I had scarce brought my friend Tickle upon the
stage, and introduced him into my uncle's family,
before my mind began to misgive me. I suspected
that, instead of being content to play the stalking-horse
for my sole advantage, he would take the
opportunity to advance his own interest, and gain,
if he could, my cousin Pattie for himself.

To remove all temptation, and bind him more
closely to be faithful, I told him of my adventure
with Alicia (taking care, however, to conceal her
name, for I did not wish to forego my advantages in
that quarter until convinced I could do so without
loss), described her claim to the sixty thousand dollars
(for, of course, I trebled her inheritance), and
concluded by engaging to make her over to him the
moment I was myself secure of Pattie, which
would be the moment Pattie was secure of an independence.

Upon this promise Tickle made me a thousand
protestations of friendship and disinterestedness,
and I felt my mind more easy.

He acted his part, assisted by Pattie, who at
my suggestion feigned suddenly to be violently
in love with him, and besieged her father to the

[figure description] Page 227.[end figure description]

same end as myself: the old gentleman at last complied,
and actually executed the deed of gift which
I mentioned before; by which he secured to her
the revenue accruing upon a sum of forty thousand
dollars, the principal, which he retained in his own
hands in trust, to revert to her at his death; and to
this deed I was myself made a witness.

With these terms, as it seemed there were no
better to be had, I allowed myself to be satisfied;
and trusting to a final reconciliation with my uncle
Wilkins to augment the dowry, I ran to my cousin
Pattie and informed her of her good fortune.

She was filled with repture, and began fairly to
dance with joy; she told me I was the best and
sweetest of cousins, and vowed she would love me
to her dying day. Her joyous spirits fired my
own, and I answered in terms equally ecstatic. In
short, we agreed to elope that very night, and arranged
our plan accordingly. It was agreed I
should have a carriage in waiting at the corner of
the street during the evening, and that Pattie, who
was to feign herself unwell, as an excuse for not
going to Mrs. Pickup's first ball, which was to take
place that evening, should find some means to get
her father out of the way; immediately after which
I, having disposed of the redoubtable Sammy, by
depositing him in the aforesaid Mrs. Pickup's drawing-room,
was to make my appearance, and bear
her in triumph to a reverend divine, previously secured
for the ceremony.

Having settled all these things, and sealed our

[figure description] Page 228.[end figure description]

engagement with a kiss, my adorable cousin admitted
me to a secret which nearly froze my blood with
horror.

She informed me that my friend Tickle, disregarding
all his vows of fidelity, had been busy ever
since I brought him into the house besieging her on
his own account; that he had taken every occasion
to undermine me in her affections, by disparaging
my good qualities both of soul and mind, and especially
by assuring her I was “a great ass and fortune-hunter”
(those were his very words); and,
finally, that he had so used the power his knowledge
of our secret had given him, by occasional
threats of betraying it to her father, that she had
been compelled to accept his addresses, and make
him the same promise she had just made me—that
is, to elope with him. The perfidious fellow had
by some means got wind of the deed of gift; and
while I was engaged in signing it, he had paid my
cousin a visit with the same object as myself, and
she had promised to decamp with him. Nay, at
this moment the villain was engaged in securing
his carriage and his parson, with the prospect of
chousing me out of my wife and fortune!

My horror was, however, soon dissipated. My
cousin Pattie had made the engagement only in
self-defence, and she looked upon the whole affair
as the best joke in the world. “How we will cheat
him,” said she; “the base fellow!” and she danced
about, smiling, and laughing, and crying together,
so that it was a delight to see her. “Yes,” said

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she, with uncommon vivacity, “we will cheat him,
for I'm sure he deserves no better; for I'm sure
he's just as much of a goose and fortune-hunter as
he said you were; and I'm sure I despise a goose
and fortune-hunter above all things; and I'm sure I
know how to treat a goose and fortune-hunter as
well as anybody. How we'll laugh at him to-morrow!
How he'll stare when he finds I'm gone!
how papa will stare too! How Sammy will stare,
and how he'll whistle! Oh dear! I do love to
cheat people of all things; I do, cousin Ikey; and,
ods fishes, I'm almost half minded to cheat you
too!”

And with that she flung her arms round my neck,
gave me a kiss, and ran laughing away to prepare
for the hour of elopement.

There was an extraordinary coincidence between
the situation of my cousin Pattie and myself. She
had agreed to run away with two different people
at the same moment; and so had I. The day before
my uncle proved unusually crusty and self-willed,
and I began to think I should never effect my point
with him; and, what was equally dispiriting, I fell
among duns, who persecuted me with astonishing
rancour; my uncle's appearance, as it seemed,
serving rather to sharpen than to allay their appetites
for payment. Being thus goaded on by doubt
and dunning, I resolved to make sure of Goldfist's
daughter; which I did by visiting her as soon as
night came, and proposing an elopement on the following
evening; and this it was the more easy to

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put into execution, since her father, as she told me,
was fast in bed with a sciatica, or some such vulgar
disorder.

No one could be more willing and delighted than
the fair Alicia; and it appeared that, in anticipation
of the happy event, she had already made all her
preparations, having, as she assured me, arranged
with a friend of hers, at whose house she designed
the ceremony to be performed, ordered secretly a
whole trunk full of bride's clothes, and notified an
old schoolmate whom she had engaged to wait
upon her.

I thought, upon my soul, she was taking matters
pretty easily, and acting somewhat independently;
but she was ignorant of the world, as I said before,
and knew no better. I was still more disgusted with
the thought of being shown off among her friends,
and told her a bridemaid was wholly superfluous;
but she had made her mind up as to what was
right on such an occasion, and I judged it proper
to submit. It was agreed I should meet her at her
friend's house, at nine o'clock in the evening; and
“she hoped,” very modestly, I thought, “that I
would bring some nice pretty fellow to wait on me,
that would make a good match with her dear Julia,
who was the nicest dear soul in the world.”

This “nice dear soul,” as I afterward discovered,
and as I think proper to inform the reader now,
that he may understand into what a slough of democracy
I was rushing, was no less a personage
than a cousin-german of Mr. Snip, my tailor; and

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her appointment to the honour of waiting upon the
bride of the distinguished I. D. Dawkins was productive
of a casualty expected neither by herself
nor by my adored Alicia.

I laughed in my sleeve at that hint of my Alicia;
and yet I did, after all, provide myself with an attendant,
and one who was perhaps better suited
than any other person I could have lighted on, as
an offset and pendent to the “fair Julia.” This
was my cousin, Sammy Wilkins; and the reason
of my appointing him was this. He was, although
the stupidest creature on earth, of a meddling and
prying nature, and had an extraordinary fancy to
go sneaking after me whithersoever I went—from
admiration and affection, perhaps; but of that I was
not certain; and, at all events, he was a great burden
to me. He discovered my repeated visits to
Skinner's house, and was seized with a stupid curiosity
to know the reason; and, what was still
worse, he made so many observations on my attentions
to, and secret conferences with, his sister
Pattie, that it was clear he suspected there was
something in the wind there too. Being kept in
eternal torment lest he should discover more than
I liked, or, by his indiscreet tattling, awake the suspicions
of others, I saw no better means of averting
the mischief, and turning his eyes from his sister,
than by taking him aside, and telling him, with
many injunctions to secrecy, that I was courting
old Skinner's rich daughter, and wished to have
him wait upon me at the wedding.

[figure description] Page 232.[end figure description]

Such confidence, coupled with the intention to
do him so much honour, entirely overcame his rustic
imaginations. He swore he approved of marrying
rich wives, and was looking out for one himself,
and hoped I would put him on the track of one;
which I promised, and the clownish juvenile was
content. He looked forward to the great event
with a measure of glee I had never seen him roused
to before, and he ordered a new coat of Snip, that
he might do honour to his service.

It is quite true, I never really intended he should
trouble himself in the matter; but when the fated
evening came, when the loving Alicia, arrayed in
satin and white roses, was awaiting her lover, who
was preparing to run away with her rival, I thought
it better to despatch him to my charmer than to
leave him at Mrs. Pickup's, whence he might stray
at a moment's warning, and, indeed, with no warning
at all. It was quite necessary to have him out
of the way; for which reason I sent him to the
house where Alicia was in waiting, with a special
message to the lady, to make his introduction the
more easy, and a thousand instructions in relation
to nothing.

It was fortunate that my cousin Sammy, though
as great a rustic as ever lived, was, as little troubled
with bashfulness as wisdom. Hence I found no difficulty
in despatching him to my inamorata, whom
he had never laid eyes on, and to her friends, with
regard to whom I was in the same predicament. I

p016-242 [figure description] Page 233.[end figure description]

promised to follow him in a short time, and thus,
to my great joy, succeeded in getting him out of
the way.