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There is a strange microcosm around us as we saunter
or press on, day after day, which few even pause to think
of;—the streets of the city. Singular and notable contrasts!
ever being presented, and which are dulled by
use and repetition, until nothing attracts the attention!
Yet surely the curious observer of the traits of human
life finds much to strike him in this common highway,
where the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the
happy and the miserable, jostle each other in the great
race of life—common in nothing but in this, that all are
hastening, consciously or unconsciously, to a fixed and
certain goal, where there is no respect of persons.
Strange world of streets, and full of mysteries and concealments
close enough to puzzle any Diogenes! It is
true that some of these aspects are obvious, as the contrast
is striking. The man who jogs your elbow carries
under his arm a little coffin, which will soon receive all
that remains of some dear child, and, covered with sweet
flowers, descend into that holy earth where Christ laid
down. And as the emblem of death passes on, you find
yourself bespattered by the gay and merry horses which
whirl onward some bright wedding party, decked out
with white favors, going to a merry bridal festival.
These contrasts are most obvious—but others are less
marked.

You do not know that the courteous gentleman who

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smiles as he begs your pardon for a momentary contact
with your shoulder, carries a forged check safe in his
pocket-book:—you do not know that the smooth wayfarer
has crime and assassination in his heart:—you do
not perceive the weary frown on the brow of Dives as he
rolls by in his splendid coach, or that the representative
of Lazarus on the curb-stone, who begs for a penny, has
a little fortune at home which greatly overweighs your
own. So they pass on—those strange actors on the
smiling streets—the merry and miserable, the pure and
depraved, the old and young, and great and small, and
sick and healthy—all common in this one thing only,
that they are but one great variegated procession to a
fearful ceremony in the distance.

Thus it happened that the pure child whose struggles
with adverse things we are trying to depict, passed close
to two men without knowing it—two men as different in
character from herself as possible.

One of these men was the gay Mr. Fantish whom she
had met some time before at Miss Incledon's; the other
was his father.

Mr. Fantish, senior, was a disagreeable-looking man,
of tall stature, coarse features, and rough frowning manner.
He was richly dressed, but scarcely looked the
gentleman. It requires a long time to make a gentleman,
and it is necessary to begin at the cradle. It was obvious
that this beginning had been deferred in the case of Mr.
Fantish, senior; and his aspirations, if he had any in that
particular direction, had turned out a failure.

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As Ellie passed them, they had just met, and Mr.
Fantish, senior, was saying,

“Why have you not been to see me, Ashell?”

“Oh, I've been taken up with a thousand botherations,”
replied Mr. Ashell Fantish, twirling his cane.

“With a run on the cards, eh?” asked his father,
laughing.

“No,” was the reply; “I'm tired of cards. I really
begin to think that I have no luck, and am sick of
them.”

“I am glad of it—you will find the truth of my advice
at last. If you continue to play as recklessly as you did,
you will quite run through with the country property left
you by your mother.”

“And have to fall back on my respected parent, eh?”
said Mr. Ashell Fantish, with careless jocularity; “thank
you, I have no idea of turning out a prodigal son. I am
afraid the fatted calf would be wanting on my return.”

The tone of these words seemed to annoy the worthy
Fantish, senior, who evidently admired and attached no
slight pride to his handsome and fashionable son. We
are bound to say in explanation of this apparently anomalous
fact, that this was probably the sole weakness of the
worthy, who was not tender in his affections; but this
weakness he had.

Thus when the young gentleman hinted that his reception
with his father, were he penniless, would be anything
but enthusiastic, the elder gentleman's countenance
assumed an expression of annoyance, as we have
said, and he replied:

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“You know very well that I am not a bad father, and
this is not your real belief. I only advise you to take
care, because it is for your own good. There is a double
objection to cards: they cause a man to throw away
money, and they destroy his health with late suppers and
brandy.”

“Very true,” said his companion, carelessly.

“You have given them up?”

“Yes.”

“I am glad of it.”

“And I—I am indifferent about it.”

“You are getting to be terribly weary-looking, Ashell,”
said Mr. Fantish, senior, easting an admiring glance at
his handsome son.

“I look as I feel,” he replied.

“Why are you so?”

“Nothing interests me.”

“Nothing?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

A silence followed these words, and they walked on.

“Try some occupation,” said the senior at last; “this
is not rational.”

“What? Do you mean living as I do, in bachelor
freedom?”

“Yes, if you choose.”

“Hum!”

“Why not get married?”

“Good! there you are at last, my respected parent—
there it is out. You would like me to make a wealthy
match.”

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“I would.”

“To sell myself for money!” added the young man in
a bantering tone.

“Men do it every day.”

“I don't: and there is time enough to change my
opinion, and my modes of action, when I am penniless.”

“You will not be penniless—for you will have my fortune—
that is to say, if you remain a good son,” added the
old man, with an expression of constraint and uneasiness
which was very apparent.

“A good son! Why, am I not?”

“Yes, I don't deny it—and I don't deny, either, that I
am proud of you—though I 'm free to say that I don't
think you have too much affection for me.”

“I trust,” said the young man, in a tone of banter,
“that we are not going to get on the affecting tack. It is
too much for my nerves, and I would rather talk business,
disagreeable as it is.”

The old man seemed, for some reason, to suspect satire
in these words, and said, with some show of irritation:

“Well, suppose my business is disagreeable. I suppose
I am my own master.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This miserable cant, Ashell, of affected puritans! I
know what you allude to: you mean that I am a hard
landlord.”

“No, sir—I was not thinking of anything of the sort.”

“Well, I am, sir, if you do choose to think of it, and
I have some rascally tenants who will be made to pack
immediately, and with very little to take with them.”

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With which words Mr. Fantish took a memorandum
from his waistcoat pocket, and read it with ill-concealed
satisfaction.

His son glanced at it carelessly, and said as carelessly:

“What ridiculous names—Slink, Lacklitter and Drachenbilt—
that last must be the scion of some great German
family. Well, all that is very interesting, sir, but business
has few charms for me.”

“I know it—you are a butterfly of fashion, while I
work. I do not complain. I suppose,” added the old
man, “you get it from your mother's family.”

“What, sir?” said the young man, turning round.

“Your folly and thoughtlessness, Ashell,” said his
father.

The young man's face colored, and it presented a strange
appearance, for such a decoration seldom appeared upon it.

“My mother was never guilty of folly, sir,” he said
coldly.

“Go on! go on!” said the elder, stung by his son's
tone, “add that her only folly was marrying me!”

“No, sir! I have no desire to exchange taunts with my
father. I am not a model young man, sir, but I know
what my self-respect requires.”

“Your self-respect! You put nothing on the ground
of affection for me.”

“I say nothing, sir—I complain of nothing.”

“No, you do not; but I see the devil in your eye,
which means that I did not treat your mother well.”

“I mean nothing, sir.”

“Well, I didn't! there, sir! now scowl at me! I made

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a mistake when I married her, I don't mind confessing; for
she was always thrusting her puritanical ideas between me
and the simplest business operation. If I had followed
her advice I would now be in the gutter, instead of rich.
Deny it, if you can, sir!”

“I do not deny it,” said the young man, who had turned
from red to pale.

“And yet you always took her part against me, and I
believe had a conspiracy between you to put me down—or
change me! You might as well have tried to shake Gibraltar,
sir!” said the old man, wrathfully. “Yes, I
remember well how you went on. If you were talking
with your mother and smiling, you would stop on my
entrance, and a cloud would settle on your faces; if I
made a joke about some business matter, there was no
laughter; if I invited you to come to a meeting of the
Board of Brokers, you couldn't—because, forsooth, you
had to drive your mother out.”

“She was delicate and needed it, and you were too
busy—you said you were!” interposed the young man,
with his hand upon his heart.

“Well, suppose I was! Could I be spending my mornings
with your mother, when my affairs were in a critical
position? That is a pretty argument!”

“I argue nothing, sir.”

“You only despise me.”

“No, sir, I do not.”

“Well, sir!—go on in your course, and do as you fancy.
Some day you will repent your disrespect,—yes, sir! don't

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look at me in that way, as if you scorned the idea of any
respect being due me—”

“I do not, sir.”

“Do as you please, and follow your own course!—and
take sides, if you choose, with your mother yet!—”

He almost stopped as he uttered these terrible words.

“But don't apply to me, sir, while you have a cent in
the world. Don't come to the father you have despised,
and beg!”

“The passers-by will hear you, sir,” said the young man,
pale and gnawing his under-lip.

“What do I care? The passers by are nothing to me,
and I am rich enough—yes, sir, rich enough—to speak
my mind! You think it's very coarse and vulgar, I suppose,
and that it may make your fine acquaintances stare—
but I don't care! I'm rich enough, sir! And, I say
again, don't you come to me until you are on the parish.
Then I will have you—and, mark my word, sir! I will
yet make you like myself, though you so despise me!
You'll yet be proud to be a clerk in my office, and I'll
make you just what you laugh at, and what your mother
dreaded, with her cant—a close, and hard, and perfect
business man! Good morning, sir.”

And overcome by this expression of his long pent up
rage and jealousy, and a thousand conflicting emotions
toward his son, the old man panted, and struck his cane
into the pavement, and went his way, hastily and sternly.

His son stood for a moment looking after him, with a
face paler than ever. Then he nodded his head, and,
gnawing his lips, uttered a grating and affected laugh.

p506-068

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He was aroused by a voice, loud and hearty, which
said,

“Why Fantish, my boy, what's the matter? You look
decidedly knocked-up.”

“I am,” was the young man's careless reply, “regularly.
Come, and have some brandy with me. I am a
little out of sorts.”

So separated father and son.