitude. I fear, bythe way, you have at some time been reading Zimmermann, that old Mr. Megrims of a Zimmermann, whose book on Solitude is as vain as Hume's onSuicide, as Bacon's on Knowledge; and, like these, will betray him whoseeks to steer soul and body by it, like a false religion. All they, bethey what boasted ones you please, who, to the yearning of our kindafter a founded rule of content, offer aught not in the spirit offellowly gladness based on due confidence in what is above, away withthem for poor dupes, or still poorer impostors. "

His manner here was so earnest that scarcely any auditor, perhaps, butwould have been more or less impressed by it, while, possibly, nervousopponents might have a little quailed under it. Thinking within himselfa moment, the bachelor replied: "Had you experience, you would know thatyour tippling theory, take it in what sense you will, is poor as anyother. And Rabelais's pro-wine Koran no more trustworthy than Mahomet'santi-wine one. "

"Enough, " for a finality knocking the ashes from his pipe, "we talk andkeep talking, and still stand where we did. What do you say for a walk?My arm, and let's a turn. They are to have dancing on the hurricane-deckto-night. I shall fling them off a Scotch jig, while, to save thepieces, you hold my loose change; and following that, I propose thatyou, my dear fellow, stack your gun, and throw your bearskins in asailor's hornpipe--I holding your watch. What do you say?"

At this proposition the other was himself again, all raccoon. 

"Look you, " thumping down his rifle, "are you Jeremy Diddler No. 3?"

"Jeremy Diddler? I have heard of Jeremy the prophet, and Jeremy Taylorthe divine, but your other Jeremy is a gentleman I am unacquaintedwith. "

"You are his confidential clerk, ain't you?"

"_Whose_, pray? Not that I think myself unworthy of being confided in, but I don't understand. "

"You are another of them. Somehow I meet with the most extraordinarymetaphysical scamps to-day. Sort of visitation of them. And yet thatherb-doctor Diddler somehow takes off the raw edge of the Diddlers thatcome after him. "

"Herb-doctor? who is he?"

"Like you--another of them. "

"_Who?_" Then drawing near, as if for a good long explanatory chat, hisleft hand spread, and his pipe-stem coming crosswise down upon it like aferule, "You think amiss of me. Now to undeceive you, I will just enterinto a little argument and----"

"No you don't. No more little arguments for me. Had too many littlearguments to-day. "

"But put a case. Can you deny--I dare you to deny--that the man leadinga solitary life is peculiarly exposed to the sorriest misconceptionstouching strangers?"

"Yes, I _do_ deny it, " again, in his impulsiveness, snapping at thecontroversial bait, "and I will confute you there in a trice. Look, you----"

"Now, now, now, my dear fellow, " thrusting out both vertical palms fordouble shields, "you crowd me too hard. You don't give one a chance. Saywhat you will, to shun a social proposition like mine, to shun societyin any way, evinces a churlish nature--cold, loveless; as, to embraceit, shows one warm and friendly, in fact, sunshiny. "

Here the other, all agog again, in his perverse way, launched forth intothe unkindest references to deaf old worldlings keeping in the deafeningworld; and gouty gluttons limping to their gouty gormandizings; andcorseted coquets clasping their corseted cavaliers in the waltz, all fordisinterested society's sake; and thousands, bankrupt throughlavishness, ruining themselves out of pure love of the sweet company ofman--no envies, rivalries, or other unhandsome motive to it. 

"Ah, now, " deprecating with his pipe, "irony is so unjust: never couldabide irony: something Satanic about irony. God defend me from Irony, and Satire, his bosom friend. "

"A right knave's prayer, and a right fool's, too, " snapping hisrifle-lock. 

"Now be frank. Own that was a little gratuitous. But, no, no, you didn'tmean; it any way, I can make allowances. Ah, did you but know it, howmuch pleasanter to puff at this philanthropic pipe, than still to keepfumbling at that misanthropic rifle. As for your worldling, glutton, and coquette, though, doubtless, being such, they may have their littlefoibles--as who has not?--yet not one of the three can be reproachedwith that awful sin of shunning society; awful I call it, for not seldomit presupposes a still darker thing than itself--remorse. "

"Remorse drives man away from man? How came your fellow-creature, Cain, after the first murder, to go and build the first city? And why is itthat the modern Cain dreads nothing so much as solitary confinement?

"My dear fellow, you get excited. Say what you will, I for one must havemy fellow-creatures round me. Thick, too--I must have them thick. "

"The pick-pocket, too, loves to have his fellow-creatures round him. Tut, man! no one goes into the crowd but for his end; and the end of toomany is the same as the pick-pocket's--a purse. "

"Now, my dear fellow, how can you have the conscience to say that, whenit is as much according to natural law that men are social as sheepgregarious. But grant that, in being social, each man has his end, doyou, upon the strength of that, do you yourself, I say, mix with man, now, immediately, and be your end a more genial philosophy. Come, let'stake a turn. "

Again he offered his fraternal arm; but the bachelor once more flung itoff, and, raising his rifle in energetic invocation, cried: "Now thehigh-constable catch and confound all knaves in towns and rats ingrain-bins, and if in this boat, which is a human grain-bin for thetime, any sly, smooth, philandering rat be dodging now, pin him, thouhigh rat-catcher, against this rail. "

"A noble burst! shows you at heart a trump. And when a card's that, little matters it whether it be spade or diamond. You are good winethat, to be still better, only needs a shaking up. Come, let's agreethat we'll to New Orleans, and there embark for London--I staying withmy friends nigh Primrose-hill, and you putting up at the Piazza, CoventGarden--Piazza, Covent Garden; for tell me--since you will not be adisciple to the full--tell me, was not that humor, of Diogenes, whichled him to live, a merry-andrew, in the flower-market, better than thatof the less wise Athenian, which made him a skulking scare-crow inpine-barrens? An injudicious gentleman, Lord Timon. "

"Your hand!" seizing it. 

"Bless me, how cordial a squeeze. It is agreed we shall be brothers, then?"

"As much so as a brace of misanthropes can be, " with another andterrific squeeze. "I had thought that the moderns had degeneratedbeneath the capacity of misanthropy. Rejoiced, though but in oneinstance, and that disguised, to be undeceived. "

The other stared in blank amaze. 

"Won't do. You are Diogenes, Diogenes in disguise. I say--Diogenesmasquerading as a cosmopolitan. "

With ruefully altered mien, the stranger still stood mute awhile. Atlength, in a pained tone, spoke: "How hard the lot of that pleader who, in his zeal conceding too much, is taken to belong to a side which hebut labors, however ineffectually, to convert!" Then with another changeof air: "To you, an Ishmael, disguising in sportiveness my intent, Icame ambassador from the human race, charged with the assurance that foryour mislike they bore no answering grudge, but sought to conciliateaccord between you and them. Yet you take me not for the honest envoy, but I know not what sort of unheard-of spy. Sir, " he less lowly added, "this mistaking of your man should teach you how you may mistake allmen. For God's sake, " laying both hands upon him, "get you confidence. See how distrust has duped you. I, Diogenes? I he who, going a stepbeyond misanthropy, was less a man-hater than a man-hooter? Better wereI stark and stiff!"

With which the philanthropist moved away less lightsome than he hadcome, leaving the discomfited misanthrope to the solitude he held sosapient. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE COSMOPOLITAN MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE. 

In the act of retiring, the cosmopolitan was met by a passenger, whowith the bluff _abord_ of the West, thus addressed him, though astranger. 

"Queer 'coon, your friend. Had a little skrimmage with him myself. Rather entertaining old 'coon, if he wasn't so deuced analytical. Reminded me somehow of what I've heard about Colonel John Moredock, ofIllinois, only your friend ain't quite so good a fellow at bottom, Ishould think. "

It was in the semicircular porch of a cabin, opening a recess from thedeck, lit by a zoned lamp swung overhead, and sending its lightvertically down, like the sun at noon. Beneath the lamp stood thespeaker, affording to any one disposed to it no unfavorable chance forscrutiny; but the glance now resting on him betrayed no such rudeness. 

A man neither tall nor stout, neither short nor gaunt; but with a bodyfitted, as by measure, to the service of his mind. For the rest, oneless favored perhaps in his features than his clothes; and of these thebeauty may have been less in the fit than the cut; to say nothing ofthe fineness of the nap, seeming out of keeping with something thereverse of fine in the skin; and the unsuitableness of a violet vest, sending up sunset hues to a countenance betokening a kind of bilioushabit. 

But, upon the whole, it could not be fairly said that his appearance wasunprepossessing; indeed, to the congenial, it would have been doubtlessnot uncongenial; while to others, it could not fail to be at leastcuriously interesting, from the warm air of florid cordiality, contrasting itself with one knows not what kind of aguish sallowness ofsaving discretion lurking behind it. Ungracious critics might havethought that the manner flushed the man, something in the samefictitious way that the vest flushed the cheek. And though his teethwere singularly good, those same ungracious ones might have hinted thatthey were too good to be true; or rather, were not so good as they mightbe; since the best false teeth are those made with at least two or threeblemishes, the more to look like life. But fortunately for betterconstructions, no such critics had the stranger now in eye; only thecosmopolitan, who, after, in the first place, acknowledging his advanceswith a mute salute--in which acknowledgment, if there seemed less ofspirit than in his way of accosting the Missourian, it was probablybecause of the saddening sequel of that late interview--thus nowreplied: "Colonel John Moredock, " repeating the words abstractedly;"that surname recalls reminiscences. Pray, " with enlivened air, "was heanyway connected with the Moredocks of Moredock Hall, Northamptonshire, England?"

"I know no more of the Moredocks of Moredock Hall than of the Burdocksof Burdock Hut, " returned the other, with the air somehow of one whosefortunes had been of his own making; "all I know is, that the lateColonel John Moredock was a famous one in his time; eye like Lochiel's;finger like a trigger; nerve like a catamount's; and with but two littleoddities--seldom stirred without his rifle, and hated Indians likesnakes. "

"Your Moredock, then, would seem a Moredock of Misanthrope Hall--theWoods. No very sleek creature, the colonel, I fancy. "

"Sleek or not, he was no uncombed one, but silky bearded and curlyheaded, and to all but Indians juicy as a peach. But Indians--how thelate Colonel John Moredock, Indian-hater of Illinois, did hate Indians, to be sure!"

"Never heard of such a thing. Hate Indians? Why should he or anybodyelse hate Indians? _I_ admire Indians. Indians I have always heard to beone of the finest of the primitive races, possessed of many heroicvirtues. Some noble women, too. When I think of Pocahontas, I am readyto love Indians. Then there's Massasoit, and Philip of Mount Hope, andTecumseh, and Red-Jacket, and Logan--all heroes; and there's the FiveNations, and Araucanians--federations and communities of heroes. Godbless me; hate Indians? Surely the late Colonel John Moredock must havewandered in his mind. "

"Wandered in the woods considerably, but never wandered elsewhere, thatI ever heard. "

"Are you in earnest? Was there ever one who so made it his particularmission to hate Indians that, to designate him, a special word has beencoined--Indian-hater?"

"Even so. "

"Dear me, you take it very calmly. --But really, I would like to knowsomething about this Indian-hating, I can hardly believe such a thing tobe. Could you favor me with a little history of the extraordinary manyou mentioned?"

"With all my heart, " and immediately stepping from the porch, gesturedthe cosmopolitan to a settee near by, on deck. "There, sir, sit youthere, and I will sit here beside you--you desire to hear of ColonelJohn Moredock. Well, a day in my boyhood is marked with a whitestone--the day I saw the colonel's rifle, powder-horn attached, hangingin a cabin on the West bank of the Wabash river. I was going westward along journey through the wilderness with my father. It was nigh noon, and we had stopped at the cabin to unsaddle and bait. The man at thecabin pointed out the rifle, and told whose it was, adding that thecolonel was that moment sleeping on wolf-skins in the corn-loft above, so we must not talk very loud, for the colonel had been out all nighthunting (Indians, mind), and it would be cruel to disturb his sleep. Curious to see one so famous, we waited two hours over, in hopes hewould come forth; but he did not. So, it being necessary to get to thenext cabin before nightfall, we had at last to ride off without thewished-for satisfaction. Though, to tell the truth, I, for one, did notgo away entirely ungratified, for, while my father was watering thehorses, I slipped back into the cabin, and stepping a round or two upthe ladder, pushed my head through the trap, and peered about. Not muchlight in the loft; but off, in the further corner, I saw what I took tobe the wolf-skins, and on them a bundle of something, like a drift ofleaves; and at one end, what seemed a moss-ball; and over it, deer-antlers branched; and close by, a small squirrel sprang out from amaple-bowl of nuts, brushed the moss-ball with his tail, through a hole, and vanished, squeaking. That bit of woodland scene was all I saw. NoColonel Moredock there, unless that moss-ball was his curly head, seenin the back view. I would have gone clear up, but the man below hadwarned me, that though, from his camping habits, the colonel could sleepthrough thunder, he was for the same cause amazing quick to waken at thesound of footsteps, however soft, and especially if human. "

"Excuse me, " said the other, softly laying his hand on the narrator'swrist, "but I fear the colonel was of a distrustful nature--little or noconfidence. He _was_ a little suspicious-minded, wasn't he?"

"Not a bit. Knew too much. Suspected nobody, but was not ignorant ofIndians. Well: though, as you may gather, I never fully saw the man, yet, have I, one way and another, heard about as much of him as anyother; in particular, have I heard his history again and again from myfather's friend, James Hall, the judge, you know. In every company beingcalled upon to give this history, which none could better do, the judgeat last fell into a style so methodic, you would have thought he spokeless to mere auditors than to an invisible amanuensis; seemed talkingfor the press; very impressive way with him indeed. And I, having anequally impressible memory, think that, upon a pinch, I can render youthe judge upon the colonel almost word for word. "

"Do so, by all means, " said the cosmopolitan, well pleased. 

"Shall I give you the judge's philosophy, and all?"

"As to that, " rejoined the other gravely, pausing over the pipe-bowl hewas filling, "the desirableness, to a man of a certain mind, of havinganother man's philosophy given, depends considerably upon what school ofphilosophy that other man belongs to. Of what school or system was thejudge, pray?"

"Why, though he knew how to read and write, the judge never had muchschooling. But, I should say he belonged, if anything, to thefree-school system. Yes, a true patriot, the judge went in strong forfree-schools. "

"In philosophy? The man of a certain mind, then, while respecting thejudge's patriotism, and not blind to the judge's capacity for narrative, such as he may prove to have, might, perhaps, with prudence, waive anopinion of the judge's probable philosophy. But I am no rigorist;proceed, I beg; his philosophy or not, as you please. "

"Well, I would mostly skip that part, only, to begin, somereconnoitering of the ground in a philosophical way the judge alwaysdeemed indispensable with strangers. For you must know thatIndian-hating was no monopoly of Colonel Moredock's; but a passion, inone form or other, and to a degree, greater or less, largely sharedamong the class to which he belonged. And Indian-hating still exists;and, no doubt, will continue to exist, so long as Indians do. Indian-hating, then, shall be my first theme, and Colonel Moredock, theIndian-hater, my next and last. "

With which the stranger, settling himself in his seat, commenced--thehearer paying marked regard, slowly smoking, his glance, meanwhile, steadfastly abstracted towards the deck, but his right ear so disposedtowards the speaker that each word came through as little atmosphericintervention as possible. To intensify the sense of hearing, he seemedto sink the sense of sight. No complaisance of mere speech could havebeen so flattering, or expressed such striking politeness as this muteeloquence of thoroughly digesting attention. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

CONTAINING THE METAPHYSICS OF INDIAN-HATING, ACCORDING TO THE VIEWS OFONE EVIDENTLY NOT SO PREPOSSESSED AS ROUSSEAU IN FAVOR OF SAVAGES. 

"The judge always began in these words: 'The backwoodsman's hatred ofthe Indian has been a topic for some remark. In the earlier times of thefrontier the passion was thought to be readily accounted for. But Indianrapine having mostly ceased through regions where it once prevailed, thephilanthropist is surprised that Indian-hating has not in like degreeceased with it. He wonders why the backwoodsman still regards the redman in much the same spirit that a jury does a murderer, or a trapper awild cat--a creature, in whose behalf mercy were not wisdom; truce isvain; he must be executed. 

"'A curious point, ' the judge would continue, 'which perhaps noteverybody, even upon explanation, may fully understand; while, in orderfor any one to approach to an understanding, it is necessary for him tolearn, or if he already know, to bear in mind, what manner of man thebackwoodsman is; as for what manner of man the Indian is, many know, either from history or experience. 

"'The backwoodsman is a lonely man. He is a thoughtful man. He is a manstrong and unsophisticated. Impulsive, he is what some might callunprincipled. At any rate, he is self-willed; being one who lesshearkens to what others may say about things, than looks for himself, tosee what are things themselves. If in straits, there are few to help; hemust depend upon himself; he must continually look to himself. Henceself-reliance, to the degree of standing by his own judgment, though itstand alone. Not that he deems himself infallible; too many mistakes infollowing trails prove the contrary; but he thinks that nature destinessuch sagacity as she has given him, as she destines it to the 'possum. To these fellow-beings of the wilds their untutored sagacity is theirbest dependence. If with either it prove faulty, if the 'possum's betrayit to the trap, or the backwoodsman's mislead him into ambuscade, thereare consequences to be undergone, but no self-blame. As with the'possum, instincts prevail with the backwoodsman over precepts. Like the'possum, the backwoodsman presents the spectacle of a creature dwellingexclusively among the works of God, yet these, truth must confess, breedlittle in him of a godly mind. Small bowing and scraping is his, furtherthan when with bent knee he points his rifle, or picks its flint. Withfew companions, solitude by necessity his lengthened lot, he stands thetrial--no slight one, since, next to dying, solitude, rightly borne, isperhaps of fortitude the most rigorous test. But not merely is thebackwoodsman content to be alone, but in no few cases is anxious to beso. The sight of smoke ten miles off is provocation to one more removefrom man, one step deeper into nature. Is it that he feels that whateverman may be, man is not the universe? that glory, beauty, kindness, arenot all engrossed by him? that as the presence of man frights birdsaway, so, many bird-like thoughts? Be that how it will, the backwoodsmanis not without some fineness to his nature. Hairy Orson as he looks, itmay be with him as with the Shetland seal--beneath the bristles lurksthe fur. 

"'Though held in a sort a barbarian, the backwoodsman would seem toAmerica what Alexander was to Asia--captain in the vanguard ofconquering civilization. Whatever the nation's growing opulence orpower, does it not lackey his heels? Pathfinder, provider of security tothose who come after him, for himself he asks nothing but hardship. Worthy to be compared with Moses in the Exodus, or the Emperor Julian inGaul, who on foot, and bare-browed, at the head of covered or mountedlegions, marched so through the elements, day after day. The tide ofemigration, let it roll as it will, never overwhelms the backwoodsmaninto itself; he rides upon advance, as the Polynesian upon the comb ofthe surf. 

"'Thus, though he keep moving on through life, he maintains with respectto nature much the same unaltered relation throughout; with hercreatures, too, including panthers and Indians. Hence, it is notunlikely that, accurate as the theory of the Peace Congress may be withrespect to those two varieties of beings, among others, yet thebackwoodsman might be qualified to throw out some practical suggestions. 

"'As the child born to a backwoodsman must in turn lead his father'slife--a life which, as related to humanity, is related mainly toIndians--it is thought best not to mince matters, out of delicacy; butto tell the boy pretty plainly what an Indian is, and what he mustexpect from him. For however charitable it may be to view Indians asmembers of the Society of Friends, yet to affirm them such to oneignorant of Indians, whose lonely path lies a long way through theirlands, this, in the event, might prove not only injudicious but cruel. At least something of this kind would seem the maxim upon whichbackwoods' education is based. Accordingly, if in youth the backwoodsmanincline to knowledge, as is generally the case, he hears little from hisschoolmasters, the old chroniclers of the forest, but histories ofIndian lying, Indian theft, Indian double-dealing, Indian fraud andperfidy, Indian want of conscience, Indian blood-thirstiness, Indiandiabolism--histories which, though of wild woods, are almost as full ofthings unangelic as the Newgate Calendar or the Annals of Europe. Inthese Indian narratives and traditions the lad is thoroughly grounded. "As the twig is bent the tree's inclined. " The instinct of antipathyagainst an Indian grows in the backwoodsman with the sense of good andbad, right and wrong. In one breath he learns that a brother is to beloved, and an Indian to be hated. 

"'Such are the facts, ' the judge would say, 'upon which, if one seek tomoralize, he must do so with an eye to them. It is terrible that onecreature should so regard another, should make it conscience to abhor anentire race. It is terrible; but is it surprising? Surprising, that oneshould hate a race which he believes to be red from a cause akin to thatwhich makes some tribes of garden insects green? A race whose name isupon the frontier a _memento mori_; painted to him in every evil light;now a horse-thief like those in Moyamensing; now an assassin like a NewYork rowdy; now a treaty-breaker like an Austrian; now a Palmer withpoisoned arrows; now a judicial murderer and Jeffries, after a fiercefarce of trial condemning his victim to bloody death; or a Jew withhospitable speeches cozening some fainting stranger into ambuscade, there to burk him, and account it a deed grateful to Manitou, his god. 

"'Still, all this is less advanced as truths of the Indians than asexamples of the backwoodsman's impression of them--in which thecharitable may think he does them some injustice. Certain it is, theIndians themselves think so; quite unanimously, too. The Indians, indeed, protest against the backwoodsman's view of them; and some thinkthat one cause of their returning his antipathy so sincerely as they do, is their moral indignation at being so libeled by him, as they reallybelieve and say. But whether, on this or any point, the Indians shouldbe permitted to testify for themselves, to the exclusion of othertestimony, is a question that may be left to the Supreme Court. At anyrate, it has been observed that when an Indian becomes a genuineproselyte to Christianity (such cases, however, not being very many;though, indeed, entire tribes are sometimes nominally brought to thetrue light, ) he will not in that case conceal his enlightenedconviction, that his race's portion by nature is total depravity; and, in that way, as much as admits that the backwoodsman's worst idea of itis not very far from true; while, on the other hand, those red men whoare the greatest sticklers for the theory of Indian virtue, and Indianloving-kindness, are sometimes the arrantest horse-thieves andtomahawkers among them. So, at least, avers the backwoodsman. Andthough, knowing the Indian nature, as he thinks he does, he fancies heis not ignorant that an Indian may in some points deceive himself almostas effectually as in bush-tactics he can another, yet his theory and hispractice as above contrasted seem to involve an inconsistency soextreme, that the backwoodsman only accounts for it on the suppositionthat when a tomahawking red-man advances the notion of the benignity ofthe red race, it is but part and parcel with that subtle strategy whichhe finds so useful in war, in hunting, and the general conduct of life. '

"In further explanation of that deep abhorrence with which thebackwoodsman regards the savage, the judge used to think it mightperhaps a little help, to consider what kind of stimulus to it isfurnished in those forest histories and traditions before spoken of. Inwhich behalf, he would tell the story of the little colony of Wrightsand Weavers, originally seven cousins from Virginia, who, aftersuccessive removals with their families, at last established themselvesnear the southern frontier of the Bloody Ground, Kentucky: 'They werestrong, brave men; but, unlike many of the pioneers in those days, theirs was no love of conflict for conflict's sake. Step by step theyhad been lured to their lonely resting-place by the ever-beckoningseductions of a fertile and virgin land, with a singular exemption, during the march, from Indian molestation. But clearings made and housesbuilt, the bright shield was soon to turn its other side. After repeatedpersecutions and eventual hostilities, forced on them by a dwindledtribe in their neighborhood--persecutions resulting in loss of crops andcattle; hostilities in which they lost two of their number, illy to bespared, besides others getting painful wounds--the five remainingcousins made, with some serious concessions, a kind of treaty withMocmohoc, the chief--being to this induced by the harryings of theenemy, leaving them no peace. But they were further prompted, indeed, first incited, by the suddenly changed ways of Mocmohoc, who, thoughhitherto deemed a savage almost perfidious as Caesar Borgia, yet now puton a seeming the reverse of this, engaging to bury the hatchet, smokethe pipe, and be friends forever; not friends in the mere sense ofrenouncing enmity, but in the sense of kindliness, active and familiar. 

"'But what the chief now seemed, did not wholly blind them to what thechief had been; so that, though in no small degree influenced by hischange of bearing, they still distrusted him enough to covenant withhim, among other articles on their side, that though friendly visitsshould be exchanged between the wigwams and the cabins, yet the fivecousins should never, on any account, be expected to enter the chief'slodge together. The intention was, though they reserved it, that ifever, under the guise of amity, the chief should mean them mischief, andeffect it, it should be but partially; so that some of the five mightsurvive, not only for their families' sake, but also for retribution's. Nevertheless, Mocmohoc did, upon a time, with such fine art and pleasingcarriage win their confidence, that he brought them all together to afeast of bear's meat, and there, by stratagem, ended them. Years after, over their calcined bones and those of all their families, the chief, reproached for his treachery by a proud hunter whom he had made captive, jeered out, "Treachery? pale face! 'Twas they who broke their covenantfirst, in coming all together; they that broke it first, in trustingMocmohoc. "'

"At this point the judge would pause, and lifting his hand, and rollinghis eyes, exclaim in a solemn enough voice, 'Circling wiles and bloodylusts. The acuteness and genius of the chief but make him the moreatrocious. '

"After another pause, he would begin an imaginary kind of dialoguebetween a backwoodsman and a questioner:

"'But are all Indians like Mocmohoc?--Not all have proved such; but inthe least harmful may lie his germ. There is an Indian nature. "Indianblood is in me, " is the half-breed's threat. --But are not some Indianskind?--Yes, but kind Indians are mostly lazy, and reputed simple--atall events, are seldom chiefs; chiefs among the red men being taken fromthe active, and those accounted wise. Hence, with small promotion, kindIndians have but proportionate influence. And kind Indians may be forcedto do unkind biddings. So "beware the Indian, kind or unkind, " saidDaniel Boone, who lost his sons by them. --But, have all you backwoodsmenbeen some way victimized by Indians?--No. --Well, and in certain casesmay not at least some few of you be favored by them?--Yes, but scarceone among us so self-important, or so selfish-minded, as to hold hispersonal exemption from Indian outrage such a set-off against thecontrary experience of so many others, as that he must needs, in ageneral way, think well of Indians; or, if he do, an arrow in his flankmight suggest a pertinent doubt. 

"'In short, ' according to the judge, 'if we at all credit thebackwoodsman, his feeling against Indians, to be taken aright, must beconsidered as being not so much on his own account as on others', orjointly on both accounts. True it is, scarce a family he knows but somemember of it, or connection, has been by Indians maimed or scalped. Whatavails, then, that some one Indian, or some two or three, treat abackwoodsman friendly-like? He fears me, he thinks. Take my rifle fromme, give him motive, and what will come? Or if not so, how know I whatinvoluntary preparations may be going on in him for things as unbeknownin present time to him as me--a sort of chemical preparation in thesoul for malice, as chemical preparation in the body for malady. '

"Not that the backwoodsman ever used those words, you see, but the judgefound him expression for his meaning. And this point he would concludewith saying, that, 'what is called a "friendly Indian" is a very raresort of creature; and well it was so, for no ruthlessness exceeds thatof a "friendly Indian" turned enemy. A coward friend, he makes a valiantfoe. 

"'But, thus far the passion in question has been viewed in a general wayas that of a community. When to his due share of this the backwoodsmanadds his private passion, we have then the stock out of which is formed, if formed at all, the Indian-hater _par excellence_. '

"The Indian-hater _par excellence_ the judge defined to be one 'who, having with his mother's milk drank in small love for red men, in youthor early manhood, ere the sensibilities become osseous, receives attheir hand some signal outrage, or, which in effect is much the same, some of his kin have, or some friend. Now, nature all around him by hersolitudes wooing or bidding him muse upon this matter, he accordinglydoes so, till the thought develops such attraction, that much asstraggling vapors troop from all sides to a storm-cloud, so stragglingthoughts of other outrages troop to the nucleus thought, assimilate withit, and swell it. At last, taking counsel with the elements, he comes tohis resolution. An intenser Hannibal, he makes a vow, the hate of whichis a vortex from whose suction scarce the remotest chip of the guiltyrace may reasonably feel secure. Next, he declares himself and settleshis temporal affairs. With the solemnity of a Spaniard turned monk, hetakes leave of his kin; or rather, these leave-takings have something ofthe still more impressive finality of death-bed adieus. Last, he commitshimself to the forest primeval; there, so long as life shall be his, toact upon a calm, cloistered scheme of strategical, implacable, andlonesome vengeance. Ever on the noiseless trail; cool, collected, patient; less seen than felt; snuffing, smelling--a Leather-stockingNemesis. In the settlements he will not be seen again; in eyes of oldcompanions tears may start at some chance thing that speaks of him; butthey never look for him, nor call; they know he will not come. Suns andseasons fleet; the tiger-lily blows and falls; babes are born and leapin their mothers' arms; but, the Indian-hater is good as gone to hislong home, and "Terror" is his epitaph. '

"Here the judge, not unaffected, would pause again, but presentlyresume: 'How evident that in strict speech there can be no biography ofan Indian-hater _par excellence_, any more than one of a sword-fish, orother deep-sea denizen; or, which is still less imaginable, one of adead man. The career of the Indian-hater _par excellence_ has theimpenetrability of the fate of a lost steamer. Doubtless, events, terrible ones, have happened, must have happened; but the powers that bein nature have taken order that they shall never become news. 

"'But, luckily for the curious, there is a species of dilutedIndian-hater, one whose heart proves not so steely as his brain. Softenticements of domestic life too, often draw him from the ascetic trail;a monk who apostatizes to the world at times. Like a mariner, too, though much abroad, he may have a wife and family in some green harborwhich he does not forget. It is with him as with the Papist converts inSenegal; fasting and mortification prove hard to bear. '

"The judge, with his usual judgment, always thought that the intensesolitude to which the Indian-hater consigns himself, has, by itsoverawing influence, no little to do with relaxing his vow. He wouldrelate instances where, after some months' lonely scoutings, theIndian-hater is suddenly seized with a sort of calenture; hurries openlytowards the first smoke, though he knows it is an Indian's, announceshimself as a lost hunter, gives the savage his rifle, throws himselfupon his charity, embraces him with much affection, imploring theprivilege of living a while in his sweet companionship. What is toooften the sequel of so distempered a procedure may be best known bythose who best know the Indian. Upon the whole, the judge, by two andthirty good and sufficient reasons, would maintain that there was noknown vocation whose consistent following calls for suchself-containings as that of the Indian-hater _par excellence_. In thehighest view, he considered such a soul one peeping out but once an age. 

"For the diluted Indian-hater, although the vacations he permits himselfimpair the keeping of the character, yet, it should not be overlookedthat this is the man who, by his very infirmity, enables us to formsurmises, however inadequate, of what Indian-hating in its perfectionis. "

"One moment, " gently interrupted the cosmopolitan here, "and let merefill my calumet. "

Which being done, the other proceeded:--

CHAPTER XXVII. 

SOME ACCOUNT OF A MAN OF QUESTIONABLE MORALITY, BUT WHO, NEVERTHELESS, WOULD SEEM ENTITLED TO THE ESTEEM OF THAT EMINENT ENGLISH MORALIST WHOSAID HE LIKED A GOOD HATER. 

"Coming to mention the man to whose story all thus far said was but theintroduction, the judge, who, like you, was a great smoker, would insistupon all the company taking cigars, and then lighting a fresh onehimself, rise in his place, and, with the solemnest voice, say--'Gentlemen, let us smoke to the memory of Colonel John Moredock;'when, after several whiffs taken standing in deep silence and deeperreverie, he would resume his seat and his discourse, something in thesewords:

"'Though Colonel John Moredock was not an Indian-hater _par excellence_, he yet cherished a kind of sentiment towards the red man, and in thatdegree, and so acted out his sentiment as sufficiently to merit thetribute just rendered to his memory. 

"'John Moredock was the son of a woman married thrice, and thricewidowed by a tomahawk. The three successive husbands of this woman hadbeen pioneers, and with them she had wandered from wilderness towilderness, always on the frontier. With nine children, she at lastfound herself at a little clearing, afterwards Vincennes. There shejoined a company about to remove to the new country of Illinois. On theeastern side of Illinois there were then no settlements; but on the westside, the shore of the Mississippi, there were, near the mouth of theKaskaskia, some old hamlets of French. To the vicinity of those hamlets, very innocent and pleasant places, a new Arcadia, Mrs. Moredock's partywas destined; for thereabouts, among the vines, they meant to settle. They embarked upon the Wabash in boats, proposing descending that streaminto the Ohio, and the Ohio into the Mississippi, and so, northwards, towards the point to be reached. All went well till they made the rockof the Grand Tower on the Mississippi, where they had to land and dragtheir boats round a point swept by a strong current. Here a party ofIndians, lying in wait, rushed out and murdered nearly all of them. Thewidow was among the victims with her children, John excepted, who, somefifty miles distant, was following with a second party. 

"He was just entering upon manhood, when thus left in nature solesurvivor of his race. Other youngsters might have turned mourners; heturned avenger. His nerves were electric wires--sensitive, but steel. Hewas one who, from self-possession, could be made neither to flush norpale. It is said that when the tidings were brought him, he was ashoresitting beneath a hemlock eating his dinner of venison--and as thetidings were told him, after the first start he kept on eating, butslowly and deliberately, chewing the wild news with the wild meat, asif both together, turned to chyle, together should sinew him to hisintent. From that meal he rose an Indian-hater. He rose; got his arms, prevailed upon some comrades to join him, and without delay started todiscover who were the actual transgressors. They proved to belong to aband of twenty renegades from various tribes, outlaws even amongIndians, and who had formed themselves into a maurauding crew. Noopportunity for action being at the time presented, he dismissed hisfriends; told them to go on, thanking them, and saying he would asktheir aid at some future day. For upwards of a year, alone in the wilds, he watched the crew. Once, what he thought a favorable chance havingoccurred--it being midwinter, and the savages encamped, apparently toremain so--he anew mustered his friends, and marched against them; but, getting wind of his coming, the enemy fled, and in such panic thateverything was left behind but their weapons. During the winter, muchthe same thing happened upon two subsequent occasions. The next year hesought them at the head of a party pledged to serve him for forty days. At last the hour came. It was on the shore of the Mississippi. Fromtheir covert, Moredock and his men dimly descried the gang of Cains inthe red dusk of evening, paddling over to a jungled island inmid-stream, there the more securely to lodge; for Moredock's retributivespirit in the wilderness spoke ever to their trepidations now, like thevoice calling through the garden. Waiting until dead of night, thewhites swam the river, towing after them a raft laden with their arms. On landing, Moredock cut the fastenings of the enemy's canoes, andturned them, with his own raft, adrift; resolved that there should beneither escape for the Indians, nor safety, except in victory, for thewhites. Victorious the whites were; but three of the Indians savedthemselves by taking to the stream. Moredock's band lost not a man. 

"'Three of the murderers survived. He knew their names and persons. Inthe course of three years each successively fell by his own hand. Allwere now dead. But this did not suffice. He made no avowal, but to killIndians had become his passion. As an athlete, he had few equals; as ashot, none; in single combat, not to be beaten. Master of thatwoodland-cunning enabling the adept to subsist where the tyro wouldperish, and expert in all those arts by which an enemy is pursued forweeks, perhaps months, without once suspecting it, he kept to theforest. The solitary Indian that met him, died. When a murder wasdescried, he would either secretly pursue their track for some chance tostrike at least one blow; or if, while thus engaged, he himself wasdiscovered, he would elude them by superior skill. 

"'Many years he spent thus; and though after a time he was, in a degree, restored to the ordinary life of the region and period, yet it isbelieved that John Moredock never let pass an opportunity of quenchingan Indian. Sins of commission in that kind may have been his, but noneof omission. 

"'It were to err to suppose, ' the judge would say, 'that this gentlemanwas naturally ferocious, or peculiarly possessed of those qualities, which, unhelped by provocation of events, tend to withdraw man fromsocial life. On the contrary, Moredock was an example of somethingapparently self-contradicting, certainly curious, but, at the same time, undeniable: namely, that nearly all Indian-haters have at bottom lovinghearts; at any rate, hearts, if anything, more generous than theaverage. Certain it is, that, to the degree in which he mingled in thelife of the settlements, Moredock showed himself not without humanefeelings. No cold husband or colder father, he; and, though often andlong away from his household, bore its needs in mind, and provided forthem. He could be very convivial; told a good story (though never of hismore private exploits), and sung a capital song. Hospitable, notbackward to help a neighbor; by report, benevolent, as retributive, insecret; while, in a general manner, though sometimes grave--as is notunusual with men of his complexion, a sultry and tragical brown--yetwith nobody, Indians excepted, otherwise than courteous in a manlyfashion; a moccasined gentleman, admired and loved. In fact, no one morepopular, as an incident to follow may prove. 

"'His bravery, whether in Indian fight or any other, was unquestionable. An officer in the ranging service during the war of 1812, he acquittedhimself with more than credit. Of his soldierly character, this anecdoteis told: Not long after Hull's dubious surrender at Detroit, Moredockwith some of his rangers rode up at night to a log-house, there to resttill morning. The horses being attended to, supper over, andsleeping-places assigned the troop, the host showed the colonel hisbest bed, not on the ground like the rest, but a bed that stood on legs. But out of delicacy, the guest declined to monopolize it, or, indeed, tooccupy it at all; when, to increase the inducement, as the host thought, he was told that a general officer had once slept in that bed. "Who, pray?" asked the colonel. "General Hull. " "Then you must not takeoffense, " said the colonel, buttoning up his coat, "but, really, nocoward's bed, for me, however comfortable. " Accordingly he took up withvalor's bed--a cold one on the ground. 

"'At one time the colonel was a member of the territorial council ofIllinois, ands at the formation of the state government, was pressed tobecome candidate for governor, but begged to be excused. And, though hedeclined to give his reasons for declining, yet by those who best knewhim the cause was not wholly unsurmised. In his official capacity hemight be called upon to enter into friendly treaties with Indian tribes, a thing not to be thought of. And even did no such contingecy arise, yethe felt there would be an impropriety in the Governor of Illinoisstealing out now and then, during a recess of the legislative bodies, for a few days' shooting at human beings, within the limits of hispaternal chief-magistracy. If the governorship offered large honors, from Moredock it demanded larger sacrifices. These were incompatibles. In short, he was not unaware that to be a consistent Indian-haterinvolves the renunciation of ambition, with its objects--the pomps andglories of the world; and since religion, pronouncing such thingsvanities, accounts it merit to renounce them, therefore, so far as thisgoes, Indian-hating, whatever may be thought of it in other respects, may be regarded as not wholly without the efficacy of a devoutsentiment. '"

Here the narrator paused. Then, after his long and irksome sitting, started to his feet, and regulating his disordered shirt-frill, and atthe same time adjustingly shaking his legs down in his rumpledpantaloons, concluded: "There, I have done; having given you, not mystory, mind, or my thoughts, but another's. And now, for your friendCoonskins, I doubt not, that, if the judge were here, he would pronouncehim a sort of comprehensive Colonel Moredock, who, too much spreadinghis passion, shallows it. "

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

MOOT POINTS TOUCHING THE LATE COLONEL JOHN MOREDOCK. 

"Charity, charity!" exclaimed the cosmopolitan, "never a sound judgmentwithout charity. When man judges man, charity is less a bounty from ourmercy than just allowance for the insensible lee-way of humanfallibility. God forbid that my eccentric friend should be what youhint. You do not know him, or but imperfectly. His outside deceived you;at first it came near deceiving even me. But I seized a chance, when, owing to indignation against some wrong, he laid himself a little open;I seized that lucky chance, I say, to inspect his heart, and found it aninviting oyster in a forbidding shell. His outside is but put on. Ashamed of his own goodness, he treats mankind as those strange olduncles in romances do their nephews--snapping at them all the time andyet loving them as the apple of their eye. "

"Well, my words with him were few. Perhaps he is not what I took himfor. Yes, for aught I know, you may be right. "

"Glad to hear it. Charity, like poetry, should be cultivated, if onlyfor its being graceful. And now, since you have renounced your notion, I should be happy, would you, so to speak, renounce your story, too. That, story strikes me with even more incredulity than wonder. To mesome parts don't hang together. If the man of hate, how could JohnMoredock be also the man of love? Either his lone campaigns are fabulousas Hercules'; or else, those being true, what was thrown in about hisgeniality is but garnish. In short, if ever there was such a man asMoredock, he, in my way of thinking, was either misanthrope or nothing;and his misanthropy the more intense from being focused on one race ofmen. Though, like suicide, man-hatred would seem peculiarly a Roman anda Grecian passion--that is, Pagan; yet, the annals of neither Rome norGreece can produce the equal in man-hatred of Colonel Moredock, as thejudge and you have painted him. As for this Indian-hating in general, Ican only say of it what Dr. Johnson said of the alleged Lisbonearthquake: 'Sir, I don't believe it. '"

"Didn't believe it? Why not? Clashed with any little prejudice of his?"

"Doctor Johnson had no prejudice; but, like a certain other person, "with an ingenuous smile, "he had sensibilities, and those were pained. "

"Dr. Johnson was a good Christian, wasn't he?"

"He was. "

"Suppose he had been something else. "

"Then small incredulity as to the alleged earthquake. "

"Suppose he had been also a misanthrope?"

"Then small incredulity as to the robberies and murders alleged to havebeen perpetrated under the pall of smoke and ashes. The infidels of thetime were quick to credit those reports and worse. So true is it that, while religion, contrary to the common notion, implies, in certaincases, a spirit of slow reserve as to assent, infidelity, which claimsto despise credulity, is sometimes swift to it. "

"You rather jumble together misanthropy and infidelity. "

"I do not jumble them; they are coordinates. For misanthropy, springingfrom the same root with disbelief of religion, is twin with that. Itsprings from the same root, I say; for, set aside materialism, and whatis an atheist, but one who does not, or will not, see in the universe aruling principle of love; and what a misanthrope, but one who does not, or will not, see in man a ruling principle of kindness? Don't you see?In either case the vice consists in a want of confidence. "

"What sort of a sensation is misanthropy?"

"Might as well ask me what sort of sensation is hydrophobia. Don't know;never had it. But I have often wondered what it can be like. Can amisanthrope feel warm, I ask myself; take ease? be companionable withhimself? Can a misanthrope smoke a cigar and muse? How fares he insolitude? Has the misanthrope such a thing as an appetite? Shall a peachrefresh him? The effervescence of champagne, with what eye does hebehold it? Is summer good to him? Of long winters how much can hesleep? What are his dreams? How feels he, and what does he, whensuddenly awakened, alone, at dead of night, by fusilades of thunder?"

"Like you, " said the stranger, "I can't understand the misanthrope. Sofar as my experience goes, either mankind is worthy one's best love, orelse I have been lucky. Never has it been my lot to have been wronged, though but in the smallest degree. Cheating, backbiting, superciliousness, disdain, hard-heartedness, and all that brood, I knowbut by report. Cold regards tossed over the sinister shoulder of aformer friend, ingratitude in a beneficiary, treachery in aconfidant--such things may be; but I must take somebody's word for it. Now the bridge that has carried me so well over, shall I not praise it?"

"Ingratitude to the worthy bridge not to do so. Man is a noble fellow, and in an age of satirists, I am not displeased to find one who hasconfidence in him, and bravely stands up for him. "

"Yes, I always speak a good word for man; and what is more, am alwaysready to do a good deed for him. "

"You are a man after my own heart, " responded the cosmopolitan, with acandor which lost nothing by its calmness. "Indeed, " he added, "oursentiments agree so, that were they written in a book, whose was whose, few but the nicest critics might determine. "

"Since we are thus joined in mind, " said the stranger, "why not bejoined in hand?"

"My hand is always at the service of virtue, " frankly extending it tohim as to virtue personified. 

"And now, " said the stranger, cordially retaining his hand, "you knowour fashion here at the West. It may be a little low, but it is kind. Briefly, we being newly-made friends must drink together. What say you?"

"Thank you; but indeed, you must excuse me. "

"Why?"

"Because, to tell the truth, I have to-day met so many old friends, allfree-hearted, convivial gentlemen, that really, really, though for thepresent I succeed in mastering it, I am at bottom almost in thecondition of a sailor who, stepping ashore after a long voyage, erenight reels with loving welcomes, his head of less capacity than hisheart. "

At the allusion to old friends, the stranger's countenance a littlefell, as a jealous lover's might at hearing from his sweetheart offormer ones. But rallying, he said: "No doubt they treated you tosomething strong; but wine--surely, that gentle creature, wine; come, let us have a little gentle wine at one of these little tables here. Come, come. " Then essaying to roll about like a full pipe in the sea, sang in a voice which had had more of good-fellowship, had there beenless of a latent squeak to it:

 "Let us drink of the wine of the vine benign, That sparkles warm in Zansovine. "

The cosmopolitan, with longing eye upon him, stood as sorely tempted andwavering a moment; then, abruptly stepping towards him, with a look ofdissolved surrender, said: "When mermaid songs move figure-heads, thenmay glory, gold, and women try their blandishments on me. But a goodfellow, singing a good song, he woos forth my every spike, so that mywhole hull, like a ship's, sailing by a magnetic rock, caves in withacquiescence. Enough: when one has a heart of a certain sort, it is invain trying to be resolute. "

CHAPTER XXIX

THE BOON COMPANIONS. 

The wine, port, being called for, and the two seated at the littletable, a natural pause of convivial expectancy ensued; the stranger'seye turned towards the bar near by, watching the red-cheeked, white-aproned man there, blithely dusting the bottle, and invitinglyarranging the salver and glasses; when, with a sudden impulse turninground his head towards his companion, he said, "Ours is friendship atfirst sight, ain't it?"

"It is, " was the placidly pleased reply: "and the same may be said offriendship at first sight as of love at first sight: it is the only trueone, the only noble one. It bespeaks confidence. Who would go soundinghis way into love or friendship, like a strange ship by night, into anenemy's harbor?"

"Right. Boldly in before the wind. Agreeable, how we always agree. By-the-way, though but a formality, friends should know each other'snames. What is yours, pray?"

"Francis Goodman. But those who love me, call me Frank. And yours?"

"Charles Arnold Noble. But do you call me Charlie. "

"I will, Charlie; nothing like preserving in manhood the fraternalfamiliarities of youth. It proves the heart a rosy boy to the last. "

"My sentiments again. Ah!"

It was a smiling waiter, with the smiling bottle, the cork drawn; acommon quart bottle, but for the occasion fitted at bottom into a littlebark basket, braided with porcupine quills, gayly tinted in the Indianfashion. This being set before the entertainer, he regarded it withaffectionate interest, but seemed not to understand, or else to pretendnot to, a handsome red label pasted on the bottle, bearing the capitalletters, P. W. 

"P. W. , " said he at last, perplexedly eying the pleasing poser, "nowwhat does P. W. Mean?"

"Shouldn't wonder, " said the cosmopolitan gravely, "if it stood for portwine. You called for port wine, didn't you?"

"Why so it is, so it is!"

"I find some little mysteries not very hard to clear up, " said theother, quietly crossing his legs. 

This commonplace seemed to escape the stranger's hearing, for, full ofhis bottle, he now rubbed his somewhat sallow hands over it, and with astrange kind of cackle, meant to be a chirrup, cried: "Good wine, goodwine; is it not the peculiar bond of good feeling?" Then brimming bothglasses, pushed one over, saying, with what seemed intended for an airof fine disdain: "Ill betide those gloomy skeptics who maintain thatnow-a-days pure wine is unpurchasable; that almost every variety on saleis less the vintage of vineyards than laboratories; that mostbar-keepers are but a set of male Brinvilliarses, with complaisant artspracticing against the lives of their best friends, their customers. "

A shade passed over the cosmopolitan. After a few minutes' down-castmusing, he lifted his eyes and said: "I have long thought, my dearCharlie, that the spirit in which wine is regarded by too many in thesedays is one of the most painful examples of want of confidence. Look atthese glasses. He who could mistrust poison in this wine would mistrustconsumption in Hebe's cheek. While, as for suspicions against thedealers in wine and sellers of it, those who cherish such suspicions canhave but limited trust in the human heart. Each human heart they mustthink to be much like each bottle of port, not such port as this, butsuch port as they hold to. Strange traducers, who see good faith innothing, however sacred. Not medicines, not the wine in sacraments, hasescaped them. The doctor with his phial, and the priest with hischalice, they deem equally the unconscious dispensers of bogus cordialsto the dying. "

"Dreadful!"

"Dreadful indeed, " said the cosmopolitan solemnly. "These distrustersstab at the very soul of confidence. If this wine, " impressively holdingup his full glass, "if this wine with its bright promise be not true, how shall man be, whose promise can be no brighter? But if wine befalse, while men are true, whither shall fly convivial geniality? Tothink of sincerely-genial souls drinking each other's health at unawaresin perfidious and murderous drugs!"

"Horrible!"

"Much too much so to be true, Charlie. Let us forget it. Come, you aremy entertainer on this occasion, and yet you don't pledge me. I havebeen waiting for it. "

"Pardon, pardon, " half confusedly and half ostentatiously lifting hisglass. "I pledge you, Frank, with my whole heart, believe me, " taking adraught too decorous to be large, but which, small though it was, wasfollowed by a slight involuntary wryness to the mouth. 

"And I return you the pledge, Charlie, heart-warm as it came to me, andhonest as this wine I drink it in, " reciprocated the cosmopolitan withprincely kindliness in his gesture, taking a generous swallow, concluding in a smack, which, though audible, was not so much so as tobe unpleasing. 

"Talking of alleged spuriousness of wines, " said he, tranquilly settingdown his glass, and then sloping back his head and with friendlyfixedness eying the wine, "perhaps the strangest part of those allegingsis, that there is, as claimed, a kind of man who, while convinced thaton this continent most wines are shams, yet still drinks away at them;accounting wine so fine a thing, that even the sham article is betterthan none at all. And if the temperance people urge that, by thiscourse, he will sooner or later be undermined in health, he answers, 'And do you think I don't know that? But health without cheer I hold abore; and cheer, even of the spurious sort, has its price, which I amwilling to pay. '"

"Such a man, Frank, must have a disposition ungovernably bacchanalian. "

"Yes, if such a man there be, which I don't credit. It is a fable, but afable from which I once heard a person of less genius than grotesquenessdraw a moral even more extravagant than the fable itself. He said thatit illustrated, as in a parable, how that a man of a dispositionungovernably good-natured might still familiarly associate with men, though, at the same time, he believed the greater part of menfalse-hearted--accounting society so sweet a thing that even thespurious sort was better than none at all. And if the Rochefoucaultitesurge that, by this course, he will sooner or later be undermined insecurity, he answers, 'And do you think I don't know that? But securitywithout society I hold a bore; and society, even of the spurious sort, has its price, which I am willing to pay. '"

"A most singular theory, " said the stranger with a slight fidget, eyinghis companion with some inquisitiveness, "indeed, Frank, a mostslanderous thought, " he exclaimed in sudden heat and with an involuntarylook almost of being personally aggrieved. 

"In one sense it merits all you say, and more, " rejoined the other withwonted mildness, "but, for a kind of drollery in it, charity might, perhaps, overlook something of the wickedness. Humor is, in fact, soblessed a thing, that even in the least virtuous product of the humanmind, if there can be found but nine good jokes, some philosophers areclement enough to affirm that those nine good jokes should redeem allthe wicked thoughts, though plenty as the populace of Sodom. At anyrate, this same humor has something, there is no telling what, ofbeneficence in it, it is such a catholicon and charm--nearly all menagreeing in relishing it, though they may agree in little else--and inits way it undeniably does such a deal of familiar good in the world, that no wonder it is almost a proverb, that a man of humor, a mancapable of a good loud laugh--seem how he may in other things--canhardly be a heartless scamp. "

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the other, pointing to the figure of a palepauper-boy on the deck below, whose pitiableness was touched, as itwere, with ludicrousness by a pair of monstrous boots, apparently somemason's discarded ones, cracked with drouth, half eaten by lime, andcurled up about the toe like a bassoon. "Look--ha, ha, ha!"

"I see, " said the other, with what seemed quiet appreciation, but of akind expressing an eye to the grotesque, without blindness to what inthis case accompanied it, "I see; and the way in which it moves you, Charlie, comes in very apropos to point the proverb I was speaking of. Indeed, had you intended this effect, it could not have been more so. For who that heard that laugh, but would as naturally argue from it asound heart as sound lungs? True, it is said that a man may smile, andsmile, and smile, and be a villain; but it is not said that a man maylaugh, and laugh, and laugh, and be one, is it, Charlie?"

"Ha, ha, ha!--no no, no no. "

"Why Charlie, your explosions illustrate my remarks almost as aptly asthe chemist's imitation volcano did his lectures. But even if experiencedid not sanction the proverb, that a good laugher cannot be a bad man, Ishould yet feel bound in confidence to believe it, since it is a sayingcurrent among the people, and I doubt not originated among them, andhence _must_ be true; for the voice of the people is the voice of truth. Don't you think so?"

"Of course I do. If Truth don't speak through the people, it neverspeaks at all; so I heard one say. "

"A true saying. But we stray. The popular notion of humor, considered asindex to the heart, would seem curiously confirmed by Aristotle--Ithink, in his 'Politics, ' (a work, by-the-by, which, however it may beviewed upon the whole, yet, from the tenor of certain sections, shouldnot, without precaution, be placed in the hands of youth)--who remarksthat the least lovable men in history seem to have had for humor notonly a disrelish, but a hatred; and this, in some cases, along with anextraordinary dry taste for practical punning. I remember it is relatedof Phalaris, the capricious tyrant of Sicily, that he once caused a poorfellow to be beheaded on a horse-block, for no other cause than having ahorse-laugh. "

"Funny Phalaris!"

"Cruel Phalaris!"

As after fire-crackers, there was a pause, both looking downward on thetable as if mutually struck by the contrast of exclamations, andpondering upon its significance, if any. So, at least, it seemed; but onone side it might have been otherwise: for presently glancing up, thecosmopolitan said: "In the instance of the moral, drolly cynic, drawnfrom the queer bacchanalian fellow we were speaking of, who had hisreasons for still drinking spurious wine, though knowing it to besuch--there, I say, we have an example of what is certainly a wickedthought, but conceived in humor. I will now give you one of a wickedthought conceived in wickedness. You shall compare the two, and answer, whether in the one case the sting is not neutralized by the humor, andwhether in the other the absence of humor does not leave the sting freeplay. I once heard a wit, a mere wit, mind, an irreligious Parisian wit, say, with regard to the temperance movement, that none, to theirpersonal benefit, joined it sooner than niggards and knaves; because, ashe affirmed, the one by it saved money and the other made money, as inship-owners cutting off the spirit ration without giving its equivalent, and gamblers and all sorts of subtle tricksters sticking to cold water, the better to keep a cool head for business. "

"A wicked thought, indeed!" cried the stranger, feelingly. 

"Yes, " leaning over the table on his elbow and genially gesturing at himwith his forefinger: "yes, and, as I said, you don't remark the sting ofit?"

"I do, indeed. Most calumnious thought, Frank!"

"No humor in it?"

"Not a bit!"

"Well now, Charlie, " eying him with moist regard, "let us drink. Itappears to me you don't drink freely. "

"Oh, oh--indeed, indeed--I am not backward there. I protest, a freerdrinker than friend Charlie you will find nowhere, " with feverish zealsnatching his glass, but only in the sequel to dally with it. "By-the-way, Frank, " said he, perhaps, or perhaps not, to draw attentionfrom himself, "by-the-way, I saw a good thing the other day; capitalthing; a panegyric on the press, It pleased me so, I got it by heart attwo readings. It is a kind of poetry, but in a form which stands insomething the same relation to blank verse which that does to rhyme. Asort of free-and-easy chant with refrains to it. Shall I recite it?"

"Anything in praise of the press I shall be happy to hear, " rejoined thecosmopolitan, "the more so, " he gravely proceeded, "as of late I haveobserved in some quarters a disposition to disparage the press. "

"Disparage the press?"

"Even so; some gloomy souls affirming that it is proving with that greatinvention as with brandy or eau-de-vie, which, upon its first discovery, was believed by the doctors to be, as its French name implies, apanacea--a notion which experience, it may be thought, has not fullyverified. "

"You surprise me, Frank. Are there really those who so decry the press?Tell me more. Their reasons. "

"Reasons they have none, but affirmations they have many; among otherthings affirming that, while under dynastic despotisms, the press is tothe people little but an improvisatore, under popular ones it is too aptto be their Jack Cade. In fine, these sour sages regard the press in thelight of a Colt's revolver, pledged to no cause but his in whose chancehands it may be; deeming the one invention an improvement upon the pen, much akin to what the other is upon the pistol; involving, along withthe multiplication of the barrel, no consecration of the aim. The term'freedom of the press' they consider on a par with _freedom of Colt'srevolver_. Hence, for truth and the right, they hold, to indulge hopesfrom the one is little more sensible than for Kossuth and Mazzini toindulge hopes from the other. Heart-breaking views enough, you think;but their refutation is in every true reformer's contempt. Is it notso?"

"Without doubt. But go on, go on. I like to hear you, " flatteringlybrimming up his glass for him. 

"For one, " continued the cosmopolitan, grandly swelling his chest, "Ihold the press to be neither the people's improvisatore, nor Jack Cade;neither their paid fool, nor conceited drudge. I think interest neverprevails with it over duty. The press still speaks for truth thoughimpaled, in the teeth of lies though intrenched. Disdaining for it thepoor name of cheap diffuser of news, I claim for it the independentapostleship of Advancer of Knowledge:--the iron Paul! Paul, I say; fornot only does the press advance knowledge, but righteousness. In thepress, as in the sun, resides, my dear Charlie, a dedicated principle ofbeneficent force and light. For the Satanic press, by its coappearancewith the apostolic, it is no more an aspersion to that, than to the truesun is the coappearance of the mock one. For all the baleful-lookingparhelion, god Apollo dispenses the day. In a word, Charlie, what thesovereign of England is titularly, I hold the press to beactually--Defender of the Faith!--defender of the faith in the finaltriumph of truth over error, metaphysics over superstition, theory overfalsehood, machinery over nature, and the good man over the bad. Suchare my views, which, if stated at some length, you, Charlie, mustpardon, for it is a theme upon which I cannot speak with cold brevity. And now I am impatient for your panegyric, which, I doubt not, will putmine to the blush. "

"It is rather in the blush-giving vein, " smiled the other; "but such asit is, Frank, you shall have it. "

"Tell me when you are about to begin, " said the cosmopolitan, "for, whenat public dinners the press is toasted, I always drink the toaststanding, and shall stand while you pronounce the panegyric. "

"Very good, Frank; you may stand up now. "

He accordingly did so, when the stranger likewise rose, and upliftingthe ruby wine-flask, began. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

OPENING WITH A POETICAL EULOGY OF THE PRESS AND CONTINUING WITH TALKINSPIRED BY THE SAME. 

"'Praise be unto the press, not Faust's, but Noah's; let us extol andmagnify the press, the true press of Noah, from which breaketh the truemorning. Praise be unto the press, not the black press but the red; letus extol and magnify the press, the red press of Noah, from which comethinspiration. Ye pressmen of the Rhineland and the Rhine, join in withall ye who tread out the glad tidings on isle Madeira or Mitylene. --Whogiveth redness of eyes by making men long to tarry at the fineprint?--Praise be unto the press, the rosy press of Noah, which givethrosiness of hearts, by making men long to tarry at the rosy wine. --Whohath babblings and contentions? Who, without cause, inflicteth wounds?Praise be unto the press, the kindly press of Noah, which knittethfriends, which fuseth foes. --Who may be bribed?--Who may bebound?--Praise be unto the press, the free press of Noah, which will notlie for tyrants, but make tyrants speak the truth. --Then praise be untothe press, the frank old press of Noah; then let us extol and magnifythe press, the brave old press of Noah; then let us with roses garlandand enwreath the press, the grand old press of Noah, from which flowstreams of knowledge which give man a bliss no more unreal than hispain. '"

"You deceived me, " smiled the cosmopolitan, as both now resumed theirseats; "you roguishly took advantage of my simplicity; you archly playedupon my enthusiasm. But never mind; the offense, if any, was socharming, I almost wish you would offend again. As for certain poeticleft-handers in your panegyric, those I cheerfully concede to theindefinite privileges of the poet. Upon the whole, it was quite in thelyric style--a style I always admire on account of that spirit ofSibyllic confidence and assurance which is, perhaps, its primeingredient. But come, " glancing at his companion's glass, "for a lyrist, you let the bottle stay with you too long. "

"The lyre and the vine forever!" cried the other in his rapture, or whatseemed such, heedless of the hint, "the vine, the vine! is it not themost graceful and bounteous of all growths? And, by its being such, isnot something meant--divinely meant? As I live, a vine, a Catawba vine, shall be planted on my grave!"

"A genial thought; but your glass there. "

"Oh, oh, " taking a moderate sip, "but you, why don't you drink?"

"You have forgotten, my dear Charlie, what I told you of my previousconvivialities to-day. "

"Oh, " cried the other, now in manner quite abandoned to the lyric mood, not without contrast to the easy sociability of his companion. "Oh, onecan't drink too much of good old wine--the genuine, mellow old port. Pooh, pooh! drink away. "

"Then keep me company. "

"Of course, " with a flourish, taking another sip--"suppose we havecigars. Never mind your pipe there; a pipe is best when alone. I say, waiter, bring some cigars--your best. "

They were brought in a pretty little bit of western pottery, representing some kind of Indian utensil, mummy-colored, set down in amass of tobacco leaves, whose long, green fans, fancifully grouped, formed with peeps of red the sides of the receptacle. 

Accompanying it were two accessories, also bits of pottery, but smaller, both globes; one in guise of an apple flushed with red and gold to thelife, and, through a cleft at top, you saw it was hollow. This was forthe ashes. The other, gray, with wrinkled surface, in the likeness of awasp's nest, was the match-box. "There, " said the stranger, pushing overthe cigar-stand, "help yourself, and I will touch you off, " taking amatch. "Nothing like tobacco, " he added, when the fumes of the cigarbegan to wreathe, glancing from the smoker to the pottery, "I will havea Virginia tobacco-plant set over my grave beside the Catawba vine. "

"Improvement upon your first idea, which by itself was good--but youdon't smoke. "

"Presently, presently--let me fill your glass again. You don't drink. "

"Thank you; but no more just now. Fill _your_ glass. "

"Presently, presently; do you drink on. Never mind me. Now that itstrikes me, let me say, that he who, out of superfine gentility orfanatic morality, denies himself tobacco, suffers a more seriousabatement in the cheap pleasures of life than the dandy in his ironboot, or the celibate on his iron cot. While for him who would fainrevel in tobacco, but cannot, it is a thing at which philanthropistsmust weep, to see such an one, again and again, madly returning to thecigar, which, for his incompetent stomach, he cannot enjoy, while still, after each shameful repulse, the sweet dream of the impossible goodgoads him on to his fierce misery once more--poor eunuch!"

"I agree with you, " said the cosmopolitan, still gravely social, "butyou don't smoke. "

"Presently, presently, do you smoke on. Ad I was saying about----"

"But _why_ don't you smoke--come. You don't think that tobacco, when inleague with wine, too much enhances the latter's vinous quality--inshort, with certain constitutions tends to impair self-possession, doyou?"

"To think that, were treason to good fellowship, " was the warmdisclaimer. "No, no. But the fact is, there is an unpropitious flavor inmy mouth just now. Ate of a diabolical ragout at dinner, so I shan'tsmoke till I have washed away the lingering memento of it with wine. Butsmoke away, you, and pray, don't forget to drink. By-the-way, while wesit here so companionably, giving loose to any companionable nothing, your uncompanionable friend, Coonskins, is, by pure contrast, broughtto recollection. If he were but here now, he would see how much of realheart-joy he denies himself by not hob-a-nobbing with his kind. "

"Why, " with loitering emphasis, slowly withdrawing his cigar, "I thoughtI had undeceived you there. I thought you had come to a betterunderstanding of my eccentric friend. "

"Well, I thought so, too; but first impressions will return, you know. In truth, now that I think of it, I am led to conjecture from chancethings which dropped from Coonskins, during the little interview I hadwith him, that he is not a Missourian by birth, but years ago came Westhere, a young misanthrope from the other side of the Alleghanies, lessto make his fortune, than to flee man. Now, since they say triflessometimes effect great results, I shouldn't wonder, if his history wereprobed, it would be found that what first indirectly gave his sad biasto Coonskins was his disgust at reading in boyhood the advice ofPolonius to Laertes--advice which, in the selfishness it inculcates, isalmost on a par with a sort of ballad upon the economies ofmoney-making, to be occasionally seen pasted against the desk of smallretail traders in New England. "

"I do hope now, my dear fellow, " said the cosmopolitan with an air ofbland protest, "that, in my presence at least, you will throw outnothing to the prejudice of the sons of the Puritans. "

"Hey-day and high times indeed, " exclaimed the other, nettled, "sons ofthe Puritans forsooth! And who be Puritans, that I, an Alabamaian, mustdo them reverence? A set of sourly conceited old Malvolios, whomShakespeare laughs his fill at in his comedies. "

"Pray, what were you about to suggest with regard to Polonius, " observedthe cosmopolitan with quiet forbearance, expressive of the patience of asuperior mind at the petulance of an inferior one; "how do youcharacterize his advice to Laertes?"

"As false, fatal, and calumnious, " exclaimed the other, with a degree ofardor befitting one resenting a stigma upon the family escutcheon, "andfor a father to give his son--monstrous. The case you see is this: Theson is going abroad, and for the first. What does the father? InvokeGod's blessing upon him? Put the blessed Bible in his trunk? No. Cramshim with maxims smacking of my Lord Chesterfield, with maxims of France, with maxims of Italy. "

"No, no, be charitable, not that. Why, does he not among other thingssay:--

 'The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel'?

Is that compatible with maxims of Italy?"

"Yes it is, Frank. Don't you see? Laertes is to take the best of care ofhis friends--his proved friends, on the same principle that awine-corker takes the best of care of his proved bottles. When a bottlegets a sharp knock and don't break, he says, 'Ah, I'll keep thatbottle. ' Why? Because he loves it? No, he has particular use for it. "

"Dear, dear!" appealingly turning in distress, "that--that kind ofcriticism is--is--in fact--it won't do. "

"Won't truth do, Frank? You are so charitable with everybody, do butconsider the tone of the speech. Now I put it to you, Frank; is thereanything in it hortatory to high, heroic, disinterested effort? Anythinglike 'sell all thou hast and give to the poor?' And, in other points, what desire seems most in the father's mind, that his son should cherishnobleness for himself, or be on his guard against the contrary thing inothers? An irreligious warner, Frank--no devout counselor, is Polonius. I hate him. Nor can I bear to hear your veterans of the world affirm, that he who steers through life by the advice of old Polonius will notsteer among the breakers. "

"No, no--I hope nobody affirms that, " rejoined the cosmopolitan, withtranquil abandonment; sideways reposing his arm at full length upon thetable. "I hope nobody affirms that; because, if Polonius' advice betaken in your sense, then the recommendation of it by men of experiencewould appear to involve more or less of an unhandsome sort of reflectionupon human nature. And yet, " with a perplexed air, "your suggestionshave put things in such a strange light to me as in fact a little todisturb my previous notions of Polonius and what he says. To be frank, by your ingenuity you have unsettled me there, to that degree that wereit not for our coincidence of opinion in general, I should almost thinkI was now at length beginning to feel the ill effect of an immaturemind, too much consorting with a mature one, except on the ground offirst principles in common. "

"Really and truly, " cried the other with a kind of tickled modesty andpleased concern, "mine is an understanding too weak to throw outgrapnels and hug another to it. I have indeed heard of some greatscholars in these days, whose boast is less that they have madedisciples than victims. But for me, had I the power to do such things, Ihave not the heart to desire. "

"I believe you, my dear Charlie. And yet, I repeat, by your commentarieson Polonius you have, I know not how, unsettled me; so that now I don'texactly see how Shakespeare meant the words he puts in Polonius' mouth. "

"Some say that he meant them to open people's eyes; but I don't thinkso. "

"Open their eyes?" echoed the cosmopolitan, slowly expanding his; "whatis there in this world for one to open his eyes to? I mean in the sortof invidious sense you cite?"

"Well, others say he meant to corrupt people's morals; and still others, that he had no express intention at all, but in effect opens their eyesand corrupts their morals in one operation. All of which I reject. "

"Of course you reject so crude an hypothesis; and yet, to confess, inreading Shakespeare in my closet, struck by some passage, I have laiddown the volume, and said: 'This Shakespeare is a queer man. ' At timesseeming irresponsible, he does not always seem reliable. There appearsto be a certain--what shall I call it?--hidden sun, say, about him, atonce enlightening and mystifying. Now, I should be afraid to say what Ihave sometimes thought that hidden sun might be. "

"Do you think it was the true light?" with clandestine geniality againfilling the other's glass. 

"I would prefer to decline answering a categorical question there. Shakespeare has got to be a kind of deity. Prudent minds, having certainlatent thoughts concerning him, will reserve them in a condition oflasting probation. Still, as touching avowable speculations, we arepermitted a tether. Shakespeare himself is to be adored, not arraigned;but, so we do it with humility, we may a little canvass his characters. There's his Autolycus now, a fellow that always puzzled me. How is oneto take Autolycus? A rogue so happy, so lucky, so triumphant, of soalmost captivatingly vicious a career that a virtuous man reduced to thepoor-house (were such a contingency conceivable), might almost long tochange sides with him. And yet, see the words put into his mouth: 'Oh, 'cries Autolycus, as he comes galloping, gay as a buck, upon the stage, 'oh, ' he laughs, 'oh what a fool is Honesty, and Trust, his swornbrother, a very simple gentleman. ' Think of that. Trust, that is, confidence--that is, the thing in this universe the sacredest--israttlingly pronounced just the simplest. And the scenes in which therogue figures seem purposely devised for verification of his principles. Mind, Charlie, I do not say it _is_ so, far from it; but I _do_ say itseems so. Yes, Autolycus would seem a needy varlet acting upon thepersuasion that less is to be got by invoking pockets than pickingthem, more to be made by an expert knave than a bungling beggar; and forthis reason, as he thinks, that the soft heads outnumber the softhearts. The devil's drilled recruit, Autolycus is joyous as if he worethe livery of heaven. When disturbed by the character and career of onethus wicked and thus happy, my sole consolation is in the fact that nosuch creature ever existed, except in the powerful imagination whichevoked him. And yet, a creature, a living creature, he is, though only apoet was his maker. It may be, that in that paper-and-ink investiture ofhis, Autolycus acts more effectively upon mankind than he would in aflesh-and-blood one. Can his influence be salutary? True, in Autolycusthere is humor; but though, according to my principle, humor is ingeneral to be held a saving quality, yet the case of Autolycus is anexception; because it is his humor which, so to speak, oils hismischievousness. The bravadoing mischievousness of Autolycus is slidinto the world on humor, as a pirate schooner, with colors flying, islaunched into the sea on greased ways. "

"I approve of Autolycus as little as you, " said the stranger, who, during his companion's commonplaces, had seemed less attentive to themthan to maturing with in his own mind the original conceptions destinedto eclipse them. "But I cannot believe that Autolycus, mischievous as hemust prove upon the stage, can be near so much so as such a character asPolonius. "

"I don't know about that, " bluntly, and yet not impolitely, returned thecosmopolitan; "to be sure, accepting your view of the old courtier, then if between him and Autolycus you raise the question ofunprepossessingness, I grant you the latter comes off best. For a moistrogue may tickle the midriff, while a dry worldling may but wrinkle thespleen. "

"But Polonius is not dry, " said the other excitedly; "he drules. Onesees the fly-blown old fop drule and look wise. His vile wisdom is madethe viler by his vile rheuminess. The bowing and cringing, time-servingold sinner--is such an one to give manly precepts to youth? Thediscreet, decorous, old dotard-of-state; senile prudence; fatuoussoullessness! The ribanded old dog is paralytic all down one side, andthat the side of nobleness. His soul is gone out. Only nature'sautomatonism keeps him on his legs. As with some old trees, the barksurvives the pith, and will still stand stiffly up, though but to rimround punk, so the body of old Polonius has outlived his soul. "

"Come, come, " said the cosmopolitan with serious air, almost displeased;"though I yield to none in admiration of earnestness, yet, I think, evenearnestness may have limits. To human minds, strong language is alwaysmore or less distressing. Besides, Polonius is an old man--as I rememberhim upon the stage--with snowy locks. Now charity requires that such afigure--think of it how you will--should at least be treated withcivility. Moreover, old age is ripeness, and I once heard say, 'Betterripe than raw. '"

"But not better rotten than raw!" bringing down his hand with energy onthe table. 

"Why, bless me, " in mild surprise contemplating his heated comrade, "howyou fly out against this unfortunate Polonius--a being that never was, nor will be. And yet, viewed in a Christian light, " he added pensively, "I don't know that anger against this man of straw is a whit less wisethan anger against a man of flesh, Madness, to be mad with anything. "

"That may be, or may not be, " returned the other, a little testily, perhaps; "but I stick to what I said, that it is better to be raw thanrotten. And what is to be feared on that head, may be known from this:that it is with the best of hearts as with the best of pears--adangerous experiment to linger too long upon the scene. This didPolonius. Thank fortune, Frank, I am young, every tooth sound in myhead, and if good wine can keep me where I am, long shall I remain so. "

"True, " with a smile. "But wine, to do good, must be drunk. You havetalked much and well, Charlie; but drunk little and indifferently--fillup. "

"Presently, presently, " with a hasty and preoccupied air. "If I rememberright, Polonius hints as much as that one should, under nocircumstances, commit the indiscretion of aiding in a pecuniary way anunfortunate friend. He drules out some stale stuff about 'loan losingboth itself and friend, ' don't he? But our bottle; is it glued fast?Keep it moving, my dear Frank. Good wine, and upon my soul I begin tofeel it, and through me old Polonius--yes, this wine, I fear, is whatexcites me so against that detestable old dog without a tooth. "

Upon this, the cosmopolitan, cigar in mouth, slowly raised the bottle, and brought it slowly to the light, looking at it steadfastly, as onemight at a thermometer in August, to see not how low it was, but howhigh. Then whiffing out a puff, set it down, and said: "Well, Charlie, if what wine you have drunk came out of this bottle, in that case Ishould say that if--supposing a case--that if one fellow had an objectin getting another fellow fuddled, and this fellow to be fuddled was ofyour capacity, the operation would be comparatively inexpensive. What doyou think, Charlie?"

"Why, I think I don't much admire the supposition, " said Charlie, with alook of resentment; "it ain't safe, depend upon it, Frank, to ventureupon too jocose suppositions with one's friends. "

"Why, bless you, Frank, my supposition wasn't personal, but general. Youmustn't be so touchy. "

"If I am touchy it is the wine. Sometimes, when I freely drink, it has atouchy effect on me, I have observed. "

"Freely drink? you haven't drunk the perfect measure of one glass, yet. While for me, this must be my fourth or fifth, thanks to yourimportunity; not to speak of all I drank this morning, for oldacquaintance' sake. Drink, drink; you must drink. "

"Oh, I drink while you are talking, " laughed the other; "you have notnoticed it, but I have drunk my share. Have a queer way I learned from asedate old uncle, who used to tip off his glass-unperceived. Do you fillup, and my glass, too. There! Now away with that stump, and have a newcigar. Good fellowship forever!" again in the lyric mood, "Say, Frank, are we not men? I say are we not human? Tell me, were they not human whoengendered us, as before heaven I believe they shall be whom we shallengender? Fill up, up, up, my friend. Let the ruby tide aspire, and allruby aspirations with it! Up, fill up! Be we convivial. Andconviviality, what is it? The word, I mean; what expresses it? A livingtogether. But bats live together, and did you ever hear of convivialbats?"

"If I ever did, " observed the cosmopolitan, "it has quite slipped myrecollection. "

"But _why_ did you never hear of convivial bats, nor anybody else?Because bats, though they live together, live not together genially. Bats are not genial souls. But men are; and how delightful to think thatthe word which among men signifies the highest pitch of geniality, implies, as indispensable auxiliary, the cheery benediction of thebottle. Yes, Frank, to live together in the finest sense, we must drinktogether. And so, what wonder that he who loves not wine, that soberwretch has a lean heart--a heart like a wrung-out old bluing-bag, andloves not his kind? Out upon him, to the rag-house with him, hanghim--the ungenial soul!"

"Oh, now, now, can't you be convivial without being censorious? I likeeasy, unexcited conviviality. For the sober man, really, though for mypart I naturally love a cheerful glass, I will not prescribe my natureas the law to other natures. So don't abuse the sober man. Convivialityis one good thing, and sobriety is another good thing. So don't beone-sided. "

"Well, if I am one-sided, it is the wine. Indeed, indeed, I haveindulged too genially. My excitement upon slight provocation shows it. But yours is a stronger head; drink you. By the way, talking ofgeniality, it is much on the increase in these days, ain't it?"

"It is, and I hail the fact. Nothing better attests the advance of thehumanitarian spirit. In former and less humanitarian ages--the ages ofamphitheatres and gladiators--geniality was mostly confined to thefireside and table. But in our age--the age of joint-stock companies andfree-and-easies--it is with this precious quality as with precious goldin old Peru, which Pizarro found making up the scullion's sauce-pot asthe Inca's crown. Yes, we golden boys, the moderns, have genialityeverywhere--a bounty broadcast like noonlight. "

"True, true; my sentiments again. Geniality has invaded each departmentand profession. We have genial senators, genial authors, geniallecturers, genial doctors, genial clergymen, genial surgeons, and thenext thing we shall have genial hangmen. "

"As to the last-named sort of person, " said the cosmopolitan, "I trustthat the advancing spirit of geniality will at last enable us todispense with him. No murderers--no hangmen. And surely, when the wholeworld shall have been genialized, it will be as out of place to talk ofmurderers, as in a Christianized world to talk of sinners. "

"To pursue the thought, " said the other, "every blessing is attendedwith some evil, and----"

"Stay, " said the cosmopolitan, "that may be better let pass for a loosesaying, than for hopeful doctrine. "

"Well, assuming the saying's truth, it would apply to the futuresupremacy of the genial spirit, since then it will fare with the hangmanas it did with the weaver when the spinning-jenny whizzed into theascendant. Thrown out of employment, what could Jack Ketch turn his handto? Butchering?"

"That he could turn his hand to it seems probable; but that, under thecircumstances, it would be appropriate, might in some minds admit of aquestion. For one, I am inclined to think--and I trust it will not beheld fastidiousness--that it would hardly be suitable to the dignity ofour nature, that an individual, once employed in attending the lasthours of human unfortunates, should, that office being extinct, transferhimself to the business of attending the last hours of unfortunatecattle. I would suggest that the individual turn valet--a vocation towhich he would, perhaps, appear not wholly inadapted by his familiardexterity about the person. In particular, for giving a finishing tie toa gentleman's cravat, I know few who would, in all likelihood, be, fromprevious occupation, better fitted than the professional person inquestion. "

"Are you in earnest?" regarding the serene speaker with unaffectedcuriosity; "are you really in earnest?"

"I trust I am never otherwise, " was the mildly earnest reply; "buttalking of the advance of geniality, I am not without hopes that itwill eventually exert its influence even upon so difficult a subject asthe misanthrope. "

"A genial misanthrope! I thought I had stretched the rope pretty hard intalking of genial hangmen. A genial misanthrope is no more conceivablethan a surly philanthropist. "

"True, " lightly depositing in an unbroken little cylinder the ashes ofhis cigar, "true, the two you name are well opposed. "

"Why, you talk as if there _was_ such a being as a surlyphilanthropist. "

"I do. My eccentric friend, whom you call Coonskins, is an example. Doeshe not, as I explained to you, hide under a surly air a philanthropicheart? Now, the genial misanthrope, when, in the process of eras, heshall turn up, will be the converse of this; under an affable air, hewill hide a misanthropical heart. In short, the genial misanthrope willbe a new kind of monster, but still no small improvement upon theoriginal one, since, instead of making faces and throwing stones atpeople, like that poor old crazy man, Timon, he will take steps, fiddlein hand, and set the tickled world a'dancing. In a word, as the progressof Christianization mellows those in manner whom it cannot mend in mind, much the same will it prove with the progress of genialization. And so, thanks to geniality, the misanthrope, reclaimed from his boorishaddress, will take on refinement and softness--to so genial a degree, indeed, that it may possibly fall out that the misanthrope of thecoming century will be almost as popular as, I am sincerely sorry tosay, some philanthropists of the present time would seem not to be, aswitness my eccentric friend named before. "

"Well, " cried the other, a little weary, perhaps, of a speculation soabstract, "well, however it may be with the century to come, certainlyin the century which is, whatever else one may be, he must be genial orhe is nothing. So fill up, fill up, and be genial!"

"I am trying my best, " said the cosmopolitan, still calmlycompanionable. "A moment since, we talked of Pizarro, gold, and Peru; nodoubt, now, you remember that when the Spaniard first entered Atahalpa'streasure-chamber, and saw such profusion of plate stacked up, right andleft, with the wantonness of old barrels in a brewer's yard, the needyfellow felt a twinge of misgiving, of want of confidence, as to thegenuineness of an opulence so profuse. He went about rapping the shiningvases with his knuckles. But it was all gold, pure gold, good gold, sterling gold, which how cheerfully would have been stamped such atGoldsmiths' Hall. And just so those needy minds, which, through theirown insincerity, having no confidence in mankind, doubt lest the liberalgeniality of this age be spurious. They are small Pizarros in theirway--by the very princeliness of men's geniality stunned into distrustof it. "

"Far be such distrust from you and me, my genial friend, " cried theother fervently; "fill up, fill up!"

"Well, this all along seems a division of labor, " smiled thecosmopolitan. "I do about all the drinking, and you do about all--thegenial. But yours is a nature competent to do that to a largepopulation. And now, my friend, " with a peculiarly grave air, evidentlyforeshadowing something not unimportant, and very likely of closepersonal interest; "wine, you know, opens the heart, and----"

"Opens it!" with exultation, "it thaws it right out. Every heart isice-bound till wine melt it, and reveal the tender grass and sweetherbage budding below, with every dear secret, hidden before like adropped jewel in a snow-bank, lying there unsuspected through wintertill spring. "

"And just in that way, my dear Charlie, is one of my little secrets nowto be shown forth. "

"Ah!" eagerly moving round his chair, "what is it?"

"Be not so impetuous, my dear Charlie. Let me explain. You see, naturally, I am a man not overgifted with assurance; in general, I am, if anything, diffidently reserved; so, if I shall presently seemotherwise, the reason is, that you, by the geniality you have evinced inall your talk, and especially the noble way in which, while affirmingyour good opinion of men, you intimated that you never could prove falseto any man, but most by your indignation at a particularly illiberalpassage in Polonius' advice--in short, in short, " with extremeembarrassment, "how shall I express what I mean, unless I add that byyour whole character you impel me to throw myself upon your nobleness;in one word, put confidence in you, a generous confidence?"

"I see, I see, " with heightened interest, "something of moment you wishto confide. Now, what is it, Frank? Love affair?"

"No, not that. "

"What, then, my _dear_ Frank? Speak--depend upon me to the last. Outwith it. "

"Out it shall come, then, " said the cosmopolitan. "I am in want, urgentwant, of money. "

CHAPTER XXXI. 

A METAMORPHOSIS MORE SURPRISING THAN ANY IN OVID. 

"In want of money!" pushing back his chair as from a suddenly-disclosedman-trap or crater. 

"Yes, " naïvely assented the cosmopolitan, "and you are going to loan mefifty dollars. I could almost wish I was in need of more, only for yoursake. Yes, my dear Charlie, for your sake; that you might the betterprove your noble, kindliness, my dear Charlie. "

"None of your dear Charlies, " cried the other, springing to his feet, and buttoning up his coat, as if hastily to depart upon a long journey. 

"Why, why, why?" painfully looking up. 

"None of your why, why, whys!" tossing out a foot, "go to the devil, sir! Beggar, impostor!--never so deceived in a man in my life. "

CHAPTER XXXII. 

SHOWING THAT THE AGE OF MAGIC AND MAGICIANS IS NOT YET OVER. 

While speaking or rather hissing those words, the boon companionunderwent much such a change as one reads of in fairy-books. Out of oldmaterials sprang a new creature. Cadmus glided into the snake. 

The cosmopolitan rose, the traces of previous feeling vanished; lookedsteadfastly at his transformed friend a moment, then, taking tenhalf-eagles from his pocket, stooped down, and laid them, one by one, ina circle round him; and, retiring a pace, waved his long tasseled pipewith the air of a necromancer, an air heightened by his costume, accompanying each wave with a solemn murmur of cabalistical words. 

Meantime, he within the magic-ring stood suddenly rapt, exhibiting everysymptom of a successful charm--a turned cheek, a fixed attitude, afrozen eye; spellbound, not more by the waving wand than by the teninvincible talismans on the floor. 

"Reappear, reappear, reappear, oh, my former friend! Replace thishideous apparition with thy blest shape, and be the token of thy returnthe words, 'My dear Frank. '"

"My dear Frank, " now cried the restored friend, cordially stepping outof the ring, with regained self-possession regaining lost identity, "Mydear Frank, what a funny man you are; full of fun as an egg of meat. Howcould you tell me that absurd story of your being in need? But I relisha good joke too well to spoil it by letting on. Of course, I humored thething; and, on my side, put on all the cruel airs you would have me. Come, this little episode of fictitious estrangement will but enhancethe delightful reality. Let us sit down again, and finish our bottle. "

"With all my heart, " said the cosmopolitan, dropping the necromancerwith the same facility with which he had assumed it. "Yes, " he added, soberly picking up the gold pieces, and returning them with a chink tohis pocket, "yes, I am something of a funny man now and then; while foryou, Charlie, " eying him in tenderness, "what you say about yourhumoring the thing is true enough; never did man second a joke betterthan you did just now. You played your part better than I did mine; youplayed it, Charlie, to the life. "

"You see, I once belonged to an amateur play company; that accounts forit. But come, fill up, and let's talk of something else. "

"Well, " acquiesced the cosmopolitan, seating himself, and quietlybrimming his glass, "what shall we talk about?"

"Oh, anything you please, " a sort of nervously accommodating. 

"Well, suppose we talk about Charlemont?"

"Charlemont? What's Charlemont? Who's Charlemont?"

"You shall hear, my dear Charlie, " answered the cosmopolitan. "I willtell you the story of Charlemont, the gentleman-madman. "

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

WHICH MAY PASS FOR WHATEVER IT MAY PROVE TO BE WORTH. 

But ere be given the rather grave story of Charlemont, a reply must incivility be made to a certain voice which methinks I hear, that, in viewof past chapters, and more particularly the last, where certain anticsappear, exclaims: How unreal all this is! Who did ever dress or act likeyour cosmopolitan? And who, it might be returned, did ever dress or actlike harlequin?

Strange, that in a work of amusement, this severe fidelity to real lifeshould be exacted by any one, who, by taking up such a work, sufficiently shows that he is not unwilling to drop real life, and turn, for a time, to something different. Yes, it is, indeed, strange that anyone should clamor for the thing he is weary of; that any one, who, forany cause, finds real life dull, should yet demand of him who is todivert his attention from it, that he should be true to that dullness. 

There is another class, and with this class we side, who sit down to awork of amusement tolerantly as they sit at a play, and with much thesame expectations and feelings. They look that fancy shall evoke scenesdifferent from those of the same old crowd round the custom-housecounter, and same old dishes on the boardinghouse table, with charactersunlike those of the same old acquaintances they meet in the same old wayevery day in the same old street. And as, in real life, the proprietieswill not allow people to act out themselves with that unreservepermitted to the stage; so, in books of fiction, they look not only formore entertainment, but, at bottom, even for more reality, than reallife itself can show. Thus, though they want novelty, they want nature, too; but nature unfettered, exhilarated, in effect transformed. In thisway of thinking, the people in a fiction, like the people in a play, must dress as nobody exactly dresses, talk as nobody exactly talks, actas nobody exactly acts. It is with fiction as with religion: it shouldpresent another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie. 

If, then, something is to be pardoned to well-meant endeavor, surely alittle is to be allowed to that writer who, in all his scenes, does butseek to minister to what, as he understands it, is the implied wish ofthe more indulgent lovers of entertainment, before whom harlequin cannever appear in a coat too parti-colored, or cut capers too fantastic. 

One word more. Though every one knows how bootless it is to be in allcases vindicating one's self, never mind how convinced one may be thathe is never in the wrong; yet, so precious to man is the approbation ofhis kind, that to rest, though but under an imaginary censure applied tobut a work of imagination, is no easy thing. The mention of thisweakness will explain why such readers as may think they perceivesomething harmonious between the boisterous hilarity of the cosmopolitanwith the bristling cynic, and his restrained good-nature with theboon-companion, are now referred to that chapter where some similarapparent inconsistency in another character is, on general principles, modestly endeavored to-be apologized for. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN TELLS THE STORY OF THE GENTLEMAN MADMAN. 

"Charlemont was a young merchant of French descent, living in St. Louis--a man not deficient in mind, and possessed of that sterling andcaptivating kindliness, seldom in perfection seen but in youthfulbachelors, united at times to a remarkable sort of gracefullydevil-may-care and witty good-humor. Of course, he was admired byeverybody, and loved, as only mankind can love, by not a few. But in histwenty-ninth year a change came over him. Like one whose hair turns grayin a night, so in a day Charlemont turned from affable to morose. Hisacquaintances were passed without greeting; while, as for hisconfidential friends, them he pointedly, unscrupulously, and with a kindof fierceness, cut dead. 

"One, provoked by such conduct, would fain have resented it with wordsas disdainful; while another, shocked by the change, and, in concern fora friend, magnanimously overlooking affronts, implored to know whatsudden, secret grief had distempered him. But from resentment and fromtenderness Charlemont alike turned away. 

"Ere long, to the general surprise, the merchant Charlemont wasgazetted, and the same day it was reported that he had withdrawn fromtown, but not before placing his entire property in the hands ofresponsible assignees for the benefit of creditors. 

"Whither he had vanished, none could guess. At length, nothing beingheard, it was surmised that he must have made away with himself--asurmise, doubtless, originating in the remembrance of the change somemonths previous to his bankruptcy--a change of a sort only to beascribed to a mind suddenly thrown from its balance. 

"Years passed. It was spring-time, and lo, one bright morning, Charlemont lounged into the St. Louis coffee-houses--gay, polite, humane, companionable, and dressed in the height of costly elegance. Notonly was he alive, but he was himself again. Upon meeting with oldacquaintances, he made the first advances, and in such a manner that itwas impossible not to meet him half-way. Upon other old friends, whom hedid not chance casually to meet, he either personally called, or lefthis card and compliments for them; and to several, sent presents of gameor hampers of wine. 

"They say the world is sometimes harshly unforgiving, but it was not soto Charlemont. The world feels a return of love for one who returns toit as he did. Expressive of its renewed interest was a whisper, aninquiring whisper, how now, exactly, so long after his bankruptcy, itfared with Charlemont's purse. Rumor, seldom at a loss for answers, replied that he had spent nine years in Marseilles in France, and thereacquiring a second fortune, had returned with it, a man devotedhenceforth to genial friendships. 

"Added years went by, and the restored wanderer still the same; orrather, by his noble qualities, grew up like golden maize in theencouraging sun of good opinions. But still the latent wonder was, whathad caused that change in him at a period when, pretty much as now, hewas, to all appearance, in the possession of the same fortune, the samefriends, the same popularity. But nobody thought it would be the thingto question him here. 

"At last, at a dinner at his house, when all the guests but one hadsuccessively departed; this remaining guest, an old acquaintance, beingjust enough under the influence of wine to set aside the fear oftouching upon a delicate point, ventured, in a way which perhaps spokemore favorably for his heart than his tact, to beg of his host toexplain the one enigma of his life. Deep melancholy overspread thebefore cheery face of Charlemont; he sat for some moments tremulouslysilent; then pushing a full decanter towards the guest, in a chokedvoice, said: 'No, no! when by art, and care, and time, flowers are madeto bloom over a grave, who would seek to dig all up again only to knowthe mystery?--The wine. ' When both glasses were filled, Charlemont tookhis, and lifting it, added lowly: 'If ever, in days to come, you shallsee ruin at hand, and, thinking you understand mankind, shall tremblefor your friendships, and tremble for your pride; and, partly throughlove for the one and fear for the other, shall resolve to be beforehandwith the world, and save it from a sin by prospectively taking that sinto yourself, then will you do as one I now dream of once did, and likehim will you suffer; but how fortunate and how grateful should you be, if like him, after all that had happened, you could be a little happyagain. '

"When the guest went away, it was with the persuasion, that thoughoutwardly restored in mind as in fortune, yet, some taint ofCharlemont's old malady survived, and that it was not well for friendsto touch one dangerous string. "

CHAPTER XXXV. 

IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN STRIKINGLY EVINCES THE ARTLESSNESS OF HISNATURE. 

"Well, what do you think of the story of Charlemont?" mildly asked hewho had told it. 

"A very strange one, " answered the auditor, who had been such not withperfect ease, "but is it true?"

"Of course not; it is a story which I told with the purpose of everystory-teller--to amuse. Hence, if it seem strange to you, thatstrangeness is the romance; it is what contrasts it with real life; itis the invention, in brief, the fiction as opposed to the fact. For dobut ask yourself, my dear Charlie, " lovingly leaning over towards him, "I rest it with your own heart now, whether such a forereaching motiveas Charlemont hinted he had acted on in his change--whether such amotive, I say, were a sort of one at all justified by the nature ofhuman society? Would you, for one, turn the cold shoulder to a friend--aconvivial one, say, whose pennilessness should be suddenly revealed toyou?"

"How can you ask me, my dear Frank? You know I would scorn suchmeanness. " But rising somewhat disconcerted--"really, early as it is, Ithink I must retire; my head, " putting up his hand to it, "feelsunpleasantly; this confounded elixir of logwood, little as I drank ofit, has played the deuce with me. "

"Little as you drank of this elixir of logwood? Why, Charlie, you arelosing your mind. To talk so of the genuine, mellow old port. Yes, Ithink that by all means you had better away, and sleep it off. There--don't apologize--don't explain--go, go--I understand you exactly. I will see you to-morrow. "

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN IS ACCOSTED BY A MYSTIC, WHEREUPON ENSUESPRETTY MUCH SUCH TALK AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED. 

As, not without some haste, the boon companion withdrew, a strangeradvanced, and touching the cosmopolitan, said: "I think I heard you sayyou would see that man again. Be warned; don't you do so. "

He turned, surveying the speaker; a blue-eyed man, sandy-haired, andSaxon-looking; perhaps five and forty; tall, and, but for a certainangularity, well made; little touch of the drawing-room about him, but alook of plain propriety of a Puritan sort, with a kind of farmerdignity. His age seemed betokened more by his brow, placidly thoughtful, than by his general aspect, which had that look of youthfulness inmaturity, peculiar sometimes to habitual health of body, the originalgift of nature, or in part the effect or reward of steady temperance ofthe passions, kept so, perhaps, by constitution as much as morality. Aneat, comely, almost ruddy cheek, coolly fresh, like a redclover-blossom at coolish dawn--the color of warmth preserved by thevirtue of chill. Toning the whole man, was one-knows-not-what ofshrewdness and mythiness, strangely jumbled; in that way, he seemed akind of cross between a Yankee peddler and a Tartar priest, though itseemed as if, at a pinch, the first would not in all probability playsecond fiddle to the last. 

"Sir, " said the cosmopolitan, rising and bowing with slow dignity, "if Icannot with unmixed satisfaction hail a hint pointed at one who has justbeen clinking the social glass with me, on the other hand, I am notdisposed to underrate the motive which, in the present case, could alonehave prompted such an intimation. My friend, whose seat is still warm, has retired for the night, leaving more or less in his bottle here. Pray, sit down in his seat, and partake with me; and then, if you chooseto hint aught further unfavorable to the man, the genial warmth of whoseperson in part passes into yours, and whose genial hospitality meandersthrough you--be it so. "

"Quite beautiful conceits, " said the stranger, now scholastically andartistically eying the picturesque speaker, as if he were a statue inthe Pitti Palace; "very beautiful:" then with the gravest interest, "yours, sir, if I mistake not, must be a beautiful soul--one full of alllove and truth; for where beauty is, there must those be. "

"A pleasing belief, " rejoined the cosmopolitan, beginning with an evenair, "and to confess, long ago it pleased me. Yes, with you andSchiller, I am pleased to believe that beauty is at bottom incompatiblewith ill, and therefore am so eccentric as to have confidence in thelatent benignity of that beautiful creature, the rattle-snake, whoselithe neck and burnished maze of tawny gold, as he sleekly curls aloftin the sun, who on the prairie can behold without wonder?"

As he breathed these words, he seemed so to enter into their spirit--assome earnest descriptive speakers will--as unconsciously to wreathe hisform and sidelong crest his head, till he all but seemed the creaturedescribed. Meantime, the stranger regarded him with little surprise, apparently, though with much contemplativeness of a mystical sort, andpresently said:

"When charmed by the beauty of that viper, did it never occur to you tochange personalities with him? to feel what it was to be a snake? toglide unsuspected in grass? to sting, to kill at a touch; your wholebeautiful body one iridescent scabbard of death? In short, did the wishnever occur to you to feel yourself exempt from knowledge, andconscience, and revel for a while in the carefree, joyous life of aperfectly instinctive, unscrupulous, and irresponsible creature?"

"Such a wish, " replied the other, not perceptibly disturbed, "I mustconfess, never consciously was mine. Such a wish, indeed, could hardlyoccur to ordinary imaginations, and mine I cannot think much above theaverage. "

"But now that the idea is suggested, " said the stranger, with infantileintellectuality, "does it not raise the desire?"

"Hardly. For though I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudiceagainst the rattle-snake, still, I should not like to be one. If I werea rattle-snake now, there would be no such thing as being genial withmen--men would be afraid of me, and then I should be a very lonesome andmiserable rattle-snake. "

"True, men would be afraid of you. And why? Because of your rattle, yourhollow rattle--a sound, as I have been told, like the shaking togetherof small, dry skulls in a tune of the Waltz of Death. And here we haveanother beautiful truth. When any creature is by its make inimical toother creatures, nature in effect labels that creature, much as anapothecary does a poison. So that whoever is destroyed by arattle-snake, or other harmful agent, it is his own fault. He shouldhave respected the label. Hence that significant passage in Scripture, 'Who will pity the charmer that is bitten with a serpent?'"

"_I_ would pity him, " said the cosmopolitan, a little bluntly, perhaps. 

"But don't you think, " rejoined the other, still maintaining hispassionless air, "don't you think, that for a man to pity where natureis pitiless, is a little presuming?"

"Let casuists decide the casuistry, but the compassion the heart decidesfor itself. But, sir, " deepening in seriousness, "as I now for the firstrealize, you but a moment since introduced the word irresponsible in away I am not used to. Now, sir, though, out of a tolerant spirit, as Ihope, I try my best never to be frightened at any speculation, so longas it is pursued in honesty, yet, for once, I must acknowledge that youdo really, in the point cited, cause me uneasiness; because a properview of the universe, that view which is suited to breed a properconfidence, teaches, if I err not, that since all things are justlypresided over, not very many living agents but must be some wayaccountable. "

"Is a rattle-snake accountable?" asked the stranger with such apreternaturally cold, gemmy glance out of his pellucid blue eye, that heseemed more a metaphysical merman than a feeling man; "is a rattle-snakeaccountable?"

"If I will not affirm that it is, " returned the other, with the cautionof no inexperienced thinker, "neither will I deny it. But if we supposeit so, I need not say that such accountability is neither to you, norme, nor the Court of Common Pleas, but to something superior. "

He was proceeding, when the stranger would have interrupted him; but asreading his argument in his eye, the cosmopolitan, without waiting forit to be put into words, at once spoke to it: "You object to mysupposition, for but such it is, that the rattle-snake's accountabilityis not by nature manifest; but might not much the same thing be urgedagainst man's? A _reductio ad absurdum_, proving the objection vain. Butif now, " he continued, "you consider what capacity for mischief there isin a rattle-snake (observe, I do not charge it with being mischievous, Ibut say it has the capacity), could you well avoid admitting that thatwould be no symmetrical view of the universe which should maintain that, while to man it is forbidden to kill, without judicial cause, hisfellow, yet the rattle-snake has an implied permit of unaccountabilityto murder any creature it takes capricious umbrage at--manincluded?--But, " with a wearied air, "this is no genial talk; at leastit is not so to me. Zeal at unawares embarked me in it. I regret it. Pray, sit down, and take some of this wine. "

"Your suggestions are new to me, " said the other, with a kind ofcondescending appreciativeness, as of one who, out of devotion toknowledge, disdains not to appropriate the least crumb of it, even froma pauper's board; "and, as I am a very Athenian in hailing a newthought, I cannot consent to let it drop so abruptly. Now, therattle-snake----"

"Nothing more about rattle-snakes, I beseech, " in distress; "I mustpositively decline to reenter upon that subject. Sit down, sir, I beg, and take some of this wine. "

"To invite me to sit down with you is hospitable, " collectedlyacquiescing now in the change of topics; "and hospitality being fabledto be of oriental origin, and forming, as it does, the subject of apleasing Arabian romance, as well as being a very romantic thing initself--hence I always hear the expressions of hospitality withpleasure. But, as for the wine, my regard for that beverage is soextreme, and I am so fearful of letting it sate me, that I keep my lovefor it in the lasting condition of an untried abstraction. Briefly, Iquaff immense draughts of wine from the page of Hafiz, but wine from acup I seldom as much as sip. "

The cosmopolitan turned a mild glance upon the speaker, who, nowoccupying the chair opposite him, sat there purely and coldly radiant asa prism. It seemed as if one could almost hear him vitreously chime andring. That moment a waiter passed, whom, arresting with a sign, thecosmopolitan bid go bring a goblet of ice-water. "Ice it well, waiter, "said he; "and now, " turning to the stranger, "will you, if you please, give me your reason for the warning words you first addressed to me?"

"I hope they were not such warnings as most warnings are, " said thestranger; "warnings which do not forewarn, but in mockery come after thefact. And yet something in you bids me think now, that whatever latentdesign your impostor friend might have had upon you, it as yet remainsunaccomplished. You read his label. "

"And what did it say? 'This is a genial soul, ' So you see you musteither give up your doctrine of labels, or else your prejudice againstmy friend. But tell me, " with renewed earnestness, "what do you take himfor? What is he?"

"What are you? What am I? Nobody knows who anybody is. The data whichlife furnishes, towards forming a true estimate of any being, are asinsufficient to that end as in geometry one side given would be todetermine the triangle. "

"But is not this doctrine of triangles someway inconsistent with yourdoctrine of labels?"

"Yes; but what of that? I seldom care to be consistent. In aphilosophical view, consistency is a certain level at all times, maintained in all the thoughts of one's mind. But, since nature isnearly all hill and dale, how can one keep naturally advancing inknowledge without submitting to the natural inequalities in theprogress? Advance into knowledge is just like advance upon the grandErie canal, where, from the character of the country, change of level isinevitable; you are locked up and locked down with perpetualinconsistencies, and yet all the time you get on; while the dullest partof the whole route is what the boatmen call the 'long level'--aconsistently-flat surface of sixty miles through stagnant swamps. "

"In one particular, " rejoined the cosmopolitan, "your simile is, perhaps, unfortunate. For, after all these weary lockings-up andlockings-down, upon how much of a higher plain do you finally stand?Enough to make it an object? Having from youth been taught reverence forknowledge, you must pardon me if, on but this one account, I reject youranalogy. But really you someway bewitch me with your tempting discourse, so that I keep straying from my point unawares. You tell me you cannotcertainly know who or what my friend is; pray, what do you conjecturehim to be?"

"I conjecture him to be what, among the ancient Egyptians, was called a----" using some unknown word. 

"A ----! And what is that?"

"A ---- is what Proclus, in a little note to his third book on thetheology of Plato, defines as ---- ----" coming out with a sentence ofGreek. 

Holding up his glass, and steadily looking through its transparency, thecosmopolitan rejoined: "That, in so defining the thing, Proclus set itto modern understandings in the most crystal light it was susceptibleof, I will not rashly deny; still, if you could put the definition inwords suited to perceptions like mine, I should take it for a favor. 

"A favor!" slightly lifting his cool eyebrows; "a bridal favor Iunderstand, a knot of white ribands, a very beautiful type of the purityof true marriage; but of other favors I am yet to learn; and still, in avague way, the word, as you employ it, strikes me as unpleasinglysignificant in general of some poor, unheroic submission to being donegood to. "

Here the goblet of iced-water was brought, and, in compliance with asign from the cosmopolitan, was placed before the stranger, who, notbefore expressing acknowledgments, took a draught, apparentlyrefreshing--its very coldness, as with some is the case, proving notentirely uncongenial. 

At last, setting down the goblet, and gently wiping from his lips thebeads of water freshly clinging there as to the valve of a coral-shellupon a reef, he turned upon the cosmopolitan, and, in a manner the mostcool, self-possessed, and matter-of-fact possible, said: "I hold to themetempsychosis; and whoever I may be now, I feel that I was once thestoic Arrian, and have inklings of having been equally puzzled by a wordin the current language of that former time, very probably answering toyour word _favor_. "

"Would you favor me by explaining?" said the cosmopolitan, blandly. 

"Sir, " responded the stranger, with a very slight degree of severity, "Ilike lucidity, of all things, and am afraid I shall hardly be able toconverse satisfactorily with you, unless you bear it in mind. "

The cosmopolitan ruminatingly eyed him awhile, then said: "The best way, as I have heard, to get out of a labyrinth, is to retrace one's steps. Iwill accordingly retrace mine, and beg you will accompany me. In short, once again to return to the point: for what reason did you warn meagainst my friend?"

"Briefly, then, and clearly, because, as before said, I conjecture himto be what, among the ancient Egyptians----"

"Pray, now, " earnestly deprecated the cosmopolitan, "pray, now, whydisturb the repose of those ancient Egyptians? What to us are theirwords or their thoughts? Are we pauper Arabs, without a house of ourown, that, with the mummies, we must turn squatters among the dust ofthe Catacombs?"

"Pharaoh's poorest brick-maker lies proudlier in his rags than theEmperor of all the Russias in his hollands, " oracularly said thestranger; "for death, though in a worm, is majestic; while life, thoughin a king, is contemptible. So talk not against mummies. It is a part ofmy mission to teach mankind a due reverence for mummies. "

Fortunately, to arrest these incoherencies, or rather, to vary them, ahaggard, inspired-looking man now approached--a crazy beggar, askingalms under the form of peddling a rhapsodical tract, composed byhimself, and setting forth his claims to some rhapsodical apostleship. Though ragged and dirty, there was about him no touch of vulgarity; for, by nature, his manner was not unrefined, his frame slender, and appearedthe more so from the broad, untanned frontlet of his brow, tangled overwith a disheveled mass of raven curls, throwing a still deeper tingeupon a complexion like that of a shriveled berry. Nothing could exceedhis look of picturesque Italian ruin and dethronement, heightened bywhat seemed just one glimmering peep of reason, insufficient to do himany lasting good, but enough, perhaps, to suggest a torment of latentdoubts at times, whether his addled dream of glory were true. 

Accepting the tract offered him, the cosmopolitan glanced over it, and, seeming to see just what it was, closed it, put it in his pocket, eyedthe man a moment, then, leaning over and presenting him with a shilling, said to him, in tones kind and considerate: "I am sorry, my friend, thatI happen to be engaged just now; but, having purchased your work, Ipromise myself much satisfaction in its perusal at my earliest leisure. "

In his tattered, single-breasted frock-coat, buttoned meagerly up to hischin, the shutter-brain made him a bow, which, for courtesy, would nothave misbecome a viscount, then turned with silent appeal to thestranger. But the stranger sat more like a cold prism than ever, whilean expression of keen Yankee cuteness, now replacing his former mysticalone, lent added icicles to his aspect. His whole air said: "Nothingfrom me. " The repulsed petitioner threw a look full of resentful prideand cracked disdain upon him, and went his way. 

"Come, now, " said the cosmopolitan, a little reproachfully, "you oughtto have sympathized with that man; tell me, did you feel nofellow-feeling? Look at his tract here, quite in the transcendentalvein. "

"Excuse me, " said the stranger, declining the tract, "I never patronizescoundrels. "

"Scoundrels?"

"I detected in him, sir, a damning peep of sense--damning, I say; forsense in a seeming madman is scoundrelism. I take him for a cunningvagabond, who picks up a vagabond living by adroitly playing the madman. Did you not remark how he flinched under my eye?'

"Really?" drawing a long, astonished breath, "I could hardly havedivined in you a temper so subtlely distrustful. Flinched? to be sure hedid, poor fellow; you received him with so lame a welcome. As for hisadroitly playing the madman, invidious critics might object the same tosome one or two strolling magi of these days. But that is a matter Iknow nothing about. But, once more, and for the last time, to return tothe point: why sir, did you warn me against my friend? I shall rejoice, if, as I think it will prove, your want of confidence in my friend restsupon a basis equally slender with your distrust of the lunatic. Come, why did you warn me? Put it, I beseech, in few words, and thoseEnglish. "

"I warned you against him because he is suspected for what on theseboats is known--so they tell me--as a Mississippi operator. "

"An operator, ah? he operates, does he? My friend, then, is somethinglike what the Indians call a Great Medicine, is he? He operates, hepurges, he drains off the repletions. "

"I perceive, sir, " said the stranger, constitutionally obtuse to thepleasant drollery, "that your notion, of what is called a GreatMedicine, needs correction. The Great Medicine among the Indians is lessa bolus than a man in grave esteem for his politic sagacity. "

"And is not my friend politic? Is not my friend sagacious? By your owndefinition, is not my friend a Great Medicine?"

"No, he is an operator, a Mississippi operator; an equivocal character. That he is such, I little doubt, having had him pointed out to me assuch by one desirous of initiating me into any little novelty of thiswestern region, where I never before traveled. And, sir, if I am notmistaken, you also are a stranger here (but, indeed, where in thisstrange universe is not one a stranger?) and that is a reason why I feltmoved to warn you against a companion who could not be otherwise thanperilous to one of a free and trustful disposition. But I repeat thehope, that, thus far at least, he has not succeeded with you, and trustthat, for the future, he will not. "

"Thank you for your concern; but hardly can I equally thank you for sosteadily maintaining the hypothesis of my friend's objectionableness. True, I but made his acquaintance for the first to-day, and know littleof his antecedents; but that would seem no just reason why a nature likehis should not of itself inspire confidence. And since your ownknowledge of the gentleman is not, by your account, so exact as it mightbe, you will pardon me if I decline to welcome any further suggestionsunflattering to him. Indeed, sir, " with friendly decision, "let uschange the subject. "

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE MYSTICAL MASTER INTRODUCES THE PRACTICAL DISCIPLE. 

"Both, the subject and the interlocutor, " replied the stranger rising, and waiting the return towards him of a promenader, that moment turningat the further end of his walk. 

"Egbert!" said he, calling. 

"Egbert, a well-dressed, commercial-looking gentleman of about thirty, responded in a way strikingly deferential, and in a moment stood near, in the attitude less of an equal companion apparently than aconfidential follower. 

"This, " said the stranger, taking Egbert by the hand and leading him tothe cosmopolitan, "this is Egbert, a disciple. I wish you to knowEgbert. Egbert was the first among mankind to reduce to practice theprinciples of Mark Winsome--principles previously accounted as lessadapted to life than the closet. Egbert, " turning to the disciple, who, with seeming modesty, a little shrank under these compliments, "Egbert, this, " with a salute towards the cosmopolitan, "is, like all of us, astranger. I wish you, Egbert, to know this brother stranger; becommunicative with him. Particularly if, by anything hitherto dropped, his curiosity has been roused as to the precise nature of my philosophy, I trust you will not leave such curiosity ungratified. You, Egbert, bysimply setting forth your practice, can do more to enlighten one as tomy theory, than I myself can by mere speech. Indeed, it is by you that Imyself best understand myself. For to every philosophy are certain rearparts, very important parts, and these, like the rear of one's head, arebest seen by reflection. Now, as in a glass, you, Egbert, in your life, reflect to me the more important part of my system. He, who approvesyou, approves the philosophy of Mark Winsome. "

Though portions of this harangue may, perhaps, in the phraseology seemself-complaisant, yet no trace of self-complacency was perceptible inthe speaker's manner, which throughout was plain, unassuming, dignified, and manly; the teacher and prophet seemed to lurk more in the idea, soto speak, than in the mere bearing of him who was the vehicle of it. 

"Sir, " said the cosmopolitan, who seemed not a little interested in thisnew aspect of matters, "you speak of a certain philosophy, and a more orless occult one it may be, and hint of its bearing upon practical life;pray, tell me, if the study of this philosophy tends to the sameformation of character with the experiences of the world?"

"It does; and that is the test of its truth; for any philosophy that, being in operation contradictory to the ways of the world, tends toproduce a character at odds with it, such a philosophy must necessarilybe but a cheat and a dream. "

"You a little surprise me, " answered the cosmopolitan; "for, from anoccasional profundity in you, and also from your allusions to a profoundwork on the theology of Plato, it would seem but natural to surmisethat, if you are the originator of any philosophy, it must needs sopartake of the abstruse, as to exalt it above the comparatively vileuses of life. "

"No uncommon mistake with regard to me, " rejoined the other. Then meeklystanding like a Raphael: "If still in golden accents old Memnon murmurshis riddle, none the less does the balance-sheet of every man's ledgerunriddle the profit or loss of life. Sir, " with calm energy, "man cameinto this world, not to sit down and muse, not to befog himself withvain subtleties, but to gird up his loins and to work. Mystery is in themorning, and mystery in the night, and the beauty of mystery iseverywhere; but still the plain truth remains, that mouth and purse mustbe filled. If, hitherto, you have supposed me a visionary, beundeceived. I am no one-ideaed one, either; no more than the seersbefore me. Was not Seneca a usurer? Bacon a courtier? and Swedenborg, though with one eye on the invisible, did he not keep the other on themain chance? Along with whatever else it may be given me to be, I am aman of serviceable knowledge, and a man of the world. Know me for such. And as for my disciple here, " turning towards him, "if you look to findany soft Utopianisms and last year's sunsets in him, I smile to thinkhow he will set you right. The doctrines I have taught him will, Itrust, lead him neither to the mad-house nor the poor-house, as so manyother doctrines have served credulous sticklers. Furthermore, " glancingupon him paternally, "Egbert is both my disciple and my poet. For poetryis not a thing of ink and rhyme, but of thought and act, and, in thelatter way, is by any one to be found anywhere, when in useful actionsought. In a word, my disciple here is a thriving young merchant, apractical poet in the West India trade. There, " presenting Egbert's handto the cosmopolitan, "I join you, and leave you. " With which words, andwithout bowing, the master withdrew. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE DISCIPLE UNBENDS, AND CONSENTS TO ACT A SOCIAL PART. 

In the master's presence the disciple had stood as one not ignorant ofhis place; modesty was in his expression, with a sort of reverentialdepression. But the presence of the superior withdrawn, he seemedlithely to shoot up erect from beneath it, like one of those wire menfrom a toy snuff-box. 

He was, as before said, a young man of about thirty. His countenance ofthat neuter sort, which, in repose, is neither prepossessing nordisagreeable; so that it seemed quite uncertain how he would turn out. His dress was neat, with just enough of the mode to save it from thereproach of originality; in which general respect, though with areadjustment of details, his costume seemed modeled upon his master's. But, upon the whole, he was, to all appearances, the last person in theworld that one would take for the disciple of any transcendentalphilosophy; though, indeed, something about his sharp nose and shavedchin seemed to hint that if mysticism, as a lesson, ever came in hisway, he might, with the characteristic knack of a true New-Englander, turn even so profitless a thing to some profitable account. 

"Well" said he, now familiarly seating himself in the vacated chair, "what do you think of Mark? Sublime fellow, ain't he?"

"That each member of the human guild is worthy respect my friend, "rejoined the cosmopolitan, "is a fact which no admirer of that guildwill question; but that, in view of higher natures, the word sublime, sofrequently applied to them, can, without confusion, be also applied toman, is a point which man will decide for himself; though, indeed, if hedecide it in the affirmative, it is not for me to object. But I amcurious to know more of that philosophy of which, at present, I have butinklings. You, its first disciple among men, it seems, are peculiarlyqualified to expound it. Have you any objections to begin now?"

"None at all, " squaring himself to the table. "Where shall I begin? Atfirst principles?"

"You remember that it was in a practical way that you were representedas being fitted for the clear exposition. Now, what you call firstprinciples, I have, in some things, found to be more or less vague. Permit me, then, in a plain way, to suppose some common case in reallife, and that done, I would like you to tell me how you, the practicaldisciple of the philosophy I wish to know about, would, in that case, conduct. "

"A business-like view. Propose the case. "

"Not only the case, but the persons. The case is this: There are twofriends, friends from childhood, bosom-friends; one of whom, for thefirst time, being in need, for the first time seeks a loan from theother, who, so far as fortune goes, is more than competent to grant it. And the persons are to be you and I: you, the friend from whom the loanis sought--I, the friend who seeks it; you, the disciple of thephilosophy in question--I, a common man, with no more philosophy than toknow that when I am comfortably warm I don't feel cold, and when I havethe ague I shake. Mind, now, you must work up your imagination, and, asmuch as possible, talk and behave just as if the case supposed were afact. For brevity, you shall call me Frank, and I will call you Charlie. Are you agreed?"

"Perfectly. You begin. "

The cosmopolitan paused a moment, then, assuming a serious and care-wornair, suitable to the part to be enacted, addressed his hypothesizedfriend. 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE HYPOTHETICAL FRIENDS. 

"Charlie, I am going to put confidence in you. "

"You always have, and with reason. What is it Frank?"

"Charlie, I am in want--urgent want of money. "

"That's not well. "

"But it _will_ be well, Charlie, if you loan me a hundred dollars. Iwould not ask this of you, only my need is sore, and you and I have solong shared hearts and minds together, however unequally on my side, that nothing remains to prove our friendship than, with the sameinequality on my side, to share purses. You will do me the favor won'tyou?"

"Favor? What do you mean by asking me to do you a favor?"

"Why, Charlie, you never used to talk so. "

"Because, Frank, you on your side, never used to talk so. "

"But won't you loan me the money?"

"No, Frank. "

"Why?"

"Because my rule forbids. I give away money, but never loan it; and ofcourse the man who calls himself my friend is above receiving alms. Thenegotiation of a loan is a business transaction. And I will transact nobusiness with a friend. What a friend is, he is socially andintellectually; and I rate social and intellectual friendship too highto degrade it on either side into a pecuniary make-shift. To be surethere are, and I have, what is called business friends; that is, commercial acquaintances, very convenient persons. But I draw a red-inkline between them and my friends in the true sense--my friends socialand intellectual. In brief, a true friend has nothing to do with loans;he should have a soul above loans. Loans are such unfriendlyaccommodations as are to be had from the soulless corporation of a bank, by giving the regular security and paying the regular discount. "

"An _unfriendly_ accommodation? Do those words go together handsomely?"

"Like the poor farmer's team, of an old man and a cow--not handsomely, but to the purpose. Look, Frank, a loan of money on interest is a saleof money on credit. To sell a thing on credit may be an accommodation, but where is the friendliness? Few men in their senses, exceptoperators, borrow money on interest, except upon a necessity akin tostarvation. Well, now, where is the friendliness of my letting astarving man have, say, the money's worth of a barrel of flour upon thecondition that, on a given day, he shall let me have the money's worthof a barrel and a half of flour; especially if I add this furtherproviso, that if he fail so to do, I shall then, to secure to myselfthe money's worth of my barrel and his half barrel, put his heart up atpublic auction, and, as it is cruel to part families, throw in hiswife's and children's?"

"I understand, " with a pathetic shudder; "but even did it come to that, such a step on the creditor's part, let us, for the honor of humannature, hope, were less the intention than the contingency. "

"But, Frank, a contingency not unprovided for in the taking beforehandof due securities. "

"Still, Charlie, was not the loan in the first place a friend's act?"

"And the auction in the last place an enemy's act. Don't you see? Theenmity lies couched in the friendship, just as the ruin in the relief. "

"I must be very stupid to-day, Charlie, but really, I can't understandthis. Excuse me, my dear friend, but it strikes me that in going intothe philosophy of the subject, you go somewhat out of your depth. "

"So said the incautious wader out to the ocean; but the ocean replied:'It is just the other way, my wet friend, ' and drowned him. "

"That, Charlie, is a fable about as unjust to the ocean, as some ofÆsop's are to the animals. The ocean is a magnanimous element, and wouldscorn to assassinate a poor fellow, let alone taunting him in the act. But I don't understand what you say about enmity couched in friendship, and ruin in relief. "

"I will illustrate, Frank, The needy man is a train slipped off therail. He who loans him money on interest is the one who, by way ofaccommodation, helps get the train back where it belongs; but then, byway of making all square, and a little more, telegraphs to an agent, thirty miles a-head by a precipice, to throw just there, on his account, a beam across the track. Your needy man's principle-and-interest friendis, I say again, a friend with an enmity in reserve. No, no, my dearfriend, no interest for me. I scorn interest. "

"Well, Charlie, none need you charge. Loan me without interest. "

"That would be alms again. "

"Alms, if the sum borrowed is returned?"

"Yes: an alms, not of the principle, but the interest. "

"Well, I am in sore need, so I will not decline the alms. Seeing that itis you, Charlie, gratefully will I accept the alms of the interest. Nohumiliation between friends. "

"Now, how in the refined view of friendship can you suffer yourself totalk so, my dear Frank. It pains me. For though I am not of the sourmind of Solomon, that, in the hour of need, a stranger is better than abrother; yet, I entirely agree with my sublime master, who, in his Essayon Friendship, says so nobly, that if he want a terrestrial convenience, not to his friend celestial (or friend social and intellectual) would hego; no: for his terrestrial convenience, to his friend terrestrial (orhumbler business-friend) he goes. Very lucidly he adds the reason:Because, for the superior nature, which on no account can ever descendto do good, to be annoyed with requests to do it, when the inferiorone, which by no instruction can ever rise above that capacity, standsalways inclined to it--this is unsuitable. "

"Then I will not consider you as my friend celestial, but as the other. "

"It racks me to come to that; but, to oblige you, I'll do it. We arebusiness friends; business is business. You want to negotiate a loan. Very good. On what paper? Will you pay three per cent a month? Where isyour security?"

"Surely, you will not exact those formalities from your oldschoolmate--him with whom you have so often sauntered down the groves ofAcademe, discoursing of the beauty of virtue, and the grace that is inkindliness--and all for so paltry a sum. Security? Our beingfellow-academics, and friends from childhood up, is security. "

"Pardon me, my dear Frank, our being fellow-academics is the worst ofsecurities; while, our having been friends from childhood up is just nosecurity at all. You forget we are now business friends. "

"And you, on your side, forget, Charlie, that as your business friend Ican give you no security; my need being so sore that I cannot get anindorser. "

"No indorser, then, no business loan. "

"Since then, Charlie, neither as the one nor the other sort of friendyou have defined, can I prevail with you; how if, combining the two, Isue as both?"

"Are you a centaur?"

"When all is said then, what good have I of your friendship, regarded inwhat light you will?"

"The good which is in the philosophy of Mark Winsome, as reduced topractice by a practical disciple. "

"And why don't you add, much good may the philosophy of Mark Winsome dome? Ah, " turning invokingly, "what is friendship, if it be not thehelping hand and the feeling heart, the good Samaritan pouring out atneed the purse as the vial!"

"Now, my dear Frank, don't be childish. Through tears never did man seehis way in the dark. I should hold you unworthy that sincere friendshipI bear you, could I think that friendship in the ideal is too lofty foryou to conceive. And let me tell you, my dear Frank, that you wouldseriously shake the foundations of our love, if ever again you shouldrepeat the present scene. The philosophy, which is mine in the strongestway, teaches plain-dealing. Let me, then, now, as at the most suitabletime, candidly disclose certain circumstances you seem in ignorance of. Though our friendship began in boyhood, think not that, on my side atleast, it began injudiciously. Boys are little men, it is said. You, Ijuvenilely picked out for my friend, for your favorable points at thetime; not the least of which were your good manners, handsome dress, andyour parents' rank and repute of wealth. In short, like any grown man, boy though I was, I went into the market and chose me my mutton, not forits leanness, but its fatness. In other words, there seemed in you, theschoolboy who always had silver in his pocket, a reasonable probabilitythat you would never stand in lean need of fat succor; and if my earlyimpression has not been verified by the event, it is only because ofthe caprice of fortune producing a fallibility of human expectations, however discreet. '"

"Oh, that I should listen to this cold-blooded disclosure!"

"A little cold blood in your ardent veins, my dear Frank, wouldn't doyou any harm, let me tell you. Cold-blooded? You say that, because mydisclosure seems to involve a vile prudence on my side. But not so. Myreason for choosing you in part for the points I have mentioned, wassolely with a view of preserving inviolate the delicacy of theconnection. For--do but think of it--what more distressing to delicatefriendship, formed early, than your friend's eventually, in manhood, dropping in of a rainy night for his little loan of five dollars or so?Can delicate friendship stand that? And, on the other side, woulddelicate friendship, so long as it retained its delicacy, do that? Wouldyou not instinctively say of your dripping friend in the entry, 'I havebeen deceived, fraudulently deceived, in this man; he is no true friendthat, in platonic love to demand love-rites?'"

"And rites, doubly rights, they are, cruel Charlie!"

"Take it how you will, heed well how, by too importunately claimingthose rights, as you call them, you shake those foundations I hinted of. For though, as it turns out, I, in my early friendship, built me a fairhouse on a poor site; yet such pains and cost have I lavished on thathouse, that, after all, it is dear to me. No, I would not lose the sweetboon of your friendship, Frank. But beware. "

"And of what? Of being in need? Oh, Charlie! you talk not to a god, abeing who in himself holds his own estate, but to a man who, being aman, is the sport of fate's wind and wave, and who mounts towards heavenor sinks towards hell, as the billows roll him in trough or on crest. "

"Tut! Frank. Man is no such poor devil as that comes to--no poordrifting sea-weed of the universe. Man has a soul; which, if he will, puts him beyond fortune's finger and the future's spite. Don't whinelike fortune's whipped dog, Frank, or by the heart of a true friend, Iwill cut ye. "

"Cut me you have already, cruel Charlie, and to the quick. Call to mindthe days we went nutting, the times we walked in the woods, armswreathed about each other, showing trunks invined like the trees:--oh, Charlie!"

"Pish! we were boys. "

"Then lucky the fate of the first-born of Egypt, cold in the grave erematurity struck them with a sharper frost. --Charlie?"

"Fie! you're a girl. "

"Help, help, Charlie, I want help!"

"Help? to say nothing of the friend, there is something wrong about theman who wants help. There is somewhere a defect, a want, in brief, aneed, a crying need, somewhere about that man. "

"So there is, Charlie. --Help, Help!"

"How foolish a cry, when to implore help, is itself the proof ofundesert of it. "

"Oh, this, all along, is not you, Charlie, but some ventriloquist whousurps your larynx. It is Mark Winsome that speaks, not Charlie. "

"If so, thank heaven, the voice of Mark Winsome is not alien butcongenial to my larynx. If the philosophy of that illustrious teacherfind little response among mankind at large, it is less that they do notpossess teachable tempers, than because they are so unfortunate as notto have natures predisposed to accord with him. 

"Welcome, that compliment to humanity, " exclaimed Frank with energy, "the truer because unintended. And long in this respect may humanityremain what you affirm it. And long it will; since humanity, inwardlyfeeling how subject it is to straits, and hence how precious is help, will, for selfishness' sake, if no other, long postpone ratifying aphilosophy that banishes help from the world. But Charlie, Charlie!speak as you used to; tell me you will help me. Were the case reversed, not less freely would I loan you the money than you would ask me to loanit. 

"_I_ ask? _I_ ask a loan? Frank, by this hand, under no circumstanceswould I accept a loan, though without asking pressed on me. Theexperience of China Aster might warn me. "

"And what was that?"

"Not very unlike the experience of the man that built himself a palaceof moon-beams, and when the moon set was surprised that his palacevanished with it. I will tell you about China Aster. I wish I could doso in my own words, but unhappily the original story-teller here has sotyrannized over me, that it is quite impossible for me to repeat hisincidents without sliding into his style. I forewarn you of this, thatyou may not think me so maudlin as, in some parts, the story would seemto make its narrator. It is too bad that any intellect, especially in sosmall a matter, should have such power to impose itself upon another, against its best exerted will, too. However, it is satisfaction to knowthat the main moral, to which all tends, I fully approve. But, tobegin. "

CHAPTER XL. 

IN WHICH THE STORY OF CHINA ASTER IS AT SECOND-HAND TOLD BY ONE WHO, WHILE NOT DISAPPROVING THE MORAL, DISCLAIMS THE SPIRIT OF THE STYLE. 

"China Aster was a young candle-maker of Marietta, at the mouth of theMuskingum--one whose trade would seem a kind of subordinate branch ofthat parent craft and mystery of the hosts of heaven, to be the means, effectively or otherwise, of shedding some light through the darkness ofa planet benighted. But he made little money by the business. Much adohad poor China Aster and his family to live; he could, if he chose, light up from his stores a whole street, but not so easily could helight up with prosperity the hearts of his household. 

"Now, China Aster, it so happened, had a friend, Orchis, a shoemaker;one whose calling it is to defend the understandings of men from nakedcontact with the substance of things: a very useful vocation, and which, spite of all the wiseacres may prophesy, will hardly go out of fashionso long as rocks are hard and flints will gall. All at once, by acapital prize in a lottery, this useful shoemaker was raised from abench to a sofa. A small nabob was the shoemaker now, and theunderstandings of men, let them shift for themselves. Not that Orchiswas, by prosperity, elated into heartlessness. Not at all. Because, inhis fine apparel, strolling one morning into the candlery, and gaylyswitching about at the candle-boxes with his gold-headed cane--whilepoor China Aster, with his greasy paper cap and leather apron, wasselling one candle for one penny to a poor orange-woman, who, with thepatronizing coolness of a liberal customer, required it to be carefullyrolled up and tied in a half sheet of paper--lively Orchis, the womanbeing gone, discontinued his gay switchings and said: 'This is poorbusiness for you, friend China Aster; your capital is too small. Youmust drop this vile tallow and hold up pure spermaceti to the world. Itell you what it is, you shall have one thousand dollars to extend with. In fact, you must make money, China Aster. I don't like to see yourlittle boy paddling about without shoes, as he does. '

"'Heaven bless your goodness, friend Orchis, ' replied the candle-maker, 'but don't take it illy if I call to mind the word of my uncle, theblacksmith, who, when a loan was offered him, declined it, saying: "Toply my own hammer, light though it be, I think best, rather than pieceit out heavier by welding to it a bit off a neighbor's hammer, thoughthat may have some weight to spare; otherwise, were the borrowed bitsuddenly wanted again, it might not split off at the welding, but toomuch to one side or the other. "'

"'Nonsense, friend China Aster, don't be so honest; your boy isbarefoot. Besides, a rich man lose by a poor man? Or a friend be theworse by a friend? China Aster, I am afraid that, in leaning over intoyour vats here, this, morning, you have spilled out your wisdom. Hush! Iwon't hear any more. Where's your desk? Oh, here. ' With that, Orchisdashed off a check on his bank, and off-handedly presenting it, said:'There, friend China Aster, is your one thousand dollars; when you makeit ten thousand, as you soon enough will (for experience, the only trueknowledge, teaches me that, for every one, good luck is in store), then, China Aster, why, then you can return me the money or not, just as youplease. But, in any event, give yourself no concern, for I shall neverdemand payment. '

"Now, as kind heaven will so have it that to a hungry man bread is agreat temptation, and, therefore, he is not too harshly to be blamed, if, when freely offered, he take it, even though it be uncertain whetherhe shall ever be able to reciprocate; so, to a poor man, proffered moneyis equally enticing, and the worst that can be said of him, if he acceptit, is just what can be said in the other case of the hungry man. Inshort, the poor candle-maker's scrupulous morality succumbed to hisunscrupulous necessity, as is now and then apt to be the case. He tookthe check, and was about carefully putting it away for the present, whenOrchis, switching about again with his gold-headed cane, said:'By-the-way, China Aster, it don't mean anything, but suppose you make alittle memorandum of this; won't do any harm, you know. ' So China Astergave Orchis his note for one thousand dollars on demand. Orchis took it, and looked at it a moment, 'Pooh, I told you, friend China Aster, Iwasn't going ever to make any _demand_. ' Then tearing up the note, andswitching away again at the candle-boxes, said, carelessly; 'Put it atfour years. ' So China Aster gave Orchis his note for one thousanddollars at four years. 'You see I'll never trouble you about this, ' saidOrchis, slipping it in his pocket-book, 'give yourself no furtherthought, friend China Aster, than how best to invest your money. Anddon't forget my hint about spermaceti. Go into that, and I'll buy all mylight of you, ' with which encouraging words, he, with wonted, rattlingkindness, took leave. 

"China Aster remained standing just where Orchis had left him; when, suddenly, two elderly friends, having nothing better to do, dropped infor a chat. The chat over, China Aster, in greasy cap and apron, ranafter Orchis, and said: 'Friend Orchis, heaven will reward you for yourgood intentions, but here is your check, and now give me my note. '

"'Your honesty is a bore, China Aster, ' said Orchis, not withoutdispleasure. 'I won't take the check from you. '

"'Then you must take it from the pavement, Orchis, ' said China Aster;and, picking up a stone, he placed the check under it on the walk. 

"'China Aster, ' said Orchis, inquisitively eying him, after my leavingthe candlery just now, what asses dropped in there to advise with you, that now you hurry after me, and act so like a fool? Shouldn't wonder ifit was those two old asses that the boys nickname Old Plain Talk and OldPrudence. '

"'Yes, it was those two, Orchis, but don't call them names. '

"'A brace of spavined old croakers. Old Plain Talk had a shrew for awife, and that's made him shrewish; and Old Prudence, when a boy, brokedown in an apple-stall, and that discouraged him for life. No bettersport for a knowing spark like me than to hear Old Plain Talk wheeze outhis sour old saws, while Old Prudence stands by, leaning on his staff, wagging his frosty old pow, and chiming in at every clause. '

"'How can you speak so, friend Orchis, of those who were my father'sfriends?'"

"'Save me from my friends, if those old croakers were Old Honesty'sfriends. I call your father so, for every one used to. Why did they lethim go in his old age on the town? Why, China Aster, I've often heardfrom my mother, the chronicler, that those two old fellows, with OldConscience--as the boys called the crabbed old quaker, that's deadnow--they three used to go to the poor-house when your father was there, and get round his bed, and talk to him for all the world as Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar did to poor old pauper Job. Yes, Job's comforterswere Old Plain Talk, and Old Prudence, and Old Conscience, to your poorold father. Friends? I should like to know who you call foes? With theireverlasting croaking and reproaching they tormented poor Old Honesty, your father, to death. '

"At these words, recalling the sad end of his worthy parent, China Astercould not restrain some tears. Upon which Orchis said: 'Why, ChinaAster, you are the dolefulest creature. Why don't you, China Aster, take a bright view of life? You will never get on in your business oranything else, if you don't take the bright view of life. It's theruination of a man to take the dismal one. ' Then, gayly poking at himwith his gold-headed cane, 'Why don't you, then? Why don't you be brightand hopeful, like me? Why don't you have confidence, China Aster?

"I'm sure I don't know, friend Orchis, ' soberly replied China Aster, 'but may be my not having drawn a lottery-prize, like you, may make somedifference. '

"Nonsense! before I knew anything about the prize I was gay as a lark, just as gay as I am now. In fact, it has always been a principle with meto hold to the bright view. '

"Upon this, China Aster looked a little hard at Orchis, because thetruth was, that until the lucky prize came to him, Orchis had gone underthe nickname of Doleful Dumps, he having been beforetimes of ahypochondriac turn, so much so as to save up and put by a few dollars ofhis scanty earnings against that rainy day he used to groan so muchabout. 

"I tell you what it is, now, friend China Aster, ' said Orchis, pointingdown to the check under the stone, and then slapping his pocket, 'thecheck shall lie there if you say so, but your note shan't keep itcompany. In fact, China Aster, I am too sincerely your friend to takeadvantage of a passing fit of the blues in you. You _shall_ reap thebenefit of my friendship. ' With which, buttoning up his coat in ajiffy, away he ran, leaving the check behind. 

"At first, China Aster was going to tear it up, but thinking that thisought not to be done except in the presence of the drawer of the check, he mused a while, and picking it up, trudged back to the candlery, fullyresolved to call upon Orchis soon as his day's work was over, anddestroy the check before his eyes. But it so happened that when ChinaAster called, Orchis was out, and, having waited for him a weary time invain, China Aster went home, still with the check, but still resolvednot to keep it another day. Bright and early next morning he would asecond time go after Orchis, and would, no doubt, make a sure thing ofit, by finding him in his bed; for since the lottery-prize came to him, Orchis, besides becoming more cheery, had also grown a little lazy. Butas destiny would have it, that same night China Aster had a dream, inwhich a being in the guise of a smiling angel, and holding a kind ofcornucopia in her hand, hovered over him, pouring down showers of smallgold dollars, thick as kernels of corn. 'I am Bright Future, friendChina Aster, ' said the angel, 'and if you do what friend Orchis wouldhave you do, just see what will come of it. ' With which Bright Future, with another swing of her cornucopia, poured such another shower ofsmall gold dollars upon him, that it seemed to bank him up all round, and he waded about in it like a maltster in malt. 

"Now, dreams are wonderful things, as everybody knows--so wonderful, indeed, that some people stop not short of ascribing them directly toheaven; and China Aster, who was of a proper turn of mind in everything, thought that in consideration of the dream, it would be but well to waita little, ere seeking Orchis again. During the day, China Aster's minddwelling continually upon the dream, he was so full of it, that when OldPlain Talk dropped in to see him, just before dinnertime, as he oftendid, out of the interest he took in Old Honesty's son, China Aster toldall about his vision, adding that he could not think that so radiant anangel could deceive; and, indeed, talked at such a rate that one wouldhave thought he believed the angel some beautiful human philanthropist. Something in this sort Old Plain Talk understood him, and, accordingly, in his plain way, said: 'China Aster, you tell me that an angel appearedto you in a dream. Now, what does that amount to but this, that youdreamed an angel appeared to you? Go right away, China Aster, and returnthe check, as I advised you before. If friend Prudence were here, hewould say just the same thing. ' With which words Old Plain Talk went offto find friend Prudence, but not succeeding, was returning to thecandlery himself, when, at distance mistaking him for a dun who had longannoyed him, China Aster in a panic barred all his doors, and ran to theback part of the candlery, where no knock could be heard. 

"By this sad mistake, being left with no friend to argue the other sideof the question, China Aster was so worked upon at last, by musing overhis dream, that nothing would do but he must get the check cashed, andlay out the money the very same day in buying a good lot of spermacetito make into candles, by which operation he counted upon turning abetter penny than he ever had before in his life; in fact, this hebelieved would prove the foundation of that famous fortune which theangel had promised him. 

"Now, in using the money, China Aster was resolved punctually to pay theinterest every six months till the principal should be returned, howbeitnot a word about such a thing had been breathed by Orchis; though, indeed, according to custom, as well as law, in such matters, interestwould legitimately accrue on the loan, nothing to the contrary havingbeen put in the bond. Whether Orchis at the time had this in mind ornot, there is no sure telling; but, to all appearance, he never so muchas cared to think about the matter, one way or other. 

"Though the spermaceti venture rather disappointed China Aster'ssanguine expectations, yet he made out to pay the first six months'interest, and though his next venture turned out still lessprosperously, yet by pinching his family in the matter of fresh meat, and, what pained him still more, his boys' schooling, he contrived topay the second six months' interest, sincerely grieved that integrity, as well as its opposite, though not in an equal degree, costs something, sometimes. 

"Meanwhile, Orchis had gone on a trip to Europe by advice of aphysician; it so happening that, since the lottery-prize came to him, ithad been discovered to Orchis that his health was not very firm, thoughhe had never complained of anything before but a slight ailing of thespleen, scarce worth talking about at the time. So Orchis, being abroad, could not help China Aster's paying his interest as he did, however muchhe might have been opposed to it; for China Aster paid it to Orchis'sagent, who was of too business-like a turn to decline interest regularlypaid in on a loan. 

"But overmuch to trouble the agent on that score was not again to be thefate of China Aster; for, not being of that skeptical spirit whichrefuses to trust customers, his third venture resulted, through baddebts, in almost a total loss--a bad blow for the candle-maker. Neitherdid Old Plain Talk, and Old Prudence neglect the opportunity to read himan uncheerful enough lesson upon the consequences of his disregardingtheir advice in the matter of having nothing to do with borrowed money. 'It's all just as I predicted, ' said Old Plain Talk, blowing his oldnose with his old bandana. 'Yea, indeed is it, ' chimed in Old Prudence, rapping his staff on the floor, and then leaning upon it, looking withsolemn forebodings upon China Aster. Low-spirited enough felt the poorcandle-maker; till all at once who should come with a bright face to himbut his bright friend, the angel, in another dream. Again the cornucopiapoured out its treasure, and promised still more. Revived by the vision, he resolved not to be down-hearted, but up and at it once more--contraryto the advice of Old Plain Talk, backed as usual by his crony, which wasto the effect, that, under present circumstances, the best thing ChinaAster could do, would be to wind up his business, settle, if he could, all his liabilities, and then go to work as a journeyman, by which hecould earn good wages, and give up, from that time henceforth, allthoughts of rising above being a paid subordinate to men more able thanhimself, for China Aster's career thus far plainly proved him thelegitimate son of Old Honesty, who, as every one knew, had never shownmuch business-talent, so little, in fact, that many said of him that hehad no business to be in business. And just this plain saying Plain Talknow plainly applied to China Aster, and Old Prudence never disagreedwith him. But the angel in the dream did, and, maugre Plain Talk, putquite other notions into the candle-maker. 

"He considered what he should do towards reëstablishing himself. Doubtless, had Orchis been in the country, he would have aided him inthis strait. As it was, he applied to others; and as in the world, muchas some may hint to the contrary, an honest man in misfortune still canfind friends to stay by him and help him, even so it proved with ChinaAster, who at last succeeded in borrowing from a rich old farmer the sumof six hundred dollars, at the usual interest of money-lenders, upon thesecurity of a secret bond signed by China Aster's wife and himself, tothe effect that all such right and title to any property that should beleft her by a well-to-do childless uncle, an invalid tanner, suchproperty should, in the event of China Aster's failing to return theborrowed sum on the given day, be the lawful possession of themoney-lender. True, it was just as much as China Aster could possibly doto induce his wife, a careful woman, to sign this bond; because she hadalways regarded her promised share in her uncle's estate as an anchorwell to windward of the hard times in which China Aster had always beenmore or less involved, and from which, in her bosom, she never had seenmuch chance of his freeing himself. Some notion may be had of ChinaAster's standing in the heart and head of his wife, by a short sentencecommonly used in reply to such persons as happened to sound her on thepoint. 'China Aster, ' she would say, 'is a good husband, but a badbusiness man!' Indeed, she was a connection on the maternal side of OldPlain Talk's. But had not China Aster taken good care not to let OldPlain Talk and Old Prudence hear of his dealings with the old farmer, ten to one they would, in some way, have interfered with his success inthat quarter. 

"It has been hinted that the honesty of China Aster was what mainlyinduced the money-lender to befriend him in his misfortune, and thismust be apparent; for, had China Aster been a different man, themoney-lender might have dreaded lest, in the event of his failing tomeet his note, he might some way prove slippery--more especially as, inthe hour of distress, worked upon by remorse for so jeopardizing hiswife's money, his heart might prove a traitor to his bond, not to hintthat it was more than doubtful how such a secret security and claim, asin the last resort would be the old farmer's, would stand in a court oflaw. But though one inference from all this may be, that had China Asterbeen something else than what he was, he would not have been trusted, and, therefore, he would have been effectually shut out from running hisown and wife's head into the usurer's noose; yet those who, wheneverything at last came out, maintained that, in this view and to thisextent, the honesty of the candle-maker was no advantage to him, in sosaying, such persons said what every good heart must deplore, and noprudent tongue will admit. 

"It may be mentioned, that the old farmer made China Aster take part ofhis loan in three old dried-up cows and one lame horse, not improved bythe glanders. These were thrown in at a pretty high figure, the oldmoney-lender having a singular prejudice in regard to the high value ofany sort of stock raised on his farm. With a great deal of difficulty, and at more loss, China Aster disposed of his cattle at public auction, no private purchaser being found who could be prevailed upon to invest. And now, raking and scraping in every way, and working early and late, China Aster at last started afresh, nor without again largely andconfidently extending himself. However, he did not try his hand at thespermaceti again, but, admonished by experience, returned to tallow. But, having bought a good lot of it, by the time he got it into candles, tallow fell so low, and candles with it, that his candles per poundbarely sold for what he had paid for the tallow. Meantime, a year'sunpaid interest had accrued on Orchis' loan, but China Aster gavehimself not so much concern about that as about the interest now due tothe old farmer. But he was glad that the principal there had yet sometime to run. However, the skinny old fellow gave him some trouble bycoming after him every day or two on a scraggy old white horse, furnished with a musty old saddle, and goaded into his shambling oldpaces with a withered old raw hide. All the neighbors said that surelyDeath himself on the pale horse was after poor China Aster now. Andsomething so it proved; for, ere long, China Aster found himselfinvolved in troubles mortal enough. 

At this juncture Orchis was heard of. Orchis, it seemed had returnedfrom his travels, and clandestinely married, and, in a kind of queerway, was living in Pennsylvania among his wife's relations, who, amongother things, had induced him to join a church, or rather semi-religiousschool, of Come-Outers; and what was still more, Orchis, without comingto the spot himself, had sent word to his agent to dispose of some ofhis property in Marietta, and remit him the proceeds. Within a yearafter, China Aster received a letter from Orchis, commending him for hispunctuality in paying the first year's interest, and regretting thenecessity that he (Orchis) was now under of using all his dividends; sohe relied upon China Aster's paying the next six months' interest, andof course with the back interest. Not more surprised than alarmed, ChinaAster thought of taking steamboat to go and see Orchis, but he was savedthat expense by the unexpected arrival in Marietta of Orchis in person, suddenly called there by that strange kind of capriciousness latelycharacterizing him. No sooner did China Aster hear of his old friend'sarrival than he hurried to call upon him. He found him curiously rustyin dress, sallow in cheek, and decidedly less gay and cordial in manner, which the more surprised China Aster, because, in former days, he hadmore than once heard Orchis, in his light rattling way, declare that allhe (Orchis) wanted to make him a perfectly happy, hilarious, andbenignant man, was a voyage to Europe and a wife, with a freedevelopment of his inmost nature. 

"Upon China Aster's stating his case, his trusted friend was silent fora time; then, in an odd way, said that he would not crowd China Aster, but still his (Orchis') necessities were urgent. Could not China Astermortgage the candlery? He was honest, and must have moneyed friends; andcould he not press his sales of candles? Could not the market be forceda little in that particular? The profits on candles must be very great. Seeing, now, that Orchis had the notion that the candle-making businesswas a very profitable one, and knowing sorely enough what an error washere, China Aster tried to undeceive him. But he could not drive thetruth into Orchis--Orchis being very obtuse here, and, at the same time, strange to say, very melancholy. Finally, Orchis glanced off from sounpleasing a subject into the most unexpected reflections, taken from areligious point of view, upon the unstableness and deceitfulness of thehuman heart. But having, as he thought, experienced something of thatsort of thing, China Aster did not take exception to his friend'sobservations, but still refrained from so doing, almost as much for thesake of sympathetic sociality as anything else. Presently, Orchis, without much ceremony, rose, and saying he must write a letter to hiswife, bade his friend good-bye, but without warmly shaking him by thehand as of old. 

"In much concern at the change, China Aster made earnest inquiries insuitable quarters, as to what things, as yet unheard of, had befallenOrchis, to bring about such a revolution; and learned at last that, besides traveling, and getting married, and joining the sect ofCome-Outers, Orchis had somehow got a bad dyspepsia, and lostconsiderable property through a breach of trust on the part of a factorin New York. Telling these things to Old Plain Talk, that man of someknowledge of the world shook his old head, and told China Aster that, though he hoped it might prove otherwise, yet it seemed to him that allhe had communicated about Orchis worked together for bad omens as to hisfuture forbearance--especially, he added with a grim sort of smile, inview of his joining the sect of Come-Outers; for, if some men knew whatwas their inmost natures, instead of coming out with it, they would trytheir best to keep it in, which, indeed, was the way with the prudentsort. In all which sour notions Old Prudence, as usual, chimed in. 

"When interest-day came again, China Aster, by the utmost exertions, could only pay Orchis' agent a small part of what was due, and a part ofthat was made up by his children's gift money (bright tenpenny piecesand new quarters, kept in their little money-boxes), and pawning hisbest clothes, with those of his wife and children, so that all weresubjected to the hardship of staying away from church. And the oldusurer, too, now beginning to be obstreperous, China Aster paid him hisinterest and some other pressing debts with money got by, at last, mortgaging the candlery. 

"When next interest-day came round for Orchis, not a penny could beraised. With much grief of heart, China Aster so informed Orchis' agent. Meantime, the note to the old usurer fell due, and nothing from ChinaAster was ready to meet it; yet, as heaven sends its rain on the justand unjust alike, by a coincidence not unfavorable to the old farmer, the well-to-do uncle, the tanner, having died, the usurer entered uponpossession of such part of his property left by will to the wife ofChina Aster. When still the next interest-day for Orchis came round, itfound China Aster worse off than ever; for, besides his other troubles, he was now weak with sickness. Feebly dragging himself to Orchis' agent, he met him in the street, told him just how it was; upon which theagent, with a grave enough face, said that he had instructions from hisemployer not to crowd him about the interest at present, but to say tohim that about the time the note would mature, Orchis would have heavyliabilities to meet, and therefore the note must at that time becertainly paid, and, of course, the back interest with it; and not onlyso, but, as Orchis had had to allow the interest for good part of thetime, he hoped that, for the back interest, China Aster would, inreciprocation, have no objections to allowing interest on the interestannually. To be sure, this was not the law; but, between friends whoaccommodate each other, it was the custom. 

"Just then, Old Plain Talk with Old Prudence turned the corner, comingplump upon China Aster as the agent left him; and whether it was asun-stroke, or whether they accidentally ran against him, or whether itwas his being so weak, or whether it was everything together, or how itwas exactly, there is no telling, but poor China Aster fell to theearth, and, striking his head sharply, was picked up senseless. It was aday in July; such a light and heat as only the midsummer banks of theinland Ohio know. China Aster was taken home on a door; lingered a fewdays with a wandering mind, and kept wandering on, till at last, at deadof night, when nobody was aware, his spirit wandered away into the otherworld. 

"Old Plain Talk and Old Prudence, neither of whom ever omitted attendingany funeral, which, indeed, was their chief exercise--these two wereamong the sincerest mourners who followed the remains of the son oftheir ancient friend to the grave. 

"It is needless to tell of the executions that followed; how that thecandlery was sold by the mortgagee; how Orchis never got a penny for hisloan; and how, in the case of the poor widow, chastisement was temperedwith mercy; for, though she was left penniless, she was not leftchildless. Yet, unmindful of the alleviation, a spirit of complaint, atwhat she impatiently called the bitterness of her lot and the hardnessof the world, so preyed upon her, as ere long to hurry her from theobscurity of indigence to the deeper shades of the tomb. 

"But though the straits in which China Aster had left his family had, besides apparently dimming the world's regard, likewise seemed to dimits sense of the probity of its deceased head, and though this, as somethought, did not speak well for the world, yet it happened in this case, as in others, that, though the world may for a time seem insensible tothat merit which lies under a cloud, yet, sooner or later, it alwaysrenders honor where honor is due; for, upon the death of the widow, thefreemen of Marietta, as a tribute of respect for China Aster, and anexpression of their conviction of his high moral worth, passed aresolution, that, until they attained maturity, his children should beconsidered the town's guests. No mere verbal compliment, like those ofsome public bodies; for, on the same day, the orphans were officiallyinstalled in that hospitable edifice where their worthy grandfather, thetown's guest before them, had breathed his last breath. 

"But sometimes honor maybe paid to the memory of an honest man, andstill his mound remain without a monument. Not so, however, with thecandle-maker. At an early day, Plain Talk had procured a plain stone, and was digesting in his mind what pithy word or two to place upon it, when there was discovered, in China Aster's otherwise empty wallet, anepitaph, written, probably, in one of those disconsolate hours, attendedwith more or less mental aberration, perhaps, so frequent with him forsome months prior to his end. A memorandum on the back expressed thewish that it might be placed over his grave. Though with the sentimentof the epitaph Plain Talk did not disagree, he himself being at times ofa hypochondriac turn--at least, so many said--yet the language struckhim as too much drawn out; so, after consultation with Old Prudence, hedecided upon making use of the epitaph, yet not without verbalretrenchments. And though, when these were made, the thing stillappeared wordy to him, nevertheless, thinking that, since a dead man wasto be spoken about, it was but just to let him speak for himself, especially when he spoke sincerely, and when, by so doing, the moresalutary lesson would be given, he had the retrenched inscriptionchiseled as follows upon the stone. 

 'HERE LIE THE REMAINS OF CHINA ASTER THE CANDLE-MAKER, WHOSE CAREER WAS AN EXAMPLE OF THE TRUTH OF SCRIPTURE, AS FOUND IN THE SOBER PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON THE WISE; FOR HE WAS RUINED BY ALLOWING HIMSELF TO BE PERSUADED, AGAINST HIS BETTER SENSE, INTO THE FREE INDULGENCE OF CONFIDENCE, AND AN ARDENTLY BRIGHT VIEW OF LIFE, TO THE EXCLUSION OF THAT COUNSEL WHICH COMES BY HEEDING THE OPPOSITE VIEW. '

"This inscription raised some talk in the town, and was rather severelycriticised by the capitalist--one of a very cheerful turn--who hadsecured his loan to China Aster by the mortgage; and though it alsoproved obnoxious to the man who, in town-meeting, had first moved forthe compliment to China Aster's memory, and, indeed, was deemed by him asort of slur upon the candle-maker, to that degree that he refused tobelieve that the candle-maker himself had composed it, charging OldPlain Talk with the authorship, alleging that the internal evidenceshowed that none but that veteran old croaker could have penned such ajeremiade--yet, for all this, the stone stood. In everything, of course, Old Plain Talk was seconded by Old Prudence; who, one day going to thegrave-yard, in great-coat and over-shoes--for, though it was a sunshinymorning, he thought that, owing to heavy dews, dampness might lurk inthe ground--long stood before the stone, sharply leaning over on hisstaff, spectacles on nose, spelling out the epitaph word by word; and, afterwards meeting Old Plain Talk in the street, gave a great rap withhis stick, and said: 'Friend, Plain Talk, that epitaph will do verywell. Nevertheless, one short sentence is wanting. ' Upon which, PlainTalk said it was too late, the chiseled words being so arranged, afterthe usual manner of such inscriptions, that nothing could be interlined. Then, ' said Old Prudence, 'I will put it in the shape of a postscript. 'Accordingly, with the approbation of Old Plain Talk, he had thefollowing words chiseled at the left-hand corner of the stone, andpretty low down:

 'The root of all was a friendly loan. '"

CHAPTER XLI. 

ENDING WITH A RUPTURE OF THE HYPOTHESIS. 

"With what heart, " cried Frank, still in character, "have you told methis story? A story I can no way approve; for its moral, if accepted, would drain me of all reliance upon my last stay, and, therefore, of mylast courage in life. For, what was that bright view of China Aster buta cheerful trust that, if he but kept up a brave heart, worked hard, andever hoped for the best, all at last would go well? If your purpose, Charlie, in telling me this story, was to pain me, and keenly, you havesucceeded; but, if it was to destroy my last confidence, I praise Godyou have not. "

"Confidence?" cried Charlie, who, on his side, seemed with his wholeheart to enter into the spirit of the thing, "what has confidence to dowith the matter? That moral of the story, which I am for commending toyou, is this: the folly, on both sides, of a friend's helping a friend. For was not that loan of Orchis to China Aster the first step towardstheir estrangement? And did it not bring about what in effect was theenmity of Orchis? I tell you, Frank, true friendship, like otherprecious things, is not rashly to be meddled with. And what moremeddlesome between friends than a loan? A regular marplot. For how canyou help that the helper must turn out a creditor? And creditor andfriend, can they ever be one? no, not in the most lenient case; since, out of lenity to forego one's claim, is less to be a friendly creditorthan to cease to be a creditor at all. But it will not do to rely uponthis lenity, no, not in the best man; for the best man, as the worst, issubject to all mortal contingencies. He may travel, he may marry, he mayjoin the Come-Outers, or some equally untoward school or sect, not tospeak of other things that more or less tend to new-cast the character. And were there nothing else, who shall answer for his digestion, uponwhich so much depends?"

"But Charlie, dear Charlie----"

"Nay, wait. --You have hearkened to my story in vain, if you do not seethat, however indulgent and right-minded I may seem to you now, that isno guarantee for the future. And into the power of that uncertainpersonality which, through the mutability of my humanity, I mayhereafter become, should not common sense dissuade you, my dear Frank, from putting yourself? Consider. Would you, in your present need, bewilling to accept a loan from a friend, securing him by a mortgage onyour homestead, and do so, knowing that you had no reason to feelsatisfied that the mortgage might not eventually be transferred into thehands of a foe? Yet the difference between this man and that man is notso great as the difference between what the same man be to-day and whathe may be in days to come. For there is no bent of heart or turn ofthought which any man holds by virtue of an unalterable nature or will. Even those feelings and opinions deemed most identical with eternalright and truth, it is not impossible but that, as personal persuasions, they may in reality be but the result of some chance tip of Fate's elbowin throwing her dice. For, not to go into the first seeds of things, andpassing by the accident of parentage predisposing to this or that habitof mind, descend below these, and tell me, if you change this man'sexperiences or that man's books, will wisdom go surety for his unchangedconvictions? As particular food begets particular dreams, so particularexperiences or books particular feelings or beliefs. I will hear nothingof that fine babble about development and its laws; there is nodevelopment in opinion and feeling but the developments of time andtide. You may deem all this talk idle, Frank; but conscience bids meshow you how fundamental the reasons for treating you as I do. "

"But Charlie, dear Charlie, what new notions are these? I thought thatman was no poor drifting weed of the universe, as you phrased it; that, if so minded, he could have a will, a way, a thought, and a heart of hisown? But now you have turned everything upside down again, with aninconsistency that amazes and shocks me. "

"Inconsistency? Bah!"

"There speaks the ventriloquist again, " sighed Frank, in bitterness. 

Illy pleased, it may be, by this repetition of an allusion littleflattering to his originality, however much so to his docility, thedisciple sought to carry it off by exclaiming: "Yes, I turn over day andnight, with indefatigable pains, the sublime pages of my master, andunfortunately for you, my dear friend, I find nothing _there_ that leadsme to think otherwise than I do. But enough: in this matter theexperience of China Aster teaches a moral more to the point thananything Mark Winsome can offer, or I either. "

"I cannot think so, Charlie; for neither am I China Aster, nor do Istand in his position. The loan to China Aster was to extend hisbusiness with; the loan I seek is to relieve my necessities. "

"Your dress, my dear Frank, is respectable; your cheek is not gaunt. Whytalk of necessities when nakedness and starvation beget the only realnecessities?"

"But I need relief, Charlie; and so sorely, that I now conjure you toforget that I was ever your friend, while I apply to you only as afellow-being, whom, surely, you will not turn away. "

"That I will not. Take off your hat, bow over to the ground, andsupplicate an alms of me in the way of London streets, and you shall notbe a sturdy beggar in vain. But no man drops pennies into the hat of afriend, let me tell you. If you turn beggar, then, for the honor ofnoble friendship, I turn stranger. "

"Enough, " cried the other, rising, and with a toss of his shouldersseeming disdainfully to throw off the character he had assumed. "Enough. I have had my fill of the philosophy of Mark Winsome as putinto action. And moonshiny as it in theory may be, yet a very practicalphilosophy it turns out in effect, as he himself engaged I should find. But, miserable for my race should I be, if I thought he spoke truth whenhe claimed, for proof of the soundness of his system, that the study ofit tended to much the same formation of character with the experiencesof the world. --Apt disciple! Why wrinkle the brow, and waste the oilboth of life and the lamp, only to turn out a head kept cool by theunder ice of the heart? What your illustrious magian has taught you, anypoor, old, broken-down, heart-shrunken dandy might have lisped. Pray, leave me, and with you take the last dregs of your inhuman philosophy. And here, take this shilling, and at the first wood-landing buy yourselfa few chips to warm the frozen natures of you and your philosopher by. "

With these words and a grand scorn the cosmopolitan turned on his heel, leaving his companion at a loss to determine where exactly thefictitious character had been dropped, and the real one, if any, resumed. If any, because, with pointed meaning, there occurred to him, as he gazed after the cosmopolitan, these familiar lines:

 "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players, Who have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts. "

CHAPTER XLII. 

UPON THE HEEL OF THE LAST SCENE THE COSMOPOLITAN ENTERS THE BARBER'SSHOP, A BENEDICTION ON HIS LIPS. 

"Bless you, barber!"

Now, owing to the lateness of the hour, the barber had been all aloneuntil within the ten minutes last passed; when, finding himself ratherdullish company to himself, he thought he would have a good time withSouter John and Tam O'Shanter, otherwise called Somnus and Morpheus, twovery good fellows, though one was not very bright, and the other anarrant rattlebrain, who, though much listened to by some, no wise manwould believe under oath. 

In short, with back presented to the glare of his lamps, and so to thedoor, the honest barber was taking what are called cat-naps, anddreaming in his chair; so that, upon suddenly hearing the benedictionabove, pronounced in tones not unangelic, starting up, half awake, hestared before him, but saw nothing, for the stranger stood behind. Whatwith cat-naps, dreams, and bewilderments, therefore, the voice seemed asort of spiritual manifestation to him; so that, for the moment, hestood all agape, eyes fixed, and one arm in the air. 

"Why, barber, are you reaching up to catch birds there with salt?"

"Ah!" turning round disenchanted, "it is only a man, then. "

"_Only_ a man? As if to be but a man were nothing. But don't be too surewhat I am. You call me _man_, just as the townsfolk called the angelswho, in man's form, came to Lot's house; just as the Jew rustics calledthe devils who, in man's form, haunted the tombs. You can concludenothing absolute from the human form, barber. "

"But I can conclude something from that sort of talk, with that sort ofdress, " shrewdly thought the barber, eying him with regainedself-possession, and not without some latent touch of apprehension atbeing alone with him. What was passing in his mind seemed divined by theother, who now, more rationally and gravely, and as if he expected itshould be attended to, said: "Whatever else you may conclude upon, it ismy desire that you conclude to give me a good shave, " at the same timeloosening his neck-cloth. "Are you competent to a good shave, barber?"

"No broker more so, sir, " answered the barber, whom the business-likeproposition instinctively made confine to business-ends his views of thevisitor. 

"Broker? What has a broker to do with lather? A broker I have alwaysunderstood to be a worthy dealer in certain papers and metals. "

"He, he!" taking him now for some dry sort of joker, whose jokes, hebeing a customer, it might be as well to appreciate, "he, he! Youunderstand well enough, sir. Take this seat, sir, " laying his hand on agreat stuffed chair, high-backed and high-armed, crimson-covered, andraised on a sort of dais, and which seemed but to lack a canopy andquarterings, to make it in aspect quite a throne, "take this seat, sir. "

"Thank you, " sitting down; "and now, pray, explain that about thebroker. But look, look--what's this?" suddenly rising, and pointing, with his long pipe, towards a gilt notification swinging among coloredfly-papers from the ceiling, like a tavern sign, "_No Trust?_" "No trustmeans distrust; distrust means no confidence. Barber, " turning upon himexcitedly, "what fell suspiciousness prompts this scandalous confession?My life!" stamping his foot, "if but to tell a dog that you have noconfidence in him be matter for affront to the dog, what an insult totake that way the whole haughty race of man by the beard! By my heart, sir! but at least you are valiant; backing the spleen of Thersites withthe pluck of Agamemnon. "

"Your sort of talk, sir, is not exactly in my line, " said the barber, rather ruefully, being now again hopeless of his customer, and notwithout return of uneasiness; "not in my line, sir, " he emphaticallyrepeated. 

"But the taking of mankind by the nose is; a habit, barber, which Isadly fear has insensibly bred in you a disrespect for man. For how, indeed, may respectful conceptions of him coexist with the perpetualhabit of taking him by the nose? But, tell me, though I, too, clearlysee the import of your notification, I do not, as yet, perceive theobject. What is it?"

"Now you speak a little in my line, sir, " said the barber, notunrelieved at this return to plain talk; "that notification I find veryuseful, sparing me much work which would not pay. Yes, I lost a gooddeal, off and on, before putting that up, " gratefully glancing towardsit. 

"But what is its object? Surely, you don't mean to say, in so manywords, that you have no confidence? For instance, now, " flinging asidehis neck-cloth, throwing back his blouse, and reseating himself on thetonsorial throne, at sight of which proceeding the barber mechanicallyfilled a cup with hot water from a copper vessel over a spirit-lamp, "for instance, now, suppose I say to you, 'Barber, my dear barber, unhappily I have no small change by me to-night, but shave me, anddepend upon your money to-morrow'--suppose I should say that now, youwould put trust in me, wouldn't you? You would have confidence?"

"Seeing that it is you, sir, " with complaisance replied the barber, nowmixing the lather, "seeing that it is _you_ sir, I won't answer thatquestion. No need to. "

"Of course, of course--in that view. But, as a supposition--you wouldhave confidence in me, wouldn't you?"

"Why--yes, yes. "

"Then why that sign?"

"Ah, sir, all people ain't like you, " was the smooth reply, at the sametime, as if smoothly to close the debate, beginning smoothly to applythe lather, which operation, however, was, by a motion, protestedagainst by the subject, but only out of a desire to rejoin, which wasdone in these words:

"All people ain't like me. Then I must be either better or worse thanmost people. Worse, you could not mean; no, barber, you could not meanthat; hardly that. It remains, then, that you think me better than mostpeople. But that I ain't vain enough to believe; though, from vanity, Iconfess, I could never yet, by my best wrestlings, entirely free myself;nor, indeed, to be frank, am I at bottom over anxious to--this samevanity, barber, being so harmless, so useful, so comfortable, sopleasingly preposterous a passion. "

"Very true, sir; and upon my honor, sir, you talk very well. But thelather is getting a little cold, sir. "

"Better cold lather, barber, than a cold heart. Why that cold sign? Ah, I don't wonder you try to shirk the confession. You feel in your soulhow ungenerous a hint is there. And yet, barber, now that I look intoyour eyes--which somehow speak to me of the mother that must have sooften looked into them before me--I dare say, though you may not thinkit, that the spirit of that notification is not one with your nature. For look now, setting, business views aside, regarding the thing in anabstract light; in short, supposing a case, barber; supposing, I say, you see a stranger, his face accidentally averted, but his visible partvery respectable-looking; what now, barber--I put it to your conscience, to your charity--what would be your impression of that man, in a moralpoint of view? Being in a signal sense a stranger, would you, for that, signally set him down for a knave?"

"Certainly not, sir; by no means, " cried the barber, humanely resentful. 

"You would upon the face of him----"

"Hold, sir, " said the barber, "nothing about the face; you remember, sir, that is out of sight. "

"I forgot that. Well then, you would, upon the _back_ of him, concludehim to be, not improbably, some worthy sort of person; in short, anhonest man: wouldn't you?"

"Not unlikely I should, sir. "

"Well now--don't be so impatient with your brush, barber--suppose thathonest man meet you by night in some dark corner of the boat where hisface would still remain unseen, asking you to trust him for a shave--howthen?"

"Wouldn't trust him, sir. "

"But is not an honest man to be trusted?"

"Why--why--yes, sir. "

"There! don't you see, now?"

"See what?" asked the disconcerted barber, rather vexedly. 

"Why, you stand self-contradicted, barber; don't you?"

"No, " doggedly. 

"Barber, " gravely, and after a pause of concern, "the enemies of ourrace have a saying that insincerity is the most universal andinveterate vice of man--the lasting bar to real amelioration, whether ofindividuals or of the world. Don't you now, barber, by your stubbornnesson this occasion, give color to such a calumny?"

"Hity-tity!" cried the barber, losing patience, and with it respect;"stubbornness?" Then clattering round the brush in the cup, "Will you beshaved, or won't you?"

"Barber, I will be shaved, and with pleasure; but, pray, don't raiseyour voice that way. Why, now, if you go through life gritting yourteeth in that fashion, what a comfortless time you will have. "

"I take as much comfort in this world as you or any other man, " criedthe barber, whom the other's sweetness of temper seemed rather toexasperate than soothe. 

"To resent the imputation of anything like unhappiness I have oftenobserved to be peculiar to certain orders of men, " said the otherpensively, and half to himself, "just as to be indifferent to thatimputation, from holding happiness but for a secondary good and inferiorgrace, I have observed to be equally peculiar to other kinds of men. Pray, barber, " innocently looking up, "which think you is the superiorcreature?"

"All this sort of talk, " cried the barber, still unmollified, "is, as Itold you once before, not in my line. In a few minutes I shall shut upthis shop. Will you be shaved?"

"Shave away, barber. What hinders?" turning up his face like a flower. 

The shaving began, and proceeded in silence, till at length it becamenecessary to prepare to relather a little--affording an opportunity forresuming the subject, which, on one side, was not let slip. 

"Barber, " with a kind of cautious kindliness, feeling his way, "barber, now have a little patience with me; do; trust me, I wish not to offend. I have been thinking over that supposed case of the man with the avertedface, and I cannot rid my mind of the impression that, by your oppositereplies to my questions at the time, you showed yourself much of a piecewith a good many other men--that is, you have confidence, and thenagain, you have none. Now, what I would ask is, do you think it sensiblestanding for a sensible man, one foot on confidence and the other onsuspicion? Don't you think, barber, that you ought to elect? Don't youthink consistency requires that you should either say 'I have confidencein all men, ' and take down your notification; or else say, 'I suspectall men, ' and keep it up. "

This dispassionate, if not deferential, way of putting the case, did notfail to impress the barber, and proportionately conciliate him. Likewise, from its pointedness, it served to make him thoughtful; for, instead of going to the copper vessel for more water, as he hadpurposed, he halted half-way towards it, and, after a pause, cup inhand, said: "Sir, I hope you would not do me injustice. I don't say, andcan't say, and wouldn't say, that I suspect all men; but I _do_ say thatstrangers are not to be trusted, and so, " pointing up to the sign, "notrust. "

"But look, now, I beg, barber, " rejoined the other deprecatingly, notpresuming too much upon the barber's changed temper; "look, now; to saythat strangers are not to be trusted, does not that imply something likesaying that mankind is not to be trusted; for the mass of mankind, arethey not necessarily strangers to each individual man? Come, come, myfriend, " winningly, "you are no Timon to hold the mass of mankinduntrustworthy. Take down your notification; it is misanthropical; muchthe same sign that Timon traced with charcoal on the forehead of a skullstuck over his cave. Take it down, barber; take it down to-night. Trustmen. Just try the experiment of trusting men for this one little trip. Come now, I'm a philanthropist, and will insure you against losing acent. "

The barber shook his head dryly, and answered, "Sir, you must excuse me. I have a family. "

CHAPTER XLIII

VERY CHARMING. 

"So you are a philanthropist, sir, " added the barber with an illuminatedlook; "that accounts, then, for all. Very odd sort of man thephilanthropist. You are the second one, sir, I have seen. Very odd sortof man, indeed, the philanthropist. Ah, sir, " again meditativelystirring in the shaving-cup, "I sadly fear, lest you philanthropistsknow better what goodness is, than what men are. " Then, eying him as ifhe were some strange creature behind cage-bars, "So you are aphilanthropist, sir. "

"I am Philanthropos, and love mankind. And, what is more than you do, barber, I trust them. "

Here the barber, casually recalled to his business, would havereplenished his shaving-cup, but finding now that on his last visit tothe water-vessel he had not replaced it over the lamp, he did so now;and, while waiting for it to heat again, became almost as sociable as ifthe heating water were meant for whisky-punch; and almost as pleasantlygarrulous as the pleasant barbers in romances. 

"Sir, " said he, taking a throne beside his customer (for in a row therewere three thrones on the dais, as for the three kings of Cologne, thosepatron saints of the barber), "sir, you say you trust men. Well, Isuppose I might share some of your trust, were it not for this trade, that I follow, too much letting me in behind the scenes. "

"I think I understand, " with a saddened look; "and much the same thing Ihave heard from persons in pursuits different from yours--from thelawyer, from the congressman, from the editor, not to mention others, each, with a strange kind of melancholy vanity, claiming for hisvocation the distinction of affording the surest inlets to theconviction that man is no better than he should be. All of whichtestimony, if reliable, would, by mutual corroboration, justify somedisturbance in a good man's mind. But no, no; it is a mistake--all amistake. "

"True, sir, very true, " assented the barber. 

"Glad to hear that, " brightening up. 

"Not so fast, sir, " said the barber; "I agree with you in thinking thatthe lawyer, and the congressman, and the editor, are in error, but onlyin so far as each claims peculiar facilities for the sort of knowledgein question; because, you see, sir, the truth is, that every trade orpursuit which brings one into contact with the facts, sir, such trade orpursuit is equally an avenue to those facts. "

"_How_ exactly is that?"

"Why, sir, in my opinion--and for the last twenty years I have, at oddtimes, turned the matter over some in my mind--he who comes to knowman, will not remain in ignorance of man. I think I am not rash insaying that; am I, sir?"

"Barber, you talk like an oracle--obscurely, barber, obscurely. "

"Well, sir, " with some self-complacency, "the barber has always beenheld an oracle, but as for the obscurity, that I don't admit. "

"But pray, now, by your account, what precisely may be this mysteriousknowledge gained in your trade? I grant you, indeed, as before hinted, that your trade, imposing on you the necessity of functionally tweakingthe noses of mankind, is, in that respect, unfortunate, very much so;nevertheless, a well-regulated imagination should be proof even to sucha provocation to improper conceits. But what I want to learn from you, barber, is, how does the mere handling of the outside of men's headslead you to distrust the inside of their hearts?

"What, sir, to say nothing more, can one be forever dealing in macassaroil, hair dyes, cosmetics, false moustaches, wigs, and toupees, andstill believe that men are wholly what they look to be? What think you, sir, are a thoughtful barber's reflections, when, behind a carefulcurtain, he shaves the thin, dead stubble off a head, and then dismissesit to the world, radiant in curling auburn? To contrast the shamefacedair behind the curtain, the fearful looking forward to being possiblydiscovered there by a prying acquaintance, with the cheerful assuranceand challenging pride with which the same man steps forth again, a gaydeception, into the street, while some honest, shock-headed fellowhumbly gives him the wall! Ah, sir, they may talk of the courage oftruth, but my trade teaches me that truth sometimes is sheepish. Lies, lies, sir, brave lies are the lions!"

"You twist the moral, barber; you sadly twist it. Look, now; take itthis way: A modest man thrust out naked into the street, would he not beabashed? Take him in and clothe him; would not his confidence berestored? And in either case, is any reproach involved? Now, what istrue of the whole, holds proportionably true of the part. The bald headis a nakedness which the wig is a coat to. To feel uneasy at thepossibility of the exposure of one's nakedness at top, and to feelcomforted by the consciousness of having it clothed--these feelings, instead of being dishonorable to a bold man, do, in fact, but attest aproper respect for himself and his fellows. And as for the deception, you may as well call the fine roof of a fine chateau a deception, since, like a fine wig, it also is an artificial cover to the head, andequally, in the common eye, decorates the wearer. --I have confuted you, my dear barber; I have confounded you. "

"Pardon, " said the barber, "but I do not see that you have. His coat andhis roof no man pretends to palm off as a part of himself, but the baldman palms off hair, not his, for his own. "

"Not _his_, barber? If he have fairly purchased his hair, the law willprotect him in its ownership, even against the claims of the head onwhich it grew. But it cannot be that you believe what you say, barber;you talk merely for the humor. I could not think so of you as to supposethat you would contentedly deal in the impostures you condemn. "

"Ah, sir, I must live. "

"And can't you do that without sinning against your conscience, as youbelieve? Take up some other calling. "

"Wouldn't mend the matter much, sir. "

"Do you think, then, barber, that, in a certain point, all the tradesand callings of men are much on a par? Fatal, indeed, " raising his hand, "inexpressibly dreadful, the trade of the barber, if to such conclusionsit necessarily leads. Barber, " eying him not without emotion, "youappear to me not so much a misbeliever, as a man misled. Now, let me setyou on the right track; let me restore you to trust in human nature, andby no other means than the very trade that has brought you to suspectit. "

"You mean, sir, you would have me try the experiment of taking down thatnotification, " again pointing to it with his brush; "but, dear me, whileI sit chatting here, the water boils over. "

With which words, and such a well-pleased, sly, snug, expression, asthey say some men have when they think their little stratagem hassucceeded, he hurried to the copper vessel, and soon had his cup foamingup with white bubbles, as if it were a mug of new ale. 

Meantime, the other would have fain gone on with the discourse; but thecunning barber lathered him with so generous a brush, so piled up thefoam on him, that his face looked like the yeasty crest of a billow, andvain to think of talking under it, as for a drowning priest in the seato exhort his fellow-sinners on a raft. Nothing would do, but he mustkeep his mouth shut. Doubtless, the interval was not, in a meditativeway, unimproved; for, upon the traces of the operation being at lastremoved, the cosmopolitan rose, and, for added refreshment, washed hisface and hands; and having generally readjusted himself, began, at last, addressing the barber in a manner different, singularly so, from hisprevious one. Hard to say exactly what the manner was, any more than tohint it was a sort of magical; in a benign way, not wholly unlike themanner, fabled or otherwise, of certain creatures in nature, which havethe power of persuasive fascination--the power of holding anothercreature by the button of the eye, as it were, despite the seriousdisinclination, and, indeed, earnest protest, of the victim. With thismanner the conclusion of the matter was not out of keeping; for, in theend, all argument and expostulation proved vain, the barber beingirresistibly persuaded to agree to try, for the remainder of the presenttrip, the experiment of trusting men, as both phrased it. True, to savehis credit as a free agent, he was loud in averring that it was only forthe novelty of the thing that he so agreed, and he required the other, as before volunteered, to go security to him against any loss that mightensue; but still the fact remained, that he engaged to trust men, athing he had before said he would not do, at least not unreservedly. Still the more to save his credit, he now insisted upon it, as a lastpoint, that the agreement should be put in black and white, especiallythe security part. The other made no demur; pen, ink, and paper wereprovided, and grave as any notary the cosmopolitan sat down, but, eretaking the pen, glanced up at the notification, and said: "First downwith that sign, barber--Timon's sign, there; down with it. "

This, being in the agreement, was done--though a littlereluctantly--with an eye to the future, the sign being carefully putaway in a drawer. 

"Now, then, for the writing, " said the cosmopolitan, squaring himself. "Ah, " with a sigh, "I shall make a poor lawyer, I fear. Ain't used, yousee, barber, to a business which, ignoring the principle of honor, holdsno nail fast till clinched. Strange, barber, " taking up the blank paper, "that such flimsy stuff as this should make such strong hawsers; vilehawsers, too. Barber, " starting up, "I won't put it in black and white. It were a reflection upon our joint honor. I will take your word, andyou shall take mine. "

"But your memory may be none of the best, sir. Well for you, on yourside, to have it in black and white, just for a memorandum like, youknow. "

"That, indeed! Yes, and it would help _your_ memory, too, wouldn't it, barber? Yours, on your side, being a little weak, too, I dare say. Ah, barber! how ingenious we human beings are; and how kindly we reciprocateeach other's little delicacies, don't we? What better proof, now, thatwe are kind, considerate fellows, with responsive fellow-feelings--eh, barber? But to business. Let me see. What's your name, barber?"

"William Cream, sir. "

Pondering a moment, he began to write; and, after some corrections, leaned back, and read aloud the following:

 "AGREEMENT Between FRANK GOODMAN, Philanthropist, and Citizen of the World, and WILLIAM CREAM, Barber of the Mississippi steamer, Fidèle. 

 "The first hereby agrees to make good to the last any loss that may come from his trusting mankind, in the way of his vocation, for the residue of the present trip; PROVIDED that William Cream keep out of sight, for the given term, his notification of NO TRUST, and by no other mode convey any, the least hint or intimation, tending to discourage men from soliciting trust from him, in the way of his vocation, for the time above specified; but, on the contrary, he do, by all proper and reasonable words, gestures, manners, and looks, evince a perfect confidence in all men, especially strangers; otherwise, this agreement to be void. 

 "Done, in good faith, this 1st day of April 18--, at a quarter to twelve o'clock, P. M. , in the shop of said William Cream, on board the said boat, Fidèle. "

"There, barber; will that do?"

"That will do, " said the barber, "only now put down your name. "

Both signatures being affixed, the question was started by the barber, who should have custody of the instrument; which point, however, hesettled for himself, by proposing that both should go together to thecaptain, and give the document into his hands--the barber hinting thatthis would be a safe proceeding, because the captain was necessarily aparty disinterested, and, what was more, could not, from the nature ofthe present case, make anything by a breach of trust. All of which waslistened to with some surprise and concern. 

"Why, barber, " said the cosmopolitan, "this don't show the right spirit;for me, I have confidence in the captain purely because he is a man; buthe shall have nothing to do with our affair; for if you have noconfidence in me, barber, I have in you. There, keep the paperyourself, " handing it magnanimously. 

"Very good, " said the barber, "and now nothing remains but for me toreceive the cash. "

Though the mention of that word, or any of its singularly numerousequivalents, in serious neighborhood to a requisition upon one's purse, is attended with a more or less noteworthy effect upon the humancountenance, producing in many an abrupt fall of it--in others, awrithing and screwing up of the features to a point not undistressing tobehold, in some, attended with a blank pallor and fatalconsternation--yet no trace of any of these symptoms was visible uponthe countenance of the cosmopolitan, notwithstanding nothing could bemore sudden and unexpected than the barber's demand. 

"You speak of cash, barber; pray in what connection?"

"In a nearer one, sir, " answered the barber, less blandly, "than Ithought the man with the sweet voice stood, who wanted me to trust himonce for a shave, on the score of being a sort of thirteenth cousin. "

"Indeed, and what did you say to him?"

"I said, 'Thank you, sir, but I don't see the connection, '"

"How could you so unsweetly answer one with a sweet voice?"

"Because, I recalled what the son of Sirach says in the True Book: 'Anenemy speaketh sweetly with his lips;' and so I did what the son ofSirach advises in such cases: 'I believed not his many words. '"

"What, barber, do you say that such cynical sort of things are in theTrue Book, by which, of course, you mean the Bible?"

"Yes, and plenty more to the same effect. Read the Book of Proverbs. "

"That's strange, now, barber; for I never happen to have met with thosepassages you cite. Before I go to bed this night, I'll inspect the BibleI saw on the cabin-table, to-day. But mind, you mustn't quote the TrueBook that way to people coming in here; it would be impliedly aviolation of the contract. But you don't know how glad I feel that youhave for one while signed off all that sort of thing. "

"No, sir; not unless you down with the cash. "

"Cash again! What do you mean?"

"Why, in this paper here, you engage, sir, to insure me against acertain loss, and----"

"Certain? Is it so _certain_ you are going to lose?"

"Why, that way of taking the word may not be amiss, but I didn't meanit so. I meant a _certain_ loss; you understand, a CERTAIN loss; that isto say, a certain loss. Now then, sir, what use your mere writing andsaying you will insure me, unless beforehand you place in my hands amoney-pledge, sufficient to that end?"

"I see; the material pledge. "

"Yes, and I will put it low; say fifty dollars. "

"Now what sort of a beginning is this? You, barber, for a given timeengage to trust man, to put confidence in men, and, for your first step, make a demand implying no confidence in the very man you engage with. But fifty dollars is nothing, and I would let you have it cheerfully, only I unfortunately happen to have but little change with me just now. "

"But you have money in your trunk, though?"

"To be sure. But you see--in fact, barber, you must be consistent. No, Iwon't let you have the money now; I won't let you violate the inmostspirit of our contract, that way. So good-night, and I will see youagain. "

"Stay, sir"--humming and hawing--"you have forgotten something. "

"Handkerchief?--gloves? No, forgotten nothing. Good-night. "

"Stay, sir--the--the shaving. "

"Ah, I _did_ forget that. But now that it strikes me, I shan't pay youat present. Look at your agreement; you must trust. Tut! against lossyou hold the guarantee. Good-night, my dear barber. "

With which words he sauntered off, leaving the barber in a maze, staringafter. 

But it holding true in fascination as in natural philosophy, thatnothing can act where it is not, so the barber was not long now in beingrestored to his self-possession and senses; the first evidence of whichperhaps was, that, drawing forth his notification from the drawer, heput it back where it belonged; while, as for the agreement, that he toreup; which he felt the more free to do from the impression that in allhuman probability he would never again see the person who had drawn it. Whether that impression proved well-founded or not, does not appear. Butin after days, telling the night's adventure to his friends, the worthybarber always spoke of his queer customer as the man-charmer--as certainEast Indians are called snake-charmers--and all his friends united inthinking him QUITE AN ORIGINAL. 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

IN WHICH THE LAST THREE WORDS OF THE LAST CHAPTER ARE MADE THE TEXT OFDISCOURSE, WHICH WILL BE SURE OF RECEIVING MORE OR LESS ATTENTION FROMTHOSE READERS WHO DO NOT SKIP IT. 

"Quite an original:" A phrase, we fancy, rather oftener used by theyoung, or the unlearned, or the untraveled, than by the old, or thewell-read, or the man who has made the grand tour. Certainly, the senseof originality exists at its highest in an infant, and probably at itslowest in him who has completed the circle of the sciences. 

As for original characters in fiction, a grateful reader will, onmeeting with one, keep the anniversary of that day. True, we sometimeshear of an author who, at one creation, produces some two or three scoresuch characters; it may be possible. But they can hardly be original inthe sense that Hamlet is, or Don Quixote, or Milton's Satan. That is tosay, they are not, in a thorough sense, original at all. They are novel, or singular, or striking, or captivating, or all four at once. 

More likely, they are what are called odd characters; but for that, areno more original, than what is called an odd genius, in his way, is. But, if original, whence came they? Or where did the novelist pick themup?

Where does any novelist pick up any character? For the most part, intown, to be sure. Every great town is a kind of man-show, where thenovelist goes for his stock, just as the agriculturist goes to thecattle-show for his. But in the one fair, new species of quadrupeds arehardly more rare, than in the other are new species of characters--thatis, original ones. Their rarity may still the more appear from this, that, while characters, merely singular, imply but singular forms so tospeak, original ones, truly so, imply original instincts. 

In short, a due conception of what is to be held for this sort ofpersonage in fiction would make him almost as much of a prodigy there, as in real history is a new law-giver, a revolutionizing philosopher, orthe founder of a new religion. 

In nearly all the original characters, loosely accounted such in worksof invention, there is discernible something prevailingly local, or ofthe age; which circumstance, of itself, would seem to invalidate theclaim, judged by the principles here suggested. 

Furthermore, if we consider, what is popularly held to entitlecharacters in fiction to being deemed original, is but somethingpersonal--confined to itself. The character sheds not its characteristicon its surroundings, whereas, the original character, essentially such, is like a revolving Drummond light, raying away from itself all roundit--everything is lit by it, everything starts up to it (mark how it iswith Hamlet), so that, in certain minds, there follows upon the adequateconception of such a character, an effect, in its way, akin to thatwhich in Genesis attends upon the beginning of things. 

For much the same reason that there is but one planet to one orbit, socan there be but one such original character to one work of invention. Two would conflict to chaos. In this view, to say that there are morethan one to a book, is good presumption there is none at all. But fornew, singular, striking, odd, eccentric, and all sorts of entertainingand instructive characters, a good fiction may be full of them. Toproduce such characters, an author, beside other things, must have seenmuch, and seen through much: to produce but one original character, hemust have had much luck. 

There would seem but one point in common between this sort of phenomenonin fiction and all other sorts: it cannot be born in the author'simagination--it being as true in literature as in zoology, that all lifeis from the egg. 

In the endeavor to show, if possible, the impropriety of the phrase, _Quite an Original_, as applied by the barber's friends, we have, atunawares, been led into a dissertation bordering upon the prosy, perhapsupon the smoky. If so, the best use the smoke can be turned to, will be, by retiring under cover of it, in good trim as may be, to the story. 

CHAPTER XLV. 

THE COSMOPOLITAN INCREASES IN SERIOUSNESS. 

In the middle of the gentleman's cabin burned a solar lamp, swung fromthe ceiling, and whose shade of ground glass was all round fancifullyvariegated, in transparency, with the image of a horned altar, fromwhich flames rose, alternate with the figure of a robed man, his headencircled by a halo. The light of this lamp, after dazzlingly strikingon marble, snow-white and round--the slab of a centre-table beneath--onall sides went rippling off with ever-diminishing distinctness, till, like circles from a stone dropped in water, the rays died dimly away inthe furthest nook of the place. 

Here and there, true to their place, but not to their function, swungother lamps, barren planets, which had either gone out from exhaustion, or been extinguished by such occupants of berths as the light annoyed, or who wanted to sleep, not see. 

By a perverse man, in a berth not remote, the remaining lamp would havebeen extinguished as well, had not a steward forbade, saying that thecommands of the captain required it to be kept burning till the naturallight of day should come to relieve it. This steward, who, like many inhis vocation, was apt to be a little free-spoken at times, had beenprovoked by the man's pertinacity to remind him, not only of the sadconsequences which might, upon occasion, ensue from the cabin being leftin darkness, but, also, of the circumstance that, in a place full ofstrangers, to show one's self anxious to produce darkness there, such ananxiety was, to say the least, not becoming. So the lamp--last survivorof many--burned on, inwardly blessed by those in some berths, andinwardly execrated by those in others. 

Keeping his lone vigils beneath his lone lamp, which lighted his book onthe table, sat a clean, comely, old man, his head snowy as the marble, and a countenance like that which imagination ascribes to good Simeon, when, having at last beheld the Master of Faith, he blessed him anddeparted in peace. From his hale look of greenness in winter, and hishands ingrained with the tan, less, apparently, of the present summer, than of accumulated ones past, the old man seemed a well-to-do farmer, happily dismissed, after a thrifty life of activity, from the fields tothe fireside--one of those who, at three-score-and-ten, arefresh-hearted as at fifteen; to whom seclusion gives a boon more blessedthan knowledge, and at last sends them to heaven untainted by the world, because ignorant of it; just as a countryman putting up at a London inn, and never stirring out of it as a sight-seer, will leave London at lastwithout once being lost in its fog, or soiled by its mud. 

Redolent from the barber's shop, as any bridegroom tripping to thebridal chamber might come, and by his look of cheeriness seeming todispense a sort of morning through the night, in came the cosmopolitan;but marking the old man, and how he was occupied, he toned himself down, and trod softly, and took a seat on the other side of the table, andsaid nothing. Still, there was a kind of waiting expression about him. 

"Sir, " said the old man, after looking up puzzled at him a moment, "sir, " said he, "one would think this was a coffee-house, and it waswar-time, and I had a newspaper here with great news, and the only copyto be had, you sit there looking at me so eager. "

"And so you _have_ good news there, sir--the very best of good news. "

"Too good to be true, " here came from one of the curtained berths. 

"Hark!" said the cosmopolitan. "Some one talks in his sleep. "

"Yes, " said the old man, "and you--_you_ seem to be talking in a dream. Why speak you, sir, of news, and all that, when you must see this is abook I have here--the Bible, not a newspaper?"

"I know that; and when you are through with it--but not a momentsooner--I will thank you for it. It belongs to the boat, I believe--apresent from a society. "

"Oh, take it, take it!"

"Nay, sir, I did not mean to touch you at all. I simply stated the factin explanation of my waiting here--nothing more. Read on, sir, or youwill distress me. "

This courtesy was not without effect. Removing his spectacles, andsaying he had about finished his chapter, the old man kindly presentedthe volume, which was received with thanks equally kind. After readingfor some minutes, until his expression merged from attentiveness intoseriousness, and from that into a kind of pain, the cosmopolitan slowlylaid down the book, and turning to the old man, who thus far had beenwatching him with benign curiosity, said: "Can you, my aged friend, resolve me a doubt--a disturbing doubt?"

"There are doubts, sir, " replied the old man, with a changedcountenance, "there are doubts, sir, which, if man have them, it is notman that can solve them. "

"True; but look, now, what my doubt is. I am one who thinks well of man. I love man. I have confidence in man. But what was told me not ahalf-hour since? I was told that I would find it written--'Believe nothis many words--an enemy speaketh sweetly with his lips'--and also I wastold that I would find a good deal more to the same effect, and all inthis book. I could not think it; and, coming here to look for myself, what do I read? Not only just what was quoted, but also, as was engaged, more to the same purpose, such as this: 'With much communication he willtempt thee; he will smile upon thee, and speak thee fair, and say Whatwantest thou? If thou be for his profit he will use thee; he will makethee bear, and will not be sorry for it. Observe and take good heed. When thou hearest these things, awake in thy sleep. '"

"Who's that describing the confidence-man?" here came from the berthagain. 

"Awake in his sleep, sure enough, ain't he?" said the cosmopolitan, again looking off in surprise. "Same voice as before, ain't it? Strangesort of dreamy man, that. Which is his berth, pray?"

"Never mind _him_, sir, " said the old man anxiously, "but tell me truly, did you, indeed, read from the book just now?"

"I did, " with changed air, "and gall and wormwood it is to me, a trusterin man; to me, a philanthropist. "

"Why, " moved, "you don't mean to say, that what you repeated is reallydown there? Man and boy, I have read the good book this seventy years, and don't remember seeing anything like that. Let me see it, " risingearnestly, and going round to him. 

"There it is; and there--and there"--turning over the leaves, andpointing to the sentences one by one; "there--all down in the 'Wisdom ofJesus, the Son of Sirach. '"

"Ah!" cried the old man, brightening up, "now I know. Look, " turning theleaves forward and back, till all the Old Testament lay flat on oneside, and all the New Testament flat on the other, while in his fingershe supported vertically the portion between, "look, sir, all this to theright is certain truth, and all this to the left is certain truth, butall I hold in my hand here is apocrypha. "

"Apocrypha?"

"Yes; and there's the word in black and white, " pointing to it. "Andwhat says the word? It says as much as 'not warranted;' for what docollege men say of anything of that sort? They say it is apocryphal. Theword itself, I've heard from the pulpit, implies something of uncertaincredit. So if your disturbance be raised from aught in this apocrypha, "again taking up the pages, "in that case, think no more of it, for it'sapocrypha. "

"What's that about the Apocalypse?" here, a third time, came from theberth. 

"He's seeing visions now, ain't he?" said the cosmopolitan, once morelooking in the direction of the interruption. "But, sir, " resuming, "Icannot tell you how thankful I am for your reminding me about theapocrypha here. For the moment, its being such escaped me. Fact is, whenall is bound up together, it's sometimes confusing. The uncanonical partshould be bound distinct. And, now that I think of it, how well didthose learned doctors who rejected for us this whole book of Sirach. Inever read anything so calculated to destroy man's confidence in man. This son of Sirach even says--I saw it but just now: 'Take heed of thyfriends;' not, observe, thy seeming friends, thy hypocritical friends, thy false friends, but thy _friends_, thy real friends--that is to say, not the truest friend in the world is to be implicitly trusted. CanRochefoucault equal that? I should not wonder if his view of humannature, like Machiavelli's, was taken from this Son of Sirach. And tocall it wisdom--the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach! Wisdom, indeed! What anugly thing wisdom must be! Give me the folly that dimples the cheek, say I, rather than the wisdom that curdles the blood. But no, no; itain't wisdom; it's apocrypha, as you say, sir. For how can that betrustworthy that teaches distrust?"

"I tell you what it is, " here cried the same voice as before, only morein less of mockery, "if you two don't know enough to sleep, don't bekeeping wiser men awake. And if you want to know what wisdom is, go findit under your blankets. "

"Wisdom?" cried another voice with a brogue; "arrah and is't wisdom thetwo geese are gabbling about all this while? To bed with ye, ye divils, and don't be after burning your fingers with the likes of wisdom. "

"We must talk lower, " said the old man; "I fear we have annoyed thesegood people. "

"I should be sorry if wisdom annoyed any one, " said the other; "but wewill lower our voices, as you say. To resume: taking the thing as I did, can you be surprised at my uneasiness in reading passages so chargedwith the spirit of distrust?"

"No, sir, I am not surprised, " said the old man; then added: "from whatyou say, I see you are something of my way of thinking--you think thatto distrust the creature, is a kind of distrusting of the Creator. Well, my young friend, what is it? This is rather late for you to be about. What do you want of me?"

These questions were put to a boy in the fragment of an old linen coat, bedraggled and yellow, who, coming in from the deck barefooted on thesoft carpet, had been unheard. All pointed and fluttering, the rags ofthe little fellow's red-flannel shirt, mixed with those of his yellowcoat, flamed about him like the painted flames in the robes of a victimin _auto-da-fe_. His face, too, wore such a polish of seasoned grime, that his sloe-eyes sparkled from out it like lustrous sparks in freshcoal. He was a juvenile peddler, or _marchand_, as the polite Frenchmight have called him, of travelers' conveniences; and, having noallotted sleeping-place, had, in his wanderings about the boat, spied, through glass doors, the two in the cabin; and, late though it was, thought it might never be too much so for turning a penny. 

Among other things, he carried a curious affair--a miniature mahoganydoor, hinged to its frame, and suitably furnished in all respects butone, which will shortly appear. This little door he now meaningly heldbefore the old man, who, after staring at it a while, said: "Go thy wayswith thy toys, child. "

"Now, may I never get so old and wise as that comes to, " laughed the boythrough his grime; and, by so doing, disclosing leopard-like teeth, likethose of Murillo's wild beggar-boy's. 

"The divils are laughing now, are they?" here came the brogue from theberth. "What do the divils find to laugh about in wisdom, begorrah? Tobed with ye, ye divils, and no more of ye. "

"You see, child, you have disturbed that person, " said the old man; "youmustn't laugh any more. "

"Ah, now, " said the cosmopolitan, "don't, pray, say that; don't let himthink that poor Laughter is persecuted for a fool in this world. "

"Well, " said the old man to the boy, "you must, at any rate, speak verylow. "

"Yes, that wouldn't be amiss, perhaps, " said the cosmopolitan; "but, myfine fellow, you were about saying something to my aged friend here;what was it?"

"Oh, " with a lowered voice, coolly opening and shutting his little door, "only this: when I kept a toy-stand at the fair in Cincinnati lastmonth, I sold more than one old man a child's rattle. "

"No doubt of it, " said the old man. "I myself often buy such things formy little grandchildren. "

"But these old men I talk of were old bachelors. "

The old man stared at him a moment; then, whispering to thecosmopolitan: "Strange boy, this; sort of simple, ain't he? Don't knowmuch, hey?"

"Not much, " said the boy, "or I wouldn't be so ragged. "

"Why, child, what sharp ears you have!" exclaimed the old man. 

"If they were duller, I would hear less ill of myself, " said the boy. 

"You seem pretty wise, my lad, " said the cosmopolitan; "why don't yousell your wisdom, and buy a coat?"

"Faith, " said the boy, "that's what I did to-day, and this is the coatthat the price of my wisdom bought. But won't you trade? See, now, itis not the door I want to sell; I only carry the door round for aspecimen, like. Look now, sir, " standing the thing up on the table, "supposing this little door is your state-room door; well, " opening it, "you go in for the night; you close your door behind you--thus. Now, isall safe?"

"I suppose so, child, " said the old man. 

"Of course it is, my fine fellow, " said the cosmopolitan. 

"All safe. Well. Now, about two o'clock in the morning, say, asoft-handed gentleman comes softly and tries the knob here--thus; increeps my soft-handed gentleman; and hey, presto! how comes on the softcash?"

"I see, I see, child, " said the old man; "your fine gentleman is a finethief, and there's no lock to your little door to keep him out;" withwhich words he peered at it more closely than before. 

"Well, now, " again showing his white teeth, "well, now, some of you oldfolks are knowing 'uns, sure enough; but now comes the great invention, "producing a small steel contrivance, very simple but ingenious, andwhich, being clapped on the inside of the little door, secured it aswith a bolt. "There now, " admiringly holding it off at arm's-length, "there now, let that soft-handed gentleman come now a' softly tryingthis little knob here, and let him keep a' trying till he finds his headas soft as his hand. Buy the traveler's patent lock, sir, onlytwenty-five cents. "

"Dear me, " cried the old man, "this beats printing. Yes, child, I willhave one, and use it this very night. "

With the phlegm of an old banker pouching the change, the boy now turnedto the other: "Sell you one, sir?"

"Excuse me, my fine fellow, but I never use such blacksmiths' things. "

"Those who give the blacksmith most work seldom do, " said the boy, tipping him a wink expressive of a degree of indefinite knowingness, notuninteresting to consider in one of his years. But the wink was notmarked by the old man, nor, to all appearances, by him for whom it wasintended. 

"Now then, " said the boy, again addressing the old man. "With yourtraveler's lock on your door to-night, you will think yourself all safe, won't you?"

"I think I will, child. "

"But how about the window?"

"Dear me, the window, child. I never thought of that. I must see tothat. "

"Never you mind about the window, " said the boy, "nor, to be honorbright, about the traveler's lock either, (though I ain't sorry forselling one), do you just buy one of these little jokers, " producing anumber of suspender-like objects, which he dangled before the old man;"money-belts, sir; only fifty cents. "

"Money-belt? never heard of such a thing. "

"A sort of pocket-book, " said the boy, "only a safer sort. Very good fortravelers. "

"Oh, a pocket-book. Queer looking pocket-books though, seems to me. Ain't they rather long and narrow for pocket-books?"

"They go round the waist, sir, inside, " said the boy "door open orlocked, wide awake on your feet or fast asleep in your chair, impossibleto be robbed with a money-belt. "

"I see, I see. It _would_ be hard to rob one's money-belt. And I wastold to-day the Mississippi is a bad river for pick-pockets. How muchare they?"

"Only fifty cents, sir. "

"I'll take one. There!"

"Thank-ee. And now there's a present for ye, " with which, drawing fromhis breast a batch of little papers, he threw one before the old man, who, looking at it, read "_Counterfeit Detector_. "

"Very good thing, " said the boy, "I give it to all my customers whotrade seventy-five cents' worth; best present can be made them. Sell youa money-belt, sir?" turning to the cosmopolitan. 

"Excuse me, my fine fellow, but I never use that sort of thing; my moneyI carry loose. "

"Loose bait ain't bad, " said the boy, "look a lie and find the truth;don't care about a Counterfeit Detector, do ye? or is the wind East, d'ye think?"

"Child, " said the old man in some concern, "you mustn't sit up anylonger, it affects your mind; there, go away, go to bed. "

"If I had some people's brains to lie on. I would, " said the boy, "butplanks is hard, you know. "

"Go, child--go, go!"

"Yes, child, --yes, yes, " said the boy, with which roguish parody, by wayof congé, he scraped back his hard foot on the woven flowers of thecarpet, much as a mischievous steer in May scrapes back his horny hoofin the pasture; and then with a flourish of his hat--which, like therest of his tatters, was, thanks to hard times, a belonging beyond hisyears, though not beyond his experience, being a grown man's cast-offbeaver--turned, and with the air of a young Caffre, quitted the place. 

"That's a strange boy, " said the old man, looking after him. "I wonderwho's his mother; and whether she knows what late hours he keeps?"

"The probability is, " observed the other, "that his mother does notknow. But if you remember, sir, you were saying something, when the boyinterrupted you with his door. "

"So I was. --Let me see, " unmindful of his purchases for the moment, "what, now, was it? What was that I was saying? Do _you_ remember?"

"Not perfectly, sir; but, if I am not mistaken, it was something likethis: you hoped you did not distrust the creature; for that would implydistrust of the Creator. "

"Yes, that was something like it, " mechanically and unintelligentlyletting his eye fall now on his purchases. 

"Pray, will you put your money in your belt to-night?"

"It's best, ain't it?" with a slight start. "Never too late to becautious. 'Beware of pick-pockets' is all over the boat. "

"Yes, and it must have been the Son of Sirach, or some other morbidcynic, who put them there. But that's not to the purpose. Since you areminded to it, pray, sir, let me help you about the belt. I think that, between us, we can make a secure thing of it. "

"Oh no, no, no!" said the old man, not unperturbed, "no, no, I wouldn'ttrouble you for the world, " then, nervously folding up the belt, "and Iwon't be so impolite as to do it for myself, before you, either. But, now that I think of it, " after a pause, carefully taking a little wadfrom a remote corner of his vest pocket, "here are two bills they gaveme at St. Louis, yesterday. No doubt they are all right; but just topass time, I'll compare them with the Detector here. Blessed boy to makeme such a present. Public benefactor, that little boy!"

Laying the Detector square before him on the table, he then, withsomething of the air of an officer bringing by the collar a brace ofculprits to the bar, placed the two bills opposite the Detector, uponwhich, the examination began, lasting some time, prosecuted with nosmall research and vigilance, the forefinger of the right hand provingof lawyer-like efficacy in tracing out and pointing the evidence, whichever way it might go. 

After watching him a while, the cosmopolitan said in a formal voice, "Well, what say you, Mr. Foreman; guilty, or not guilty?--Not guilty, ain't it?"

"I don't know, I don't know, " returned the old man, perplexed, "there'sso many marks of all sorts to go by, it makes it a kind of uncertain. Here, now, is this bill, " touching one, "it looks to be a three dollarbill on the Vicksburgh Trust and Insurance Banking Company. Well, theDetector says----"

"But why, in this case, care what it says? Trust and Insurance! Whatmore would you have?"

"No; but the Detector says, among fifty other things, that, if a goodbill, it must have, thickened here and there into the substance of thepaper, little wavy spots of red; and it says they must have a kind ofsilky feel, being made by the lint of a red silk handkerchief stirred upin the paper-maker's vat--the paper being made to order for thecompany. "

"Well, and is----"

"Stay. But then it adds, that sign is not always to be relied on; forsome good bills get so worn, the red marks get rubbed out. And that'sthe case with my bill here--see how old it is--or else it's acounterfeit, or else--I don't see right--or else--dear, dear me--I don'tknow what else to think. "

"What a peck of trouble that Detector makes for you now; believe me, thebill is good; don't be so distrustful. Proves what I've always thought, that much of the want of confidence, in these days, is owing to theseCounterfeit Detectors you see on every desk and counter. Puts people upto suspecting good bills. Throw it away, I beg, if only because of thetrouble it breeds you. "

"No; it's troublesome, but I think I'll keep it. --Stay, now, here'sanother sign. It says that, if the bill is good, it must have in onecorner, mixed in with the vignette, the figure of a goose, very small, indeed, all but microscopic; and, for added precaution, like the figureof Napoleon outlined by the tree, not observable, even if magnified, unless the attention is directed to it. Now, pore over it as I will, Ican't see this goose. "

"Can't see the goose? why, I can; and a famous goose it is. There"(reaching over and pointing to a spot in the vignette). 

"I don't see it--dear me--I don't see the goose. Is it a real goose?"

"A perfect goose; beautiful goose. "

"Dear, dear, I don't see it. "

"Then throw that Detector away, I say again; it only makes you purblind;don't you see what a wild-goose chase it has led you? The bill is good. Throw the Detector away. "

"No; it ain't so satisfactory as I thought for, but I must examine thisother bill. "

"As you please, but I can't in conscience assist you any more; pray, then, excuse me. "

So, while the old man with much painstakings resumed his work, thecosmopolitan, to allow him every facility, resumed his reading. Atlength, seeing that he had given up his undertaking as hopeless, and wasat leisure again, the cosmopolitan addressed some gravely interestingremarks to him about the book before him, and, presently, becoming moreand more grave, said, as he turned the large volume slowly over on thetable, and with much difficulty traced the faded remains of the giltinscription giving the name of the society who had presented it to theboat, "Ah, sir, though every one must be pleased at the thought of thepresence in public places of such a book, yet there is something thatabates the satisfaction. Look at this volume; on the outside, batteredas any old valise in the baggage-room; and inside, white and virgin asthe hearts of lilies in bud. "

"So it is, so it is, " said the old man sadly, his attention for thefirst directed to the circumstance. 

"Nor is this the only time, " continued the other, "that I have observedthese public Bibles in boats and hotels. All much like this--oldwithout, and new within. True, this aptly typifies that internalfreshness, the best mark of truth, however ancient; but then, it speaksnot so well as could be wished for the good book's esteem in the mindsof the traveling public. I may err, but it seems to me that if moreconfidence was put in it by the traveling public, it would hardly beso. "

With an expression very unlike that with which he had bent over theDetector, the old man sat meditating upon his companions remarks awhile; and, at last, with a rapt look, said: "And yet, of all people, the traveling public most need to put trust in that guardianship whichis made known in this book. "

"True, true, " thoughtfully assented the other. "And one would think theywould want to, and be glad to, " continued the old man kindling; "for, in all our wanderings through this vale, how pleasant, not less thanobligatory, to feel that we need start at no wild alarms, provide for nowild perils; trusting in that Power which is alike able and willing toprotect us when we cannot ourselves. "

His manner produced something answering to it in the cosmopolitan, who, leaning over towards him, said sadly: "Though this is a theme on whichtravelers seldom talk to each other, yet, to you, sir, I will say, thatI share something of your sense of security. I have moved much about theworld, and still keep at it; nevertheless, though in this land, andespecially in these parts of it, some stories are told about steamboatsand railroads fitted to make one a little apprehensive, yet, I may saythat, neither by land nor by water, am I ever seriously disquieted, however, at times, transiently uneasy; since, with you, sir, I believein a Committee of Safety, holding silent sessions over all, in aninvisible patrol, most alert when we soundest sleep, and whose beat liesas much through forests as towns, along rivers as streets. In short, Inever forget that passage of Scripture which says, 'Jehovah shall be thyconfidence. ' The traveler who has not this trust, what miserablemisgivings must be his; or, what vain, short-sighted care must he takeof himself. "

"Even so, " said the old man, lowly. 

"There is a chapter, " continued the other, again taking the book, "which, as not amiss, I must read you. But this lamp, solar-lamp as itis, begins to burn dimly. "

"So it does, so it does, " said the old man with changed air, "dear me, it must be very late. I must to bed, to bed! Let me see, " rising andlooking wistfully all round, first on the stools and settees, and thenon the carpet, "let me see, let me see;--is there anything I haveforgot, --forgot? Something I a sort of dimly remember. Something, myson--careful man--told me at starting this morning, this very morning. Something about seeing to--something before I got into my berth. Whatcould it be? Something for safety. Oh, my poor old memory!"

"Let me give a little guess, sir. Life-preserver?"

"So it was. He told me not to omit seeing I had a life-preserver in mystate-room; said the boat supplied them, too. But where are they? Idon't see any. What are they like?"

"They are something like this, sir, I believe, " lifting a brown stoolwith a curved tin compartment underneath; "yes, this, I think, is alife-preserver, sir; and a very good one, I should say, though I don'tpretend to know much about such things, never using them myself. "

"Why, indeed, now! Who would have thought it? _that_ a life-preserver?That's the very stool I was sitting on, ain't it?"

"It is. And that shows that one's life is looked out for, when he ain'tlooking out for it himself. In fact, any of these stools here will floatyou, sir, should the boat hit a snag, and go down in the dark. But, since you want one in your room, pray take this one, " handing it to him. "I think I can recommend this one; the tin part, " rapping it with hisknuckles, "seems so perfect--sounds so very hollow. "

"Sure it's _quite_ perfect, though?" Then, anxiously putting on hisspectacles, he scrutinized it pretty closely--"well soldered? quitetight?"

"I should say so, sir; though, indeed, as I said, I never use this sortof thing, myself. Still, I think that in case of a wreck, barringsharp-pointed timbers, you could have confidence in that stool for aspecial providence. "

"Then, good-night, good-night; and Providence have both of us in itsgood keeping. "

"Be sure it will, " eying the old man with sympathy, as for the moment hestood, money-belt in hand, and life-preserver under arm, "be sure itwill, sir, since in Providence, as in man, you and I equally put trust. But, bless me, we are being left in the dark here. Pah! what a smell, too. "

"Ah, my way now, " cried the old man, peering before him, "where lies myway to my state-room?"

"I have indifferent eyes, and will show you; but, first, for the good ofall lungs, let me extinguish this lamp. "

The next moment, the waning light expired, and with it the waning flamesof the horned altar, and the waning halo round the robed man's brow;while in the darkness which ensued, the cosmopolitan kindly led the oldman away. Something further may follow of this Masquerade. 

 +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note and Errata | | | | The following words were seen in both hyphenated and | | un-hyphenated forms: | | | | |church-yard (2) |churchyard (1) | | | |cross-wise (1) |crosswise (1) | | | |thread-bare (1) |threadbare (1) | | | | | The following typographical errors were corrected: | | | | |Error |Correction | | | | | | | | |ACQUANTANCE |ACQUAINTANCE | | | |prevailent |prevalent | | | |the the |the | | | |tranquillity |tranquility | | | |abox |a box | | | |acommodates |accommodates | | | |have have |have | | | |worldlingg, lutton, |worldling, glutton, | | | |backswoods' |backwoods' | | | |it it |it is | | | |fellew |fellow | | | |principal |principle | | | |it it |it | | | |everwhere |everywhere | | | |SUPRISING |SURPRISING | | | |freind |friend | | | | | One 'oe' ligature was replaced with oe. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+