The sun had certainly made up his mind, that morning,
not to see company; and if all the Vigilance Committees in
the seventeen wards had turned out expressly for that purpose,
it would have been impossible for even their well-known and
extraordinary astuteness to have detected the slightest glimpse
of his benevolent features anywhere in the very murkiest
sky of a November day. The forty-five spirited fire-companies
of the metropolis—who had seen proper, at a very early
hour in the day, to take a run at a horse-shed near Bowling
Green, which had extinguished itself the moment it was discovered
nothing else could catch from it—might with equal
propriety have turned in and staid at home, smoking longnines
and talking over past achievements: for the rain came
down in torrents, and kept every combustible plank in the
city as nice and moist as heart could wish.

Omnibus-drivers and hackmen carried a proud head, and
looked down on the sinful world of dry-goods men and indoor
trades-people, from their box seats, with an air of pleasant
disdain; and the proprietors of livery-stables peered
forth from their small office-windows, smiling and making
themselves happy and comfortable at the prospect, as Noah
might have done, on a similar occasion. Pedestrians with
umbrellas looked melancholy, and buried themselves in their
blue-cottons and brown-silks, to indicate their misanthropy;
and pedestrians without umbrellas looked small and miserable,
and making the most of their wrappers, hurried along,

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

in a supreme unconsciousness of the inhabited character of
any window they might pass, or the identity of any possible
friend in the street.

Others pushed along, thinking more of the respective errands
on which they were bound than of any violence of
weather, and heeding the plashing shower no more than if it
had been sunshine and fair walking. Among these was the
resolute Hopkins, who, embowered in a cheap blue-cotton
umbrella, strided along, bent on the thorough and faithful discharge
of his arduous duties as scourer or canvasser of the
Ward.

He had selected for the first visitation, a rear-building in
a bye-street, inhabited by sundry gentlemen of doubtful politics,
and making all proper speed, he arrived in a short time
in the neighborhood where he intended to operate. Opening
a blind gate, which worked with a pulley and closed
swiftly behind him, Puffer found himself in a square enclosure,
filled with carts, fragments of boarding, old iron pots,
broken pieces of garden-fence standing against the walls, two
cistern-heads, and, at the rear, a row of cheap wooden houses,
with the windows dashed out, sundry breaches in the casing,
and various red-pots, supposed to contain stunted specimens
of horticulture, arranged in the upper windows. Directly
in the middle of the yard, there stood, under one large ivoryhandled
umbrella, a couple of well-dressed white-haired individuals—
one of whom was very stout, portly and commanding,
and the other very shrunken, round-shouldered and
obsequious—looking up at the buildings; the portly gentleman
staring at them with great severity and talking boisterously,
and the round-shouldered, glancing up at the portly
gentleman, meekly, and making minutes of what he said.

“Draught of the chimneys, heavy: note that down, will
you?” said the portly gentleman, peremptorily.

“I will,” said the meek man, “It 's down, sir.”

“Supposed equal to two factory furnaces, with the blowers
on: down with that—and put my initial to it, if you please.”

“I have, in large capitals,” said the timid gentleman.

“That 's right,” said the portly gentleman, promptly.
“Skuttles always open, and children allowed to smoke burnt
rattans: I see one of 'em at it now. Will you mark that
down?” cried the stout gentleman, evidently very much enraged,
and with a startling emphasis that caused the meek
man to jump out from under the shelter, which compelled his

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

superior to order him back, twice, very distinctly, before he
could be induced to return to his duty, and chronicle what
fell from the stout gentleman's lips. “They dry their hose at
No. nine, on the back of a rocker before the fire; and use a
decayed Duch-oven at No. eleven,—this last attributable to
the extravagance of the lower orders, who are too proud to
patronize the baker.”

“That 's a very happy observation,” said the meek man,
“Shall I print it out large, like the play-bills?”

“Stuff!” cried the portly gentleman, smiling haughtily,
“just mind your business, and recollect that all private feelings
are absorbed in the Company's interests—will ye?”

“I 'll try,” said the meek man, timidly.

“Do! and just say, if you please, that the first floor 's occupied
by a journeyman lightning-maker.”

“A journeyman lightning-maker!” echoed the meek man.

“None of your nonsense, now, Crump—but down with
what I tell you: a journeyman lightning-maker, in the employ
of one of the theatres. Say, we are informed, that he lives
on brandy, (brandy 's a pretty inflammatory article, I believe,
and cases of spontaneous combustion have occurred:
put that reflection in a note, and mark it J. B. in the corner),
and makes lightning in the garret. Now, for the cisterns.
Have you smelt No. eleven?”

“I have, sir,” answered the secretary, making a wry face,
“and it 's uncommon noxious.”

“Do you know the cause?” asked the portly gentleman,
disdainfully.

“I do not, sir?” answered the meek gentleman, groping in
his pockets.

“A child—a juvenile small child—that went to a Public
School, took his own life in despair, one day, in that very
cistern, sir—because he could n't spell phthisic, sir!”

“That was strange, was n't it?”

“Very strange, Crump. The child came home in the afternoon,
with the same green bag—take notice, sir—the same
green bag on his arm that he 'd carried for fourteen months,
and said, `Mother, there 's a pain,' laying his hand on his
head, `a great violent pain here.' That was all he said, and
then he went up stairs, made up his little couch, tied his
wooden horse to a bed-post, with a new ribbon about his
neck, put on his Sunday hat and a clean apron, and stepping

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

stealthily down stairs, walked comfortably into the cistern,
and ended all his agonies.”

“That's a remarkable affair,” said the secretary, with his
mouth and eyes wide open. “Do n't you think it's a serious
argument against the Public Schools, sir?”

“It's a smasher, Crump: an extra-hazardous smasher,”
said the Insurance President, for that proved to be his official
station. “There's something wrong in the system, you may
depend on it; or children would never destroy themselves in
this way because they can't spell dipthong words of two syllables.
Now, to business, if you please. Say, it's the opinion
of the President, that no engine will ever consent to draw
water from the cistern of No. eleven; that engines can't be
expected to take little boys or little girls into their chambers
and extinguish their bereaved parents' burning dwellings with
the rinsings. Firemen have feelings, (this is a moral axiom,
for the benefit of the Directors), engines have works: and
although the coroner did sit on the cistern-lid the better part
of an entire night, inquiring into this melancholy case, and
sent down several courageous small boys with boat-hooks,
and called patriotically into the cistern himself, yet add, the
boy was never found; and from the fact of deceased's never
having been seen to come out, a strong suspicion prevails in
the neighborhood that he is still in: but what makes the corpse
so very outrageous and stubborn, nobody can say. Is that
it, Crump?”

“All down, sir,” answered Mr. Crump.

“Stand out from the umbrella, then, if you please, Mr.
Crump: business is over. You're Crump and I'm Blinker.”
And the Insurance President looked down upon his assistant
in the most commanding fashion.

Crump obeyed, and, withdrawing from the brown-silk
protector, stood outside, awaiting the further pleasure of the
portly gentleman.

“This is a sweet day, Crump,” said the President, contemplating
with evident satisfaction the huge drops that pashed
in one of the puddles.

“Charming!” said Crump, slily inserting a cotton pocket-handkerchief
between his coat-collar and the back of his
neck, for Crump was slightly rheumatic.

“Stocks should rise, in weather like this,” said Mr. Blinker.
“The roofs are all good and wet, cellars under water, and a
good number of garrets flooded. Now, if we could have a

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

little rain horizontally, the second stories would be nice and
safe. To be sure, families might suffer a little inconvenience—
but it would be morally impossible for fires to show themselves,
and I should look in the papers for two or three melancholy
cases of incendiaries' having made way with themselves.
It's a pelter, Crump.”

“That, I believe, is admitted,” answered that worthy individual,
with a slight tinge of impudence in his manner—buttoning
up his side-pockets, which began to fill, and throwing
his hands behind him under his coat-tails, which arrangement,
as he stooped forward, formed a commodious roof for the
rain to run off at.

“It's lucky we're not in the marine line,” continued the
President, glancing at the Secretary: “Goods, not under
hatches, will be nicely soaked, I'm sure; particularly woolens
and drabs.”

Now it so happened, that the unfortunate Crump was the
owner of a very pretty pair of woolen drabs—rather old fashioned,
to be sure—which, very singularly, he was wearing at
that very moment, as he stood in the shower in the open yard:
but as Mr. Blinker was well known as a benevolent-minded
gentleman, and above all manner of personalities, Crump was
bound to regard his observation as one of those happy general
reflections for which he was equally remarkable.

“The shower comes down so nice and straight,” said Mr.
Blinker, erecting his umbrella, and drawing himself close
under its centre, at the same time consulting his watch, “so
nice and straight, that it must put out a good many kitchenfires;
which all helps:—but it's time to be at the office. Do
you go on, Crump, and have the grate well piled—don't spare
the coals, for I am chilly. But stop—whose buildings are
these, did you say?”

“I did n't say,” answered Mr. Crump, flushing slightly.

“Whose?” cried Mr. Blinker, in his official key, which
started the secretary into a small pond.

“Fyler Close's, sir,” answered the intelligent Crump,
speedily.

“Humph—very well,” said Mr. Blinker. “Go on: and
don't forget to wheel my chair out, and warm my slippers.
And if the lime-dealer calls for his policy, tell him it isn't
made out, and that he may call the first fair day. This is fine
weather for slacking that article, Crump; excellent weather

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

to set houses on fire with water and white chalk—do you understand?
Go!”

At this, the secretary picked his way through the yard,
carrying his head obliquely, to avoid the rain that dashed
directly in his face, and holding the gate for a moment, was
followed by the superior functionary, in great state; who
paused once or twice, however, and turned about to take a
glance at the buildings under survey for insurance.

“Very well,” said Puffer Hopkins, stepping out from under
a shed, where he had ambushed himself during this instructive
conversation: “These gentlemen must be on the reliefcommittee—
they have a wonderful tenderness for poor people,
and wouldn't see 'em made martyrs of by a conflagration,
for all the world. Let me see: I think I'll visit the
lightning-maker in the garret, first. He's a genius, no doubt—
and, belonging to the melo-dramatic school, may dazzle two
or three weak minds in the neighborhood.”

With these words, the young politician proceeded to the
house which had been pointed out as the residence of the
lightning-maker, and knocked gently at the door.

The summons was answered by a small girl, with an unclean
face and eyes that twinkled through the dirt like a
ground-mole's, who gave him to understand that the gentleman
in question was at that moment in the garret of the
building, busy upon a two-quarter, and that he, Puffer Hopkins,
if he went up stairs, had better come upon him cautiously,
lest he might, in the confusion of a sudden surprise, let
slip a volcano, or something horrible of that nature, in the
combustible line.

Taking to heart the suggestion of the small adviser, Puffer
walked up stairs, and knocked at the door of the artizan's
laboratory with great discretion, beginning with a rap in the
very lowest key, and ascending gradually to a clear doubleknock.

“Hold a minute,” cried a voice from within, “till I mix in
a trifle of red and blue. If you should come in now,” continued
the voice, pondering and speaking a word or two only
at a time, at if it was interrupted by some manual operation,
“you'd lose us three good rounds with the pit. They always
loves to see a sheet of red fire, provided there's a cross of
blue in it.”

In a moment Puffer was admitted, and discovered a lean
man, bending over a mortar, with great staring eyes, and

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

cheeks discolored with brimstone or yellow fumes of some
other kind; and surrounded by black bottles, two or three
broken pestles, an iron retort, and various other implements
of his trade. Puffer introduced himself, and proceeded at
once to the exercise of his function as a scourer.

“This profession of yours,” said Puffer—he dared not call
it a trade, although the poor workman was up to his eyes in
vile yellow paste and charcoal-dust—“This profession, sir,
must give you many patriotic feelings of a high cast, sir.”

“It does, sir,” answered the lightning-maker, slightly mistaking
his meaning: “I've told the manager, more than fifty
times, that lightning such as mine is worth ninepence a bottle,
but he never would pay more than fourpence ha'penny: except
in volcanoes—them's always two-quarters.”

“I mean, sir,” continued the scourer, “that when you see
the vivid fires blazing on Lake Erie—when Perry's working
his ship about like a velocepede, and the guns are bursting
off, and the enemy is paddling away like ducks—is not your
soul then stirred, sir? Do you not feel impelled to achieve
some great, some glorious act? What do you do—what can
you do, in such a moment of intense, overwhelming excitement?”

“I generally,” answered the lightning-maker, with an emphasis
upon the personal pronoun, as if some difference of
practice might possibly prevail, “I generally takes a glass of
beer, with the froth on.”

“But, sir, when you see the dwelling-house roof, kindled
by your bomb-shells, all a-blaze with the midnight conflagration—
the rafters melting away, I may say, with the intense
heat, and the engines working their pumps in vain—don't
you think then, sir, of some peaceful family, living in some
secluded valley, broken in upon by the heartless incendiary
with his demon matches, and burning down their cottage
with all its out-houses?”

“In such cases,” answered the lightning-maker, “I thinks
of my two babies at home, with their poor lame mother—
and I makes it a point, if my feelings is very much wrought
up, as the prompter says, to run home between the acts to see
that all's safe, and put a bucket of water by the hearth:—
isn't that the thing?”

“I think it is: and I'm glad to hear you talk so feelingly,”
answered Puffer Hopkins; “our next mayor's a very domestic-minded
man—just such a man as you are—only I don't

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

believe he'd be so prudent and active about the bucket on
the hearth.”

At this, the lightning-maker smiled pleasantly to himself,
and unconsciously thrust a large roll of brimstone in his
cheek.

“Is this your natural complexion that you have on this
morning?” resumed Puffer Hopkins, seeing how well the
personal compliment took, and glancing at the lightning-maker's
yellow chaps. “If it is, the resemblance between yourself
and the gentleman I have mentioned is more striking than
I could have expected: his nose is a copper—isn't yours inclining
a little that way?”

“I believe it is,” answered the journeyman lightning-maker,
complacently.

“Your eye is a deep grey, I think, as far as I can see it by
this light: that's what the Committee of Nomination, when
they waited on the next Mayor, thought was his.”

In the flutter of nerves created by the scourer's instituting
these pleasant comparisons, the lightning-maker unadvisedly
brought together a couple of hostile combustibles, which occasioned
the premature bursting of a small bottle of azure
lightning—without scenery to match; and a small sky-light
was opened thereby, through a decayed shingle in the roof.
Instructed, by this, of the tropical climate of the lightning-maker's
garret, and thinking that a sufficient train had been
laid for a future vote, Puffer—who had been advised of the
residence of a stout cobbler in the neighboring attic—trotted
up a ladder and through the open skuttle, and scrambling
over the pitched roof, plunged down a similar opening in the
next house, and came very suddenly upon the object he sought.
The burly shoe-maker was seated on a cobbler's bench, working
away merrily enough: at his side was laid a long clay-pipe,
filled ready to be lighted, and hard by him a bundle
of chattels, corded up, and arranged, apparently, for instant
transportation.

“How is this?” cried the cobbler, as his eye caught the
person of Puffer Hopkins: “This isn't fair—nor is it legal
in any courts, whether of Chancery or common law. Writs
don't descend, sir—I know enough for that: no deputy
sheriff was ever enough of an angel to come from above. I
resist process—do you hear that?”

Saying this, the cobbler started up, and seizing his bench,
planted it on end in front of the corded bale of chattels, and

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

standing between the two, he glared fiercely, through the
circular broken seat of the bench, on the suspected deputy.

A few words, however, calmed his agitation: he threw
down his bench, resumed his seat, and in token of his perfect
satisfaction and pleasure in the explanation Puffer had
given, of the character in which he visited him, he kindled
his pipe and smoked away in good, long, hearty puffs.

Growing communicative, as their intercourse continued,
Puffer at length learned that the gentleman was the proprietor
of the Dutch oven down stairs—the terror of Mr. Blinker,
the President—was greatly distressed by creditors, who
hunted him with catchpoles and marshals from morning till
night, that all his proprietary interest on the lower floors lay
in the oven aforesaid and a very comfortable little fat wife,
(whose pride and comfort consisted in a turkey browned before
a slow fire), and other little necessaries allowed by law.
The corded bale, held his valuables; and with these,
he was prepared to mount, at a moment's warning, through
the scuttle, and to convey himself to the peak of the house,
where he made it a point to sit in the shadow of a broad
chimney and smoke his pie at ease, until the cloud of pursuers
was fairly dispersed or blown over.

“They shall never catch me, while I live,” cried the cobbler,
energetically. “If they come on the roof, I'll climb
down the lightning-rod with that bundle on my back; I can
do it:—and if one of the rascals attempts to climb up to me,
I'll drop it, and break his neck off, short—depend on that.
My dear fellow, I'd be at the expense of the board, lodging
and education of a South American Condor, and teach him
to bear it off in his beak, before they should touch a thread
of it. Now you know my mind!”

At this, he struck a thick heel, on which he was at work,
a thumping blow with his hammer, and kicked his lapstone
across the whole breadth of the garret.

Puffer Hopkins of course applauded the spirit of the cobbler,
and artlessly suggested that no man, with the soul of a
man, would submit quietly to such impertinent intermeddling
with his private affairs.

“However, my friend,” he continued, scouring as industriously
as he well knew how, “I trust this will not always
be so. These gentlemen of the law may yet have their
combs cut: I don't think they will always be allowed to
crow and chanticleer it over honest men!”

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

“Why not?” asked the cobbler, looking at Puffer Hopkins
anxiously, and planting his great hands upon his knees.

“For no very particular reason,” answered the scourer,
“except that I have heard it suggested that our new Common
Council—mind, I say our new Common Council—will
abolish the office of sheriff, and all others that interfere with
the enjoyment of a man's property by himself. They'll do
away with writs, and executions, and all that sort of thing,”
said Puffer, coolly, “that's all!”

“Say you so?” shouted the cobbler, springing from his
bench and seizing Puffer by the hand: “I'm your man!
Now try your luck on the down-stairs people—don't let me
keep you back a minute. Try the bereaved mother, down
stairs: her husband's a'wavering—have him, by all means.
Dogs! you've done me more good than the sight of the big
boot in the square the first time I set eyes on it. God speed
you! Luck to you!”

With these ejaculations, the cobbler dismissed his comforting
visiter, who hurried below, and opening, according to
the instructions he had received, the first door to the right,
arrived at a new field in the domain to be canvassed.

Taking a rapid and comprehensive survey, Puffer Hopkins
was aware that he had entered the apartment of the bereaved
mother—for there upon the mantel in a glass case, dressed
in crape, stood the identical wooden horse, with the ribbon
about his neck that had been attached to the bed-post by the
little misanthrope, on the day he had taken his own life in
the cistern.

As he discovered this, a gloom suddenly came over the
countenance of the scourer, and he approached the afflicted
parent with an aspect as wo-begone and dolorous as the
wood-cut frontispiece of the most melancholy Mourner's
Companion ever printed.

“Mr. Hopkins, of the Ward Committee,” said Puffer, advancing
and taking the bereaved one by the hand. “The
good man of the house is not in, I think?”

“No, he isn't, sir,” she answered; “it's very little that he
is in now, since the event. He can't bear the sight, poor
man, of that grievous monument there”—pointing to the
quadruped in the glass case—“always in his sight. It e'en
a'most drives him mad.”

Puffer Hopkins wondered—if the sight of a miserable
caricature of a horse in wood, under a glass cover, was so

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

near making a lunatic of him—why he didn't go mad at
once, like a sensible man, and shiver it all in atoms, which
would have done something towards making it invisible: but
he didn't utter these thoughts, but on the contrary kept them
hidden in the very darkest recess of his bosom.

“You do right, madam,” continued Puffer, “to keep that
constantly before your eyes. It's a softening object—a
mellowing spectacle for the heart to contemplate. Oh, no;
there is nothing, there can be nothing,” pursued the scourer,
in a voice choked with agony, and turning away as if he was
too manly to expose his feelings, “like a mother's grief. A
mother's grief—it is a sacred and a solemn thing: and when
the affliction comes thus—in this ghastly shape—it's too much
to think of. Who can repress their tears at the thought of the
agony of this family on the day of this fatal discovery? the
father frantic with sorrow and exertions to get the body;
sisters and brothers—how many have you, madam?”

“Five small ones—one at the breast.”

“Five little ones, shouting for the departed angel: and his
mother—his poor, bereaved, broken hearted mother—when
she thinks of the suit he had on, his nice, tidy Sunday suit,
bends over the cistern and drops in her tears till it overflows!
Oh, there's a picture for the moralist and the patriot!”

“Don't, sir—don't,” cried the afflicted mother. “Don't—
your eloquence quite breaks my heart: it makes me feel
it all over again.”

“I will not,” said Puffer, “I'll resist my feelings, and say
no more about it: not if you'll be good enough to take this
little order on the dry-goods dealer—just so that the poor
boy, if he should ever be found, may be put in a decent
shroud; he was a small boy, I think—the order's for a small
boy—a very small boy. And oblige me by telling your husband
that Puffer Hopkins, of the Vigilance Committee,
called. Good day: good day—poor child.” Uttering these
last words with a pathetic glance at the toy on the mantel,
and heaving a profound sigh, the scourer closed the door.

With the door, he closed his labors for the day, and
shaped his course homeward, satisfied that he had done his
country some slight service, and that two or three minds, at
least, had been sufficiently enlightened to vote the proper
ticket at the next charter election.

p264-079

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