CHAPTER XV. DINING OUT.
My visit to Germany was protracted beyond the period I had originally designed; and, during my absence, Mr. Slick had been constantly in company, either “dining out” daily, when in town, or visiting from one house to another in the country.
I found him in great spirits. He assured me he had many capital stories to tell me, and that he rather guessed he knew as much of the English, and a leetle, jist a leetle, grain more, p’raps, than they knew of the Yankees.
“They are considerable large print are the Bull family,” said he; “you can read them by moonlight. Indeed, their faces ain’t onlike the moon in a gineral way; only one has got a man in it, and the other hain’t always. It tante a bright face; you can look into it without winkin’. It’s a cloudy one here too, especially in November; and most all the time makes you rather sad and solemncoly. Yes, John is a moony man, that’s a fact, and at the full a little queer sometimes.
“England is a stupid country compared to our’n. There it no variety where there it no natur. You have class variety here, but no individiality. They are insipid, and call it perlite. The men dress alike, talk alike, and look as much alike as Providence will let ‘em. The club-houses and the tailors have done a good deal towards this, and so has whiggism and dissent; for they have destroyed distinctions.
“But this is too deep for me. Ask Minister, he will tell you the cause; I only tell you the fact.
“Dinin’ out here, is both heavy work, and light feedin’. It’s monstrous stupid. One dinner like one rainy day (it’s rained ever since I been here a’most), is like another; one drawin’-room like another drawin’-room; one peer’s entertainment, in a general way, is like another peer’s. The same powdered, liveried, lazy, idle, good-for-nothin’, do-little, stand-in-the-way-of-each-other, useless sarvants. Same picturs, same plate, same fixin’s, same don’t-know-what-to-do-with-your-self-kinder-o’-lookin’-master. Great folks are like great folks, marchants like marchants, and so on. It’s a pictur, it looks like life, but’ it tante. The animal is tamed here; he is fatter than the wild one, but he hante the spirit.
“You have seen-Old Clay in a pastur, a racin’ about, free from harness, head and tail up, snortin’, cavortin’, attitudinisin’ of himself. Mane flowin’ in the wind, eye-ball startin’ out, nostrils inside out a’most, ears pricked up. A nateral hoss; put him in a waggon, with a rael spic and span harness, all covered over with brass buckles and brass knobs, and ribbons in his bridle, rael jam. Curb him up, talk Yankee to him, and get his ginger up. Well, he looks well; but he is ‘a broke hoss.’ He reminds you of Sam Slick; cause when you see a hoss, you think of his master: but he don’t remind you of the rael ‘Old Clay,’ that’s a fact.
“Take a day here, now in town; and they are so identical the same, that one day sartificates for another. You can’t get out a bed afore twelve, in winter, the days is so short, and the fires ain’t made, or the room dusted, or the breakfast can’t be got, or sunthin’ or another. And if you did, what’s the use? There is no one to talk to, and books only weaken your understandin’, as water does brandy. They make you let others guess for you, instead of guessin’ for yourself. Sarvants spile your habits here, and books spite your mind. I wouldn’t swap ideas with any man. I make my own opinions, as I used to do my own clocks; and I find they are truer than other men’s. The Turks are so cussed heavy, they have people to dance for ‘em; the English are wus, for they hire people to think for ‘em. Never read a book, Squire, always think for yourself.
“Well, arter breakfast, it’s on hat and coat, ombrella in hand, (don’t never forget that, for the rumatiz, like the perlice, is always on the look out here, to grab hold of a feller,) and go somewhere where there is somebody, or another, and smoke, and then wash it down with a sherry-cobbler; (the drinks ain’t good here; they hante no variety in them nother; no white-nose, apple-jack, stone-wall, chain-lightning, rail-road, hail-storm, ginsling-talabogus, switchel-flip, gum-ticklers, phlem-cutters, juleps, skate-iron, cast-steel, cock-tail, or nothin’, but that heavy stupid black fat porter;) then down to the coffee-house, see what vessels have arrived, how markets is, whether there is a chance of doin’ any thin’ in cotton or tobacco, whose broke to home, and so on. Then go to the park, and see what’s a goin’ on there; whether those pretty critturs, the rads are a holdin’ a prime minister ‘parsonally responsible,’ by shootin’ at him; or whether there is a levee, or the Queen is ridin’ out, or what not; take a look at the world, make a visit or two to kill time, when all at once it’s dark. Home then, smoke a cigar, dress for dinner, and arrive at a quarter past seven.
“Folks are up to the notch here when dinner is in question, that’s a fact, fat, gouty, broken-winded, and foundered as they be. It’s rap, rap, rap, for twenty minutes at the door, and in they come, one arter the other, as fast as the sarvants can carry up their names. Cuss them sarvants! it takes seven or eight of ‘em to carry a man’s name up stairs, they are so awful lazy, and so shockin’ full of porter. If a feller was so lame he had to be carried up himself, I don’t believe on my soul, the whole gang of them, from the Butler that dresses in the same clothes as his master, to Boots that ain’t dressed at all, could make out to bowse him up stairs, upon my soul I don’t.
“Well, you go in along with your name, walk up to old aunty, and make a scrape, and the same to old uncle, and then fall back. This is done as solemn, as if a feller’s name was called out to take his place in a funeral; that and the mistakes is the fun of it. There is a sarvant at a house I visit at, that I suspicion is a bit of a bam, and the critter shows both his wit and sense. He never does it to a ‘somebody,’ ‘cause that would cost him his place, but when a ‘nobody’ has a droll name, he jist gives an accent, or a sly twist to it, that folks can’t help a larfin’, no more than Mr. Nobody can feelin’ like a fool. He’s a droll boy, that; I should like to know him.
“Well, arter ‘nouncin’ is done, then comes two questions—do I know anybody here? and if I do, does he look like talk or not? Well, seein’ that you have no handle to your name, and a stranger, it’s most likely you can’t answer these questions right; so you stand and use your eyes, and put your tongue up in its case till it’s wanted. Company are all come, and now they have to be marshalled two and two, lock and lock, and go into the dinin’-room to feed.
“When I first came I was nation proud of that title, ‘the Attache;’ now I am happified it’s nothin’ but ‘only an Attache,’ and I’ll tell you why. The great guns, and big bugs, have to take in each other’s ladies, so these old ones have to herd together. Well, the nobodies go together too, and sit together, and I’ve observed these nobodies are the pleasantest people at table, and they have the pleasantest places, because they sit down with each other, and are jist like yourself, plaguy glad to get some one to talk to. Somebody can only visit somebody, but nobody can go anywhere, and therefore nobody sees and knows twice as much as somebody does. Somebodies must be axed, if they are as stupid as a pump; but nobodies needn’t, and never are, unless they are spicy sort o’ folks, so you are sure of them, and they have all the fun and wit of the table at their eend, and no mistake.
“I wouldn’t take a title if they would give it to me, for if I had one, I should have a fat old parblind dowager detailed on to me to take in to dinner; and what the plague is her jewels and laces, and silks and sattins, and wigs to me? As it is, I have a chance to have a gall to take in that’s a jewel herself—one that don’t want no settin’ off, and carries her diamonds in her eyes, and so on. I’ve told our minister not to introduce me as an Attache no more, but as Mr. Nobody, from the State of Nothin’, in America, that’s natur agin.
“But to get back to the dinner. Arter you are in marchin’ order, you move in through two rows of sarvants in uniform. I used to think they was placed there for show, but it’s to keep the air off of folks a goin’ through the entry, and it ain’t a bad thought, nother.
“Lord, the first time I went to one o’ these grand let offs I felt kinder skeery, and as nobody was allocated to me to take in, I goes in alone, not knowin’ where I was to settle down as a squatter, and kinder lagged behind; when the butler comes and rams a napkin in my hand, and gives me a shove, and sais he, ‘Go and stand behind your master, sir,’ sais he. Oh Solomon! how that waked me up. How I curled inwardly when he did that. ‘You’ve mistaken the child,’ sais I mildly, and I held out the napkin, and jist as he went to take it, I gave him a sly poke in the bread basket, that made him bend forward and say ‘eugh.’ ‘Wake Snakes, and walk your chalks,’ sais I, ‘will you?’ and down I pops on the fust empty chair. Lord, how white he looked about the gills arterwards; I thought I should a split when I looked at him. Guess he’ll know an Attache when he sees him next time.
“Well, there is dinner. One sarvice of plate is like another sarvice of plate, any one dozen of sarvants are like another dozen of sarvants, hock is hock, and champaigne is champaigne—and one dinner is like another dinner. The only difference is in the thing itself that’s cooked. Veal, to be good, must look like any thing else but veal; you mustn’t know it when you see it, or it’s vulgar; mutton must be incog. too; beef must have a mask on; any thin’ that looks solid, take a spoon to; any thin’ that looks light, cut with a knife; if a thing looks like fish, you may take your oath it is flesh; and if it seems rael flesh, it’s only disguised, for it’s sure to be fish; nothin’ must be nateral, natur is out of fashion here. This is a manufacturin’ country, everything is done by machinery, and that that ain’t must be made to look like it; and I must say, the dinner machinery is parfect.
“Sarvants keep goin’ round and round in a ring, slow, but sartain, and for ever, like the arms of a great big windmill, shovin’ dish after dish, in dum show, afore your nose, for you to see how you like the flavour; when your glass is empty it’s filled; when your eyes is off your plate, it’s off too, afore you can say Nick Biddle.
“Folks speak low here; steam is valuable, and noise onpolite. They call it a “subdued tone.” Poor tame things, they are subdued, that’s a fact; slaves to an arbitrary tyrannical fashion that don’t leave ‘em no free will at all. You don’t often speak across a table any more nor you do across a street, but p’raps Mr. Somebody of West Eend of town, will say to a Mr. Nobody from West Eend of America: ‘Niagara is noble.’ Mr. Nobody will say, ‘Guess it is, it got its patent afore the “Norman Conquest,” I reckon, and afore the “subdued tone” come in fashion.’ Then Mr. Somebody will look like an oracle, and say, ‘Great rivers and great trees in America. You speak good English.’ And then he will seem surprised, but not say it, only you can read the words on his face, ‘Upon my soul, you are a’most as white as us.’
“Dinner is over. It’s time for ladies to cut stick. Aunt Goosey looks at the next oldest goosey, and ducks her head, as if she was a goin’ through a gate, and then they all come to their feet, and the goslins come to their feet, and they all toddle off to the drawin’ room together.
“The decanters now take the “grand tour” of the table, and, like most travellers, go out with full pockets, and return with empty ones. Talk has a pair of stays here, and is laced up tight and stiff. Larnin’ is pedantic; politics is onsafe; religion ain’t fashionable. You must tread on neutral ground. Well, neutral ground gets so trampled down by both sides, and so plundered by all, there ain’t any thing fresh or good grows on it, and it has no cover for game nother.
“Housundever, the ground is tried, it’s well beat, but nothin’ is put up, and you get back to where you started. Uncle Gander looks at next oldest gander hard, bobs his head, and lifts one leg, all ready for a go, and says, ‘Will you take any more wine?’ ‘No, sais he, ‘but I take the hint, let’s jine the ladies.’
“Well, when the whole flock is gathered in the goose pastur, the drawin’-room, other little flocks come troopin’ in, and stand, or walk, or down on chairs; and them that know each other talk, and them that don’t twirl their thumbs over their fingers; and when they are tired of that, twirl their fingers over their thumbs. I’m nobody, and so I goes and sets side-ways on an ottarman, like a gall on a side-saddle, and look at what’s afore me. And fust I always look at the galls.
“Now, this I will say, they are amazin’ fine critters are the women kind here, when they are taken proper care of. The English may stump the univarse a’most for trainin’ hosses and galls. They give ‘em both plenty of walkin’ exercise, feed ‘em regular, shoe ‘em well, trim ‘em neat, and keep a beautiful skin on ‘em. They keep, ‘em in good health, and don’t house ‘em too much. They are clippers, that’s a fact. There is few things in natur, equal to a hoss and a gall, that’s well trained and in good condition. I could stand all day and look at ‘em, and I call myself a considerable of a judge. It’s singular how much they are alike too, the moment the trainin’ is over or neglected, neither of ‘em is fit to be seen; they grow out of shape, and look coarse.
“They are considerable knowin’ in this kind o’ ware too, are the English; they vamp ‘em up so well, it’s hard to tell their age, and I ain’t sure they don’t make ‘em live longer, than where the art ain’t so well practised. The mark o’ mouth is kept up in a hoss here by the file, and a hay-cutter saves his teeth, and helps his digestion. Well, a dentist does the same good turn for a woman; it makes her pass for several years younger; and helps her looks, mends her voice, and makes her as smart as a three year old.
“What’s that? It’s music. Well, that’s artificial too, it’s scientific they say, it’s done by rule. Jist look at that gall to the piany: first comes a little Garman thunder. Good airth and seas, what a crash! it seems as if she’d bang the instrument all to a thousand pieces. I guess she’s vexed at somebody and is a peggin’ it into the piany out of spite. Now comes the singin’; see what faces she makes, how she stretches her mouth open, like a barn door, and turns up the white of her eyes, like a duck in thunder. She is in a musical ecstasy is that gall, she feels good all over, her soul is a goin’ out along with that ere music. Oh, it’s divine, and she is an angel, ain’t she? Yes, I guess she is, and when I’m an angel, I will fall in love with her; but as I’m a man, at least what’s left of me, I’d jist as soon fall in love with one that was a leetle, jist a leetle more of a woman, and a leetle, jist a leetle less of an angel. But hullo! what onder the sun is she about, why her voice is goin’ down her own throat, to gain strength, and here it comes out agin as deep toned as a man’s; while that dandy feller along side of her, is singin’ what they call falsetter. They’ve actilly changed voices. The gall sings like a man, and that screamer like a woman. This is science: this is taste: this is fashion; but hang me if it’s natur. I’m tired to death of it, but one good thing is, you needn’t listen without you like, for every body is talking as, loud as ever.
“Lord, how extremes meet sometimes, as Minister says. Here, how, fashion is the top of the pot, and that pot hangs on the highest hook on the crane. In America, natur can’t go no farther; it’s the rael thing. Look at the women kind, now. An Indgian gall, down South, goes most naked. Well, a splendiferous company gall, here, when she is full dressed is only half covered, and neither of ‘em attract you one mite or morsel. We dine at two and sup at seven; here they lunch at two, and dine at seven. The words are different, but they are identical the same. Well, the singin’ is amazin’ like, too. Who ever heerd them Italian singers recitin’ their jabber, showin’ their teeth, and cuttin’ didoes at a great private consart, that wouldn’t take his oath he had heerd niggers at a dignity ball, down South, sing jist the same, and jist as well. And then do, for goodness’ gracious’ sake, hear that great absent man, belongin’ to the House o’ Commons, when the chaplain says ‘Let us pray!’ sing right out at once, as if he was to home, ‘Oh! by all means,’ as much as to say, ‘me and the powers above are ready to hear you; but don’t be long about it.’
“Ain’t that for all the world like a camp-meetin’, when a reformed ring-tail roarer calls out to the minister, ‘That’s a fact, Welly Fobus, by Gosh; amen!’ or when preacher says, ‘Who will be saved?’ answers, ‘Me and the boys, throw us a hen-coop; the galls will drift down stream on a bale o’ cotton.’ Well then, our very lowest, and their very highest, don’t always act pretty, that’s a fact. Sometimes ‘they repudiate.’ You take, don’t you?
“There is another party to-night; the flock is a thinnin’ off agin; and as I want a cigar most amazin’ly, let’s go to a divan, and some other time, I’ll tell you what a swoiree is. But answer me this here question now, Squire: when this same thing is acted over and over, day after day, and no variation, from July to etarnity, don’t you think you’d get a leetle—jist a leetle more tired of it every day, and wish for natur once more. If you wouldn’t I would, that’s all.”
THE SECOND VOLUME.
CHAPTER I. THE NOSE OF A SPY
“Squire.” said Mr. Hopewell, “you know Sam well enough, I hope, to make all due allowances for the exuberance of his fancy. The sketch he has just given you of London society, like the novels of the present day, though founded on fact, is very unlike the reality. There may be assemblages of persons in this great city, and no doubt there are, quite as insipid and absurd as the one he has just pourtrayed; but you must not suppose it is at all a fair specimen of the society of this place. My own experience is quite the reverse. I think it the most refined, the most agreeable, and the most instructive in the world. Whatever your favourite study or pursuit may be, here you are sure to find well-informed and enthusiastic associates. If you have merit, it is appreciated; and for an aristocratic country, that merit places you on a level with your superiors in rank in a manner that is quite incomprehensible to a republican. Money is the great leveller of distinctions with us; here, it is talent. Fashion spreads many tables here, but talent is always found seated at the best, if it thinks proper to comply with certain usages, without which, even genius ceases to be attractive.
“On some future occasion, I will enter more at large on this subject; but now it is too late; I have already exceeded my usual hour for retiring. ‘Excuse me, Sam,’ said he. ‘I know you will not be offended with me, but Squire there are some subjects on which Sam may amuse, but cannot instruct you, and one is, fashionable life in London. You must judge for yourself, Sir. Good night, my children.’”
Mr. Slick rose, and opened the door for him, and as he passed, bowed and held out his hand. “Remember me, your honour, no man opens the door in this country without being paid for it. Remember me, Sir.”
“True, Sam,” said the Minister, “and it is unlucky that it does not extend to opening the mouth, if it did, you would soon make your fortune, for you can’t keep yours shut. Good night.”
The society to which I have subsequently had the good fortune to be admitted, fully justifies the eulogium of Mr. Hopewell. Though many persons can write well, few can talk well; but the number of those who excel in conversation is much greater in certain circles in London, than in any other place. By talking well, I do not mean talking wisely or learnedly; but agreeably, for relaxation and pleasure, are the principal objects of social assemblies. This can only be illustrated by instancing some very remarkable persons, who are the pride and pleasure of every table they honour and delight with their presence But this may not be. For obvious reasons, I could not do it if I would; and most assuredly, I would not do it if I could. No more certain mode could be devised of destroying conversation, than by showing, that when the citadel is unguarded, the approach of a friend is as unsafe as that of an enemy.
Alas! poor Hook! who can read the unkind notice of thee in a late periodical, and not feel, that on some occasions you must have admitted to your confidence men who were as unworthy of that distinction as, they were incapable of appreciating it, and that they who will disregard the privileges of a table, will not hesitate to violate even the sanctity of the tomb. Cant may talk of your “inter pocula” errors with pious horror; and pretension, now that its indulgence is safe, may affect to disclaim your acquaintance; but kinder, and better, and truer men than those who furnished your biographer with his facts will not fail to recollect your talents with pride, and your wit and your humour with wonder and delight.
We do not require such flagrant examples as these to teach us our duty, but they are not without their use in increasing our caution.
When Mr. Hopewell withdrew, Mr. Slick observed:
“Ain’t that ere old man a trump? He is always in the right place. Whenever you want to find him, jist go and look for him where he ought to be, and there you will find him as sure as there is snakes in Varginy. He is a brick, that’s a fact. Still, for all that, he ain’t jist altogether a citizen of this world nother. He fishes in deep water, with a sinker to his hook. He can’t throw a fly as I can, reel out his line, run down stream, and then wind up, wind up, wind up, and let out, and wind up again, till he lands his fish, as I do. He looks deep into things, is a better religionist, polititioner, and bookster than I be: but then that’s all he does know. If you want to find your way about, or read a man, come to me, that’s all; for I’m the boy that jist can do it. If I can’t walk into a man, I can dodge round him; and if he is too nimble for that, I can jump over him; and if he is too tall for that, although I don’t like the play, yet I can whip him.
“Now, Squire, I have been a good deal to England, and crossed this big pond here the matter of seven times, and know a good deal about it, more than a great many folks that have writtin’ books on it, p’raps. Mind what I tell you, the English ain’t what they was. I’m not speakin’ in jeest now, or in prejudice. I hante a grain of prejudice in me. I’ve see’d too much of the world for that I reckon. I call myself a candid man, and I tell you the English are no more like what the English used to be, when pigs were swine, and Turkey chewed tobacky, than they are like the Picts or Scots, or Norman, French, or Saxons, or nothin’.”
“Not what they used to be?” I said. “Pray, what do you mean?”
“I mean,” said he, “jist what I say. They ain’t the same people no more. They are as proud, and overbearin’, and concaited, and haughty to foreigners as ever; but, then they ain’t so manly, open-hearted, and noble as they used to be, once upon a time. They have the Spy System now, in full operation here; so jist take my advice, and mind your potatoe-trap, or you will be in trouble afore you are ten days older, see if you ain’t.”
“The Spy System!” I replied. “Good Heavens, Mr. Slick, how can you talk such nonsense, and yet have the modesty to say you have no prejudice?”
“Yes, the Spy System,” said he, “and I’ll prove it. You know Dr. Mc’Dougall to Nova Scotia; well, he knows all about mineralogy, and geology, and astrology, and every thing a’most, except what he ought to know, and that is dollar-ology. For he ain’t over and above half well off, that’s a fact. Well, a critter of the name of Oatmeal, down to Pictou, said to another Scotchman there one day, ‘The great nateralist Dr. Mc’Dougall is come to town.’
“‘Who?’ says Sawney.
“‘Dr. Mc’Dougall, the nateralist,’ says Oatmeal.
“‘Hout, mon,’ says Sawney, ‘he is nae nateral, that chiel; he kens mair than maist men; he is nae that fool you take him to be.’
“Now, I am not such a fool as you take me to be, Squire. Whenever I did a sum to, school, Minister used to say, ‘Prove it, Sam, and if it won’t prove, do it over agin, till it will; a sum ain’t right when it won’t prove.’ Now, I say the English have the Spy System, and I’ll prove it; nay, more than that, they have the nastiest, dirtiest, meanest, sneakenest system in the world. It is ten times as bad as the French plan. In France they have bar-keepers, waiters, chamber galls, guides, quotillions,—”
“Postilions, you mean,” I said.
“Well, postilions then, for the French have queer names for people, that’s a fact; disbanded sodgers, and such trash, for spies. In England they have airls and countesses, Parliament men, and them that call themselves gentlemen and ladies, for spies.”
“How very absurd!” I said.
“Oh yes, very absurd,” said Mr. Slick; “whenever I say anythin’ agin England, it’s very absurd, it’s all prejudice. Nothin’ is strange, though, when it is said of us, and the absurder it is, the truer it is. I can bam as well as any man when bam is the word, but when fact is the play, I am right up and down, and true as a trivet. I won’t deceive you; I’ll prove it.
“There was a Kurnel Dun—dun—plague take his name, I can’t recollect it, but it makes no odds—I know he is Dun for, though, that’s a fact. Well, he was a British kurnel, that was out to Halifax when I was there. I know’d him by sight, I didn’t know him by talk, for I didn’t fill then the dignified situation I now do, of Attache. I was only a clockmaker then, and I suppose he wouldn’t have dirtied the tip eend of his white glove with me then, any more than I would sile mine with him now, and very expensive and troublesome things them white gloves be too; there is no keepin’ of them clean. For my part, I don’t see why a man can’t make his own skin as clean as a kid’s, any time; and if a feller can’t be let shake hands with a gall except he has a glove on, why ain’t he made to cover his lips, and kiss thro’ kid skin too.
“But to get back to the kurnel, and it’s a pity he hadn’t had a glove over his mouth, that’s a fact. Well, he went home to England with his regiment, and one night when he was dinin’ among some first chop men, nobles and so on, they sot up considerable late over their claret; and poor thin cold stuff it is too, is claret. A man may get drowned in it, but how the plague he can get drunk with it is dark to me. It’s like every thing else French, it has no substance in it; it’s nothin’ but red ink, that’s a fact. Well, how it was I don’t know, but so it eventuated, that about daylight he was mops and brooms, and began to talk somethin’ or another he hadn’t ought to; somethin’ he didn’t know himself, and somethin’ he didn’t mean, and didn’t remember.
“Faith, next mornin’ he was booked; and the first thing he see’d when he waked was another man a tryin’ on of his shoes, to see how they’d fit to march to the head of his regiment with. Fact, I assure you, and a fact too that shows what Englishmen has come to; I despise ‘em, I hate ‘em, I scorn such critters as I do oncarcumcised niggers.”
“What a strange perversion of facts,” I replied.
But he would admit of no explanation. “Oh yes, quite parvarted; not a word of truth in it; there never is when England is consarned. There is no beam in an Englishman’s eye; no not a smell of one; he has pulled it out long ago; that’s the reason he can see the mote in other folks’s so plain. Oh, of course it ain’t true; it’s a Yankee invention; it’s a hickory ham and a wooden nutmeg.
“Well, then, there was another feller got bagged t’other day, as innocent as could be, for givin’ his opinion when folks was a talkin’ about matters and things in gineral, and this here one in partikilar. I can’t tell the words, for I don’t know ‘em, nor care about ‘em; and if I did, I couldn’t carry ‘em about so long; but it was for sayin’ it hadn’t ought to have been taken notice of, considerin’ it jist popt out permiscuous like with the bottle-cork. If he hadn’t a had the clear grit in him, and showed teeth and claws, they’d a nullified him so, you wouldn’t have see’d a grease spot of him no more. What do you call that, now? Do you call that liberty? Do you call that old English? Do you call it pretty, say now? Thank God, it tante Yankee.”
“I see you have no prejudice, Mr. Slick,” I replied.
“Not one mite or morsel,” he replied. “Tho’ I was born in Connecticut, I have travelled all over the thirteen united univarsal worlds of ourn and am a citizen at large. No, I have no prejudice. You say I am mistaken; p’raps I am, I hope I be, and a stranger may get hold of the wrong eend of a thing sometimes, that’s a fact. But I don’t think I be wrong, or else the papers don’t tell the truth; and I read it in all the jarnals; I did, upon my soul. Why man, it’s history now, if such nasty mean doins is worth puttin’ into a book.
“What makes this Spy System to England wuss, is that these eaves-droppers are obliged to hear all that’s said, or lose what commission they hold; at least so folks tell me. I recollect when I was there last, for it’s some years since Government first sot up the Spy System; there was a great feed given to a Mr. Robe, or Robie, or some such name, an out and out Tory. Well, sunthin’ or another was said over their cups, that might as well have been let alone, I do suppose, tho’ dear me, what is the use of wine but to onloosen the tongue, and what is the use of the tongue, but to talk. Oh, cuss ‘em, I have no patience with them. Well, there was an officer of a marchin’ regiment there, who it seems ought to have took down the words and sent ‘em up to the head Gineral, but he was a knowin’ coon, was officer, and didn’t hear it. No sooner said than done; some one else did the dirty work for him; but you can’t have a substitute for this, you must sarve in person, so the old Gineral hawls him right up for it.
“‘Why the plague, didn’t you make a fuss?’ sais the General, ‘why didn’t you get right up, and break up the party?’
“‘I didn’t hear it,’ sais he.
“‘You didn’t hear it!’ sais Old Sword-belt, ‘then you had ought to have heerd it; and for two pins, I’d sharpen your hearin’ for you, so that a snore of a fly would wake you up, as if a byler had bust.’
“Oh, how it has lowered the English in the eyes of foreigners! How sneakin’ it makes ‘em look! They seem for all the world like scared dogs; and a dog when he slopes off with his head down, his tail atween his legs, and his back so mean it won’t bristle, is a caution to sinners. Lord. I wish I was Queen!”
“What, of such a degraded race as you say the English are, of such a mean-spirited, sneaking nation?”
“Well, they warn’t always so,” he replied. “I will say that, for I have no prejudice. By natur, there is sunthin’ noble and manly in a Britisher, and always was, till this cussed Spy System got into fashion. They tell me it was the Liberals first brought it into vogue. How that is. I don’t know; but I shouldn’t wonder if it was them, for I know this, if a feller talks very liberal in politics, put him into office, and see what a tyrant he’ll make. If he talks very liberal in religion, it’s because he hante got none at all. If he talks very liberal to the poor, talk is all the poor will ever get out of him. If he talks liberal about corn law, it tante to feed the hungry, but to lower wages, and so on in every thing a most. None is so liberal as those as hante got nothin’. The most liberal feller I know on is “Old Scratch himself.” If ever the liberals come in, they should make him Prime Minister. He is very liberal in religion and would jine them in excludin’ the Bible from common schools I know. He is very liberal about the criminal code, for he can’t bear to see criminals punished. He is very liberal in politics, for he don’t approbate restraint, and likes to let every critter ‘go to the devil’ his own way. Oh, he should be Head Spy and Prime Minister that feller.
“But without jokin’ tho’, if I was Queen, the fust time any o’ my ministers came to me to report what the spies had said, I’d jist up and say, ‘Minister,’ I’d say, ‘it is a cussed oninglish, onmanly, niggerly business, is this of pumpin’, and spyin’, and tattlin’. I don’t like it a bit. I’ll have neither art nor part in it; I wash my hands clear of it. It will jist break the spirit of my people. So, minister look here. The next report that is brought to me of a spy, I’ll whip his tongue out and whop your ear off, or my name ain’t Queen. So jist mind what I say; first spy pokes his nose into your office, chop it off and clap it up over Temple Bar, where they puts the heads of traitors and write these words over, with your own fist, that they may know the handwritin’, and not mistake the meanin’, This is the nose of a Spy.”
CHAPTER II. THE PATRON; OR, THE COW’S TAIL.
Nothing is so fatiguing as sight-seeing. The number and variety of objects to which your attention is called, and the rapid succession in which they pass in review, at once wearies and perplexes the mind; and unless you take notes to refresh your memory, you are apt to find you carry away with you but an imperfect and indistinct recollection.
Yesterday was devoted to an inspection of the Tunnel and an examination of the Tower, two things that ought always to be viewed in juxta-position; one being the greatest evidence of the science and wealth of modern times; and the other of the power and pomp of our forefathers.
It is a long time before a stranger can fully appreciate the extent of population and wealth of this vast metropolis. At first, he is astonished and confused; his vision is indistinct. By degrees he begins to understand its localities, the ground plan becomes intelligible and he can take it all in at a view. The map is a large one; it is a chart of the world. He knows the capes and the bays; he has sailed round them, and knows their relative distance, and at last becomes aware of the magnitude of the whole. Object after object becomes more familiar. He can estimate the population; he compares the amount of it with that of countries that he is acquainted with, and finds that this one town contains within it nearly as great a number of souls as all British North America. He estimates the incomes of the inhabitants, and finds figures almost inadequate to express the amount. He asks for the sources from whence it is derived. He resorts to his maxims of political economy, and they cannot inform him. He calculates the number of acres of land in England, adds up the rental, and is again at fault. He inquires into the statistics of the Exchange, and discovers that even that is inadequate; and, as a last resource, concludes that the whole world is tributary to this Queen of Cities. It is the heart of the Universe. All the circulation centres here, and hence are derived all those streams that give life and strength to the extremities. How vast, how populous, how rich, how well regulated, how well supplied, how clean, how well ventilated, how healthy!—what a splendid city! How worthy of such an empire and such a people!
What is the result of his experience? It is, that there is no such country in the world as England, and no such place in England as London; that London is better than any other town in winter, and quite as good as any other place in summer; that containing not only all that he requires, but all that he can wish, in the greatest perfection, he desires never to leave it.
Local description, however, is not my object; I shall therefore, return to my narrative.
Our examination of the Tower and the Tunnel occupied the whole day, and though much gratified, we were no less fatigued. On returning to our lodgings, I found letters from Nova Scotia. Among others, was one from the widow of an old friend, enclosing a memorial to the Commander-in-Chief, setting forth the important and gratuitous services of her late husband to the local government of the province, and soliciting for her son some small situation in the ordnance department, which had just fallen vacant at Halifax. I knew that it was not only out of my power to aid her, but that it was impossible for her, however strong the claims of her husband might be, to obtain her request. These things are required for friends and dependants in England; and in the race of competition, what chance of success has a colonist?
I made up my mind at once to forward her memorial as requested, but pondered on the propriety of adding to it a recommendation. It could do no good. At most, it would only be the certificate of an unknown man; of one who had neither of the two great qualifications, namely, county or parliamentary interest, but it might do harm. It might, by engendering ridicule from the insolence of office, weaken a claim, otherwise well founded. “Who the devil is this Mr. Thomas Poker, that recommends the prayer of the petition? The fellow imagines all the world must have heard of him. A droll fellow that, I take it from his name: but all colonists are queer fellows, eh?”
“Bad news from home?” said Mr. Slick, who had noticed my abstraction. “No screw loose there, I hope. You don’t look as if you liked the flavour of that ere nut you are crackin’ of. Whose dead? and what is to pay now?”
I read the letter and the memorial, and then explained from my own knowledge how numerous and how valuable were the services of my deceased friend, and expressed my regret at not being able to serve the memorialist.
“Poor woman!” said Mr. Hopewell, “I pity her. A colonist has no chance for these things; they have no patron. In this country merit will always obtain a patron—in the provinces never. The English are a noble-minded, generous people, and whoever here deserves encouragement or reward, is certain to obtain either or both: but it must be a brilliant man, indeed, whose light can be perceived across the Atlantic.”
“I entertain, Sir,” I said, “a very strong prejudice against relying on patrons. Dr. Johnson, after a long and fruitless attendance on Lord Chesterfield, says: ‘Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work, through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never bad a patron before.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Hopewell, “a man who feels that he is wrong, is always angry with somebody else. Dr. Johnson, is not so much to be admired for the independence that dictated that letter, as condemned for the meanness and servility of seven years of voluntary degradation. It is no wonder he spoke with bitterness; for, while he censured his Lordship, he must have despised himself. There is a great difference between a literary and a political patron. The former is not needed, and a man does better without one; the latter is essential. A good book, like good wine, needs no bush; but to get an office, you want merits or patrons;—merits so great, that they cannot be passed over, or friends so powerful, they cannot be refused.”
“Oh! you can’t do nothin’, Squire,” said Mr. Sick, “send it back to Old Marm; tell her you have the misfortin to be a colonist; that if her son would like to be a constable, or a Hogreave, or a thistle-viewer, or sunthin’ or another of that kind, you are her man: but she has got the wrong cow by the tail this time. I never hear of a patron, I don’t think of a frolic I once had with a cow’s tail; and, by hanging on to it like a snappin’ turtle, I jist saved my life, that’s a fact.
“Tell you what it is, Squire, take a fool’s advice, for once. Here you are; I have made you considerable well-known, that’s a fact; and will introduce you to court, to king and queen, or any body you please. For our legation, though they can’t dance, p’raps, as well as the French one can, could set all Europe a dancin’ in wide awake airnest, if it chose. They darsent refuse us nothin’, or we would fust embargo, and then go to war. Any one you want to know, I’ll give you the ticket. Look round, select a good critter, and hold on to the tail, for dear life, and see if you hante a patron, worth havin’. You don’t want none yourself, but you might want one some time or another, for them that’s a comin’ arter you.
“When I was a half grow’d lad, the bears came down from Nor-West one year in droves, as a body might say, and our woods near Slickville was jist full of ‘em. It warn’t safe to go a-wanderin’ about there a-doin’ of nothin’, I tell you. Well, one arternoon, father sends me into the back pastur’, to bring home the cows, ‘And,’ says he, ‘keep a stirrin’, Sam, go ahead right away, and be out of the bushes afore sun-set, on account of the bears, for that’s about the varmints’ supper-time.’
“Well, I looks to the sky, and I sees it was a considerable of a piece yet to daylight down, so I begins to pick strawberries as I goes along, and you never see any thing so thick as they were, and wherever the grass was long, they’d stand up like a little bush, and hang in clusters, most as big and twice as good, to my likin’, as garden ones. Well, the sun, it appears to me, is like a hoss, when it comes near dark it mends its pace, and gets on like smoke, so afore I know’d where I was, twilight had come peepin’ over the spruce tops.
“Off I sot, hot foot, into the bushes, arter the cows, and as always eventuates when you are in a hurry, they was further back than common that time, away ever so fur back to a brook, clean off to the rear of the farm, so that day was gone afore I got out of the woods, and I got proper frightened. Every noise I heerd I thought it was a bear, and when I looked round a one side, I guessed I heerd one on the other, and I hardly turned to look there before, I reckoned it was behind me, I was e’en a’most skeered to death.
“Thinks I, ‘I shall never be able to keep up to the cows if a bear comes arter ‘em and chases ‘em, and if I fall astarn, he’ll just snap up a plump little corn fed feller like me in less than half no time. Cryin’,’ says I, ‘though, will do no good. You must be up and doin’, Sam, or it’s gone goose with you.’
“So a thought struck me. Father had always been a-talkin’ to me about the leadin’ men, and makin’ acquaintance with the political big bugs when I growed up and havin’ a patron, and so on. Thinks I, I’ll take the leadin’ cow for my patron. So I jist goes and cuts a long tough ash saplin, and takes the little limbs off of it, and then walks along side of Mooley, as meachin’ as you please, so she mightn’t suspect nothin’, and then grabs right hold of her tail, and yelled and screamed like mad, and wallopped away at her like any thing.
“Well, the way she cut dirt was cautionary; she cleared stumps, ditches, windfalls and every thing, and made a straight track of it for home as the crow flies. Oh, she was a dipper: she fairly flow again, and if ever she flagged, I laid it into her with the ash saplin, and away we started agin, as if Old Nick himself was arter us.
“But afore I reached home, the rest of the cows came a bellowin’, and a roarin’ and a-racin’ like mad arter us, and gained on us too, so as most to overtake us, jist as I come to the bars of the cow yard, over went Mooler, like a fox, brought me whap up agin ‘em, which knocked all the wind out of my lungs and the fire out of my eyes, and laid me sprawlin on the ground, and every one of the flock went right slap over me, all but one—poor Brindle. She never came home agin. Bear nabbed her, and tore her most ridiculous. He eat what he wanted, which was no trifle, I can tell you, and left the rest till next time.
“Don’t talk to me, Squire, about merits. We all want a lift in this world; sunthin’ or another to lay hold on, to help us along—we want the cow’s tail.
“Tell your friend, the female widder, she has got hold of the wrong cow by the tail in gettin’ hold of you, for you are nothin’ but a despisable colonist; but to look out for some patron here, some leadin’ man, or great lord, to clinch fast hold of him, and stick to him like a leach, and if he flags, (for patrons, like old Mooley, get tired sometimes), to recollect the ash saplin, to lay into him well, and keep him at it, and no fear but he’ll carry her through. He’ll fetch her home safe at last, and no mistake, depend on it, Squire. The best lesson that little boy could be taught, is, that of the Patron, or the Cows Tail.”