Читать книгу Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself - Robert Montgomery Bird - Страница 31

It was three full weeks before I left my chamber; and during the last days of that confinement, the only amusement I had consisted in looking from the window, after properly poising my leg on a soft cushion, upon what passed in the streets; and this, as the reader may suppose, I only enjoyed when my wife left off tormenting me for a moment, to go down stairs and torment the servants.

This was poor pastime for one of my habits and turn of mind; but my wife had made me contemplative; and had it not been for the perpetual dread of her return that I was under, I think I might have extracted some diversion from what I saw in the streets. But being in constant fear and vexation, I looked on with a spirit too morose and cynical for my own enjoyment.

Day after day, between the hours of five and six in the afternoon, I observed Mr. Cutclose, the tailor, descend from his marble steps, and climb upon the back of a horse, to take the evening air. He rode like one who had taken his chief lessons on the shop-board; and I often wondered he did not draw up his legs, and sit on the saddle hunker-fashion at once; but what particularly struck me was the compliment he paid himself of wearing his own coats, cut American-fashion about the arm-holes, and so keeping himself in purgatory all day long. He used to give parties every fortnight, and invite all the dandies whom he had down in his tick-book; by which means his entertainments were rendered highly genteel and fashionable.

Next door to Mr. Cutclose lived the great lawyer of our square, the celebrated Coke Butterside, Esq. I could see him sally out every morning with his green bag, which he carried in his own hands, either because he intended to be a candidate at the next Congressional election, and would seem democratic, or because he was afraid, if he intrusted it to another, the devil might snap it up as his own property. He had a lordly, self-satisfied air about him, as if he felt the full merit of his vocation, and prided himself upon having more men by the ears than any other in the whole city. His bow was exceedingly condescending, and his look protecting.

Nearer at hand was the dwelling of the old note-shaver—old Goldfist, as they called him, though his true name was Skinner. He was horribly rich, and such a miserly, insatiable old hunks, that although he had ostensibly retired from business (he was originally a pawn-broker) for some six or seven years, he still kept up his trade in a certain way, that was not so reputable as gainful, and of which I shall have occasion to say something by-and-by. He was said to be a good friend of such desperate young gentlemen as moved in high life, and had passable expectations from rich uncles and parents, but he was said to hold his friendship at very extortionate prices. How such a skinflint as he ever came to live in a good house and in a fashionable quarter, was a question not easy to solve. But according to Tim my brother-in-law's story, he came for economy, having got the house of a demolished aristocrat who had fallen into his clutches, and found it in so dilapidated a condition that he chose to live in it himself rather than submit to the expense of preparing it for a tenant. It brought him, moreover, nearer to his customers; and perhaps the old curmudgeon, who had a daughter and a brace of hopeful sons, had a hope of thus getting them into society.

But one who lives at Heaven's gate does not live in Heaven, as the saying is. Old Goldfist kept neither horses nor carriages, nor did he give parties: I doubt whether he ever asked anybody to dine with him in his life; and as for his boys and his girl, all of whom were grown up, he kept them in such a mean condition that they were not company for genteel people. Everybody despised them, especially Cutclose the tailor, who turned up his nose at them, and called them rooterers, which, I am told (for I never troubled myself to study the modern languages, there being so many of them), is a French word signifying low people.1

This old money-maker, who had a stoop in the shoulders, used to parade the street up and down before his own door every sunshiny day, in a thread-bare brown coat, to which he sometimes added a blue spencer roundabout, a silver-headed stick in one hand, and a yellow handkerchief in the other. The latter he was wont every two or three minutes to clap to his nose, producing thereby an explosion, which, notwithstanding the muffler over his nostrils, was prodigiously strong and sonorous; and once, to my knowledge, it frightened a young lady into the gutter.

I could say a great deal more of this old gentle man, whom everybody despised, but whom every man took off his hat to, on account of his wealth; but I shall have occasion to speak of him hereafter.

As for the rest of my neighbours, I do not think them worthy of notice. I might, indeed, except Mr. Periwinkle Smith, my opposite neighbour, spoken of before, whom I knew to belong to that order of aristocracy which is emphatically termed chip-chop, and who was of such pure blood that it had known no mechanical taint for three different generations, the nearest approach to such disgrace being found in a family of ragamuffins, who claimed to be Mr. Smith's relations, merely because they were descended from his grandfather, but who were very properly discountenanced by him.

This old gentleman had a daughter who seemed to be universally admired, judging from the numbers of visiters of both sexes who besieged her father's door every morning. To do her justice, I must say she was very handsome; but she had the additional merit of being an only child, and therefore an heiress, as was supposed. I thought so myself, until Tim, who knew something of everybody's affairs, assured me that her father's estate was eaten up by mortgages, that he was poor as a rat, and would die insolvent.

Among the many young gentlemen who paid court to the fair Miss Smith, I noticed one, who, besides being more assiduous in his attentions, seemed also to enjoy a greater share of her regard than others. He was a young fellow of uncommonly genteel figure; that is, he was long and lank, somewhat narrow in the shoulders, but clean-limbed, and straight as an arrow. He had a long face and hollow cheeks; but what his jaws lacked in flesh was made up to them in beard, his whiskers, which were coal-black, being as exuberant as if made by a brush-maker, and stretching from his temples to the point of his chin, and so enveloping his whole face. He had besides a pair of peaked mustaches, that would have done honour to the Grand Seignior; and, with a turban and caftan on, he might have paid his respects to the alumni of any college in the land, without even the necessity of speaking bad Latin.2 He dressed well, walked with a step as easy and majestical as a stork or an ostrich, and was evidently a favourite with the ladies.

His name, Tim told me, was I. D.—that is to say, Isaac Dulmer—Dawkins; though, in consideration of the rusticalness of the first member of the triad, and from regard to his feelings, which were outraged by its pronunciation, his friends had universally agreed to suppress it; and, in consequence, he was called I. Dulmer Dawkins, Esquire, that title being added, because it is the only one an American gentleman not in office, or the militia, can claim. He was, as Timothy assured me, a dandy of the true style, being a born scion of the chip-chop order, and, as such, admitted to all its honours and immunities, though without the support of any living relations in society, or, as his ill luck would have it, of connexions either. He was said to possess some little property in town, and, what was still better, to be the heir of a rich uncle without children, whom he expected to die within a reasonable period. As for his town property, my brother Tim doubted its existence altogether, and would perhaps have been as skeptical in regard to the uncle, had he not known that an uncle did really exist, and a rich one too, for he was largely concerned in the distilling and lumbering business on the Susquehanna.

I am particular in making the reader acquainted with Mr. I. Dulmer Dawkins, inasmuch as it was my fortune, after a time, to fall into a connexion with him myself—as intimate as it was unexpected.

When I first saw him, I accounted him an ugly and uncouth personage, and I regarded him with contempt and dislike. I had acquired, along with other peculiarities of John H. Higginson, a hearty hatred for all people who considered themselves better than myself; for, rich and respectable as I was, I soon perceived that I was considered a very low, vulgar personage by the true chip-chop aristocracy, and I longed greatly at times, as I looked out of the window upon them, to take some of them by the ears, and settle the matter of superiority between us in that way.

But as for Mr. Dulmer Dawkins, I soon began to experience an interest in him, which was indeed of a somewhat envious complexion. I frequently saw him dancing along at the side of the fair Miss Smith; and he seemed so exceedingly happy and content, and she cast upon him so many approving glances, that I could not help contrasting his condition with mine. There he strutted in the open street, young, active, and hale, as ignorant of disease as of care, and here sat I, in a sick chamber, imprisoned with the gout. There he moved at the side of a young and elegant woman, who eyed him with admiration, doubtless, also, with regard, and who had such native amiableness and cheerfulness imprinted together on her countenance, that it was plain she must prove a blessing, rather than a curse, to him who should be so happy as to wed her; while I, miserable I! was tied to such a wife as I could scarce have the cruelty to wish bestowed upon my worst enemy, contracted to an ague, married, as I may say, to a toothache. I should have been glad to exchange conditions with Mr. Dulmer Dawkins—ay, by my honour! if there was ever honour in man—or with anybody else.

From Tim's account it seemed that my young gentleman had a longer face than head; in other words, that nature had endowed him more bountifully with beard than brains: and, in truth, I judged, by the way he showed his teeth and rolled his eyes at the fair Miss Smith, and a thousand other little grimaces and affectations I was witness to, that he was neither more wise nor brilliant than the others of his tribe. But what of that? Wisdom and care go hand in hand, and wit makes us uncomfortable: fools are the only happy people. So I used to think, while I looked on Mr. I. D. Dawkins and the fair Miss Smith.

But it is an ill way to pass time, peeping into millstones, or reading men's history out of their faces. Dulmer Dawkins had his cares, as well as another. I suddenly missed him from the street; the fair Miss Smith made her promenades, attended by other admirers, and for three whole days Mr. Dawkins was invisible. On the fourth he reappeared: I saw him as he came up the street, escorting another belle, entirely unknown to me, but of a dashing appearance. As he passed Mr. Periwinkle Smith's house, the fair Miss Smith issued from the door. Mr. Dawkins made her a low and most elegant bow, his companion waved her fan, and they passed on, looking unutterable things at one another. The fair Miss Smith seemed confounded; a flush appeared on her face, and then vanished; she looked after her admirer, and then, with her attendants, two young coxcombs who were with her, descended the steps, and walked down the street. I saw her once turn her head half round as if to look again after Dulmer; but her curiosity, anger, sorrow, or whatever feeling it was prompted the movement, was restrained, and she strode off at an unusually rapid and unfashionable gait. "So, so! my turtles have been quarrelling," I said to myself; "and the fair Miss Smith is just a Jezebel, like the rest of her confounded sex!"—It never occurred to me to think a quarrel arising between two persons of different sexes could be caused by any thing but the unreasonable behaviour of the lady.

It was two weeks before I saw Dulmer Dawkins again, and then I beheld him under a new aspect.

1. Perhaps roturiers. Rooterers is, however, good America French—Printer's Devil.

2. Here Sheppard Lee seems to have had in his eye a very ingenious loafer of Pearl Slip, or thereabouts who, some years since, was seized with the whim of travelling, and bamboozling the politic, especially the learned part thereof. By the aid of little dog-Latin, horribly anglicized in idiom and pronunciation, a stock of Gothamic impudence, and features truly Yankee and vernacular, he convinced the cognoscenti of one or more learned institutions that he was a highly unlucky son of a Turk, born all the way off at Damascus.