Pursuant to his engagement with the broker,
Ishmael at the proper hour, having first laid
aside his cap, and substituted in its place a
round-rimmed hat, embellished with a strip of
crape—set forth to carry the wishes of Mr.
Fyler Close into effect. Getting by an easy
road into Chatham street, which was his favorite
promenade, he pursued his course, not quite
so gaily as usual, but with sufficient exuberance
of spirits to indulge in an occasional sportive
sally, as he pushed his way along the crowded
street. Once feigning to be taking a leisurely
walk, a mere after-breakfast stroll, with his
hands crossed quietly behind him, he suddenly
brought one of them forth, and letting it drop
gently on the crown of an errand-boy, fresh
from the country, and who was gaping and
staring at the various street sights—he left the
young gentlemen ssaggering about as if under
the influence of a sturdy morning draught.
This, and a few others like it, were, however,
mere prefaces and flourishes of his humor; but
when he got to the declivity of the street, where
it forms a cheerful perspective of mouldy garments
and black-whiskered Jews, Mr. Small
knew that he was in a province that his genius
had made his own. He slackened his pace a
little, as he began to climb the street; and
keeping his eye fixed on its other extremity,
waited a moment till he espied certain figures
turning into it out of another thoroughfare;
his eye kindled, and smiling, and touching his
hat gracefully to the young gentlemen who stood
in the shop-doors, many of whom were his particular
friends, he strolled on. It was alms-house
morning, Wednesday, when the public
charities are distributed at the park office to
the poor; and as Ishmael rambled on, he met the
various creatures of the city bounty hobbling
forward in every variety of gait, aspect, and
apparel, and bearing their alms in every kind
of characteristic utensil and implement; poor
women bringing theirs in broken baskets, concealed
with woman's shrinking care, under old,
tattered cloaks; and the men bearing theirs
openly on their backs, or tied in soiled cotton
handkerchiefs.

As he approached these parties, Ishmael assumed
a benevolent aspect, and proceeded to
put in practice the philanthropic purpose with
which he was inspired. The first that he encountered
was a glazier carrying his arms in
an old glazier's box: drawing near, Mr. Small
accosted him with “Stop a moment, my friend—
don't trouble yourself to set it down;” lifting
the lid and depositing within what seemed
a liberal donation in money—“There; go home
as fast as you can, and invest that little deposite
in a couple of tender steaks and two twisted
rolls: you're hungry and they'll do you good!”
Ishmael passed on to another (amid the smiles
of his acquaintance in the shops, who seemed
to admit it was well done), who might have
been a great traveller in his time, for he sustained
his burden in a faded carpet-bag, slung
from his shoulder at the end of a walking-staff.
Ishmael begged to know what was his favorite
dish, which the beggar modestly declining to
answer, Mr. Small said, “I know what it is—
it's turkey done brown, with sauce of oysters;
here's a couple of quarters,”—placing in his
hand the apparent coin,—“and there's a extra
twenty-five center to treat yourself to the pit o'
the the-a-tre after dinner.” And Ishmael drew
another from a pocket, the issues of which
seemed to be as free and unlimited as those of
any modern bank.

Mr. Small claimed to be no banker or financier,
but he had certainly managed to create a
currency which diffused a pleasure and satisfaction
wherever it flowed. Was it any fault
of his if his pensioners should afterward chance
to wake from a delusion, and find that what
they took for a legal mintage, was nothing
more than a fictitious currency of electioneering
silver, bearing on one side the device of
an attractive donkey, with his mouth full of
political labels, and on the reverse that of a
man in a cage, starving in consequence of the
times brought upon the country by the party
against whom it was aimed? The silver was
a purchase of Ishmael's from one of the churches—
to whose plate it had been contributed by
certain liberal-minded politicians, who were
pew-holders therein.

Spreading his largesses in this way on every
side, with the unqualified approbation of his
Jewish friends, and maintaining for the time
at least the character of a large-souled philanthropist,
Ishmael reached the court, with more
sincere good wishes and blessings sent after
him, than ever, in all probability, accompanied
a traveller in that direction before.

A rarer or more curious gathering of mortal
creatures than compose the posse of officers,
marshals, and litigants, that haunt the Small
court—the Twenty Pound jurisdiction, it has
been no man's fortune to see. In the first
place, the Small court is held in a square room
of very limited dimensions—where the court

[figure description] Page 233.[end figure description]

itself in triple majesty sits—with its purlieus
in the rear of the city park; the purlieus consisting
in part of another square room, where a
very red-nosed man roams about inside of a
railed cage, opening great ledgers and closing
them, and holding no other intercourse with
the barbarous world without, than to accept
from time to time small tributes of coin, which
he carefully deposites in a yawning drawer,
wide and deep enough to swallow all that may
be cast in.

A further purlieu of the Small court adjoins
this sacred precinct, and consists of two small
dens to which the worshipful judges withdraw,
at certain seasons of the day, and brood over the
wickedness and corruption of mankind; which
they avenge by giving wrong-headed verdicts
against parties who venture to molest them in
their retirement. Through these various purlieus
and avenues, there circulates from ten,
morning, till three, afternoon, a constant tide
of unclean, unwashed, and wrathful humanity,
in at one door, out at another, making noisy
friths and creeks, as it were, all over the place,
and whirling round and round in a perpetual
vortex. The tide was not quite at its height
when Ishmael entered; and the retainers of
the court who had assembled were therefore
not too many to be observed apart. It was
the clerk's room that Ishmael entered—where
the officers and others are in waiting till they
are called—or transacting such business as
may be put in their charge.

There was one man sitting in a corner, stout-built
and heavy, with a great red nose—even
much larger and fierier than the clerk's—that
seemed to throw a glow over the newspaper
he held before him, and which he was reading
through a pair of coarse horn spectacles: while
a spare man of a pale aspect was hobbling
across the court-room on unequal legs, bearing
a process to the clerk's desk within the rail.
Another ruby-nosed officer, much taller, but
not as stout as the other, was sitting in the
doorway, looking out steadily, and with as
much keenness as his brandy-stained face would
permit, for the approach of one of their high
mightinesses and supreme disposers of Twenty
Pound cases—the justice himself. There was
a constable with one eye gone, but concentrating
in the other sufficient spite and small
malice to light up the organs of four-and-twenty
rattlesnakes or more: and another, a huge,
overgrown man, in a dirty gray coat, with a
great wen on his forehead, who sat upon a stool
at a high desk, leaning over a paper and painfully
casting up the interest on a very small sum for
a very short time, and due and accruing from
a retail grocer, both stout and small; and furthermore,
at this time, sadly invalid from want
of funds.

Presently there was a bustle at the door;
a great rapping on a desk in front of the bench,
on the part of an impudent-looking man, who
directed his eyes steadfastly toward the door as
he knocked; a tumultuous shout of “hats off”
from all quarters of the room, a rush from the
side rooms to the door of that where the chief
court was held, and along came a little weazen-faced,
crop-haired gentleman, shuffling through
the press, and making his way toward the
judge's seat, into which he presently dropped;
and after wriggling about uncomfortably for a
few minutes, as if he had got into the prisoner's
dock by mistake, and was on trial for noncompos
or something corresponding, he called
to the crier, over the desk-rail, for the day's
calenddar.

Recovering a little, as he became better accustomed
to his station, he began shortly to call
order, and in very doubtful English required
people to “make less noise” in the outskirts
of the court-room, where a great hubbub was
rapidly engendering, to which the offenders
listened with the most profound respect, while
it was uttering, but as soon as his voice had
fairly ceased, proceeded with renewed animation,
and as if it had been the purpose of his
honor to cheer them on and encourage them in
what they were about.

Immediately in the heels of the judge—he
had walked down with that functionary, that
he might enjoy an opportunity to color his
mind to the right complexion for a case that was
coming on that morning—a marble-faced man
came in, dressed in clean black from crown to
toe, with a pair of vicious black eyes, and a
chattering smile as he entered. This was Mr.
Meagrim, the marshal; and glancing about to
recognise his customers and acquaintance, he
glided out of the court-room into the clerk's
purlieu, where Ishmael waited his coming.

“Ah! Mr. Small,” he said, recognising that
gentleman where he stood, in a corner, talking
with one of the brandy-painted constables,
“what is it, now?” And he drew Ishmael
aside, and dropping his voice to a stealthy
whisper, inquired what he needed. They whispered
apart for a short time; and Mr. Meagrim,
gliding away again, promised to return
in a minute, as soon as he had seen the oath
sworn against a brass-founder defendant, that
he might levy on his cart and harness as they
passed along.

When Mr. Meagrim had left, the brandy-stained
gentleman returned, and renewed the
discourse the marshal had interrupted.

“What did you say this crape was for, Ish?”
asked the constable, glancing at Mr. Small's
round-rimmed beaver.

“That crape,” answered Ishmael, “is a sign
o' mournin' and lamentation for the juryman
that was killed in the box last week, by Counsellor
Boerum's speech, which was slow in its
operations, you know, but sure. Where's your
weeper, and Crany's and Jimmerson's? Why
han't all the officers got their weepers on?”

“There's no occasion that I can see,” answered
the constable; “nobody's lost any relations
here that I know on, this week; has
there?”

“Hallo!—what are you dreamin' about,”

[figure description] Page 234.[end figure description]

cried Ishmael, in well-feigned surprise, “I
thought your judges was all dead. I understood
this court—and who'll deny it I wonder—was
under the jurisdiction of judges' ghosts—not
live judges—but judges in a state of semi-anymation
and imperfect witality!”

By the time the subdued laughter which prevailed
among the officers on the occasion of the
ingenious observation of Mr. Small had subsided,
Mr. Meagrim returned, quietly interchanged
a word or two with the clerk, ordered
Messrs. Crany and Jimmerson to follow, and
set forth in company with Ishmael.

When they got into the street, Ishmael and
the marshal led the way, and Messrs. Crany
and Jimmerson, who were a pair of ill-matched
constables, greatly dilapidated by use and age,
trotted after. Presently Mr. Small, suggesting
to Mr. Meagrim, that he had a slight commission
to execute by the way, dropped behind,
with a promise to overtake them in the course
of a block or two. Soon after, and when his
companions were well out of sight, he began
to cast about, with an impatient and ominous
look; and in a moment, hastening to a spot on
which his eye had rested with unbounded satisfaction,
he stood at a baker's window; a minute
after he was in the baker's shop—and, allowing
him a minute more, and he was strolling
forth, holding in his hand a delicate amalgam,
formed of a slice of fresh bread and a
slice of pound-cake laid close together.

“The wickedness and desperation of the
world is such,” said Ishmael, as he cut into
the amalgam, “that it exhausts one's ingenuity
and wits to make it go down. It's not
bad, however,” and he cut again, “if one could
only wet it with a drink of pure gin, without
being put to the vulgarity of payin' for it!”

Now it is pretty generally known that there
is a body of thirty-four gentlemen, recognised
and described as the corporation of the city
and county of New York, whose sole business
it is, according to popular belief, to sit as a
board of brewers; and whose constant employment
it likewise is, for which they are chosen
by the people at large and held in great honor
therefor, to brew and distil a well-known popular
beverage, which has gone into extensive
use. Ishmael, faithful to the promise he had
made to himself, paused at one of the public
stills, where this drink is distributed, and lifting
a long wooden arm in the air, bending his
head forward and drawing the wooden arm
after him, with a good deal of dexterity and
manual skill, took a large, copious, and exhilarating
draught of the beverage in question.
He then gracefully wiped his mouth; and restoring
his handkerchief to his pocket, leaving
a small segment only exposed for the public
admiration, he followed on.

Hurrying along, now that he was thoroughly
refreshed, Ishmael reached Mr. Meagrim at the
square, where he was busy bargaining for the
services of a cartman, who being at last retained,
galloped forward up the street, while
Mr. Meagrim and his followers, keeping him
in view, swept on.

When they reached the neighborhood of
Close's row, Mr. Meagrim ordered the cart to
halt without, and entering slyly with his train,
took but a moment's glance at the building,
and fell to business.

Ishmael was despatched to the roof, with a
handful of nails and an upholsterer's hammer,
produced from the marshal's pocket; Mr. Jimmerson
to the lightning maker's garret; and
Mr. Meagrim himself, with the cartman and
Mr. Crany in his train, proceeded to the recusant
cobbler's. Such was the nimbleness and
dexterity with which Mr. Small executed his
portion of the business, that by the time Meagrim
and his followers reached the garret, they
found the cobbler knocking his head and fists,
like a madman, against the closed scuttle, and
threatening to pitch his besieger from the roof,
if he could once get out. When he found himself
hemmed in by other tormentors, in the persons
of the officers and posse, his rage was
greatly increased, and he danced about the
apartment in an extempore hornpipe, more like
a Huron chief than a franchise citizen. Notwithstanding
he saw that he was overpowered,
when the officers seized one end of his corded
bale of valuables, he fastened on the other,
and tugged at it, till they had fairly dragged it
down stairs, the cobbler asseverating that marshals
and all such cattle were a nuisance in a
civilized community; demanding to know what
right they had to touch his property, and pointedly
aspersing the legislature for presuming to
pass such laws.

Sweeping everything in in their course, chairs,
tables, stair-rods, Dutch-oven—they descended
into the precinct of the bereaved mother; the
cobbler shouting lustily after them all the way.

Here their proceedings were quite as summary—
although they were impeded not a little
by the levity of Mr. Crany, who clapped his
hands upon his knees, and, bending almost
double, burst into a horse-laugh, every time
his eye fell upon the wooden quadruped and
crape-dressed vase on the mantel; for which
extravagance he was sharply rebuked by Mr.
Meagrim, who told him he'd better stick to
business; while the cartman, who seemed to
have a woman's soul under his cart-frock, privily
thrust what was equivalent to his whole
day's wages in the mother's hand.

In the meantime, Mr. Jimmerson, pursuant
to order, had proceeded to the lightning-maker's
quarters, but coming in at an unlucky
moment, when the artist was in one of his absent
moods, he had scarcely had time to disclose
his business, when, by some cursed mischance,
a large bottle slipped off, and striking him in a
most sensitive part of his person, he was unceremoniously
thrown on his back. There he
lay, agitating his hands and feet, like a great
green turtle in a spasm, until the lightning-maker,
who was up to his elbows in a vile yellow
mixture, rushed toward him, and, expressing a

p265-238 [figure description] Page 235.[end figure description]

profound regret for what had occurred, began
chafing his temples, beating his hands, and
punching his body.

The lightning-maker was bending over Mr.
Jimmerson, when Mr. Small—who had lingered
on the roof, watching a market-sloop that was
sailing down the river—came down, and adding
his own endeavors to the artist's, the constable
was soon put upon his legs, and they
proceeded in their business. Acting in the
self-same spirit with the others, Ishmael and
his aid cleared the house, down to the very cellar-floor,
of all that came, by the most liberal
construction, under their warrant. Two wide
gates that led into the yard were thrown open;
the cart driven in; the goods piled on in a
threatening pyramid; and perching on the very
top, whither he had climbed, with saucepans,
broken candle-stands, and rugged tables, for the
steps of his arduous ascent, sat Mr. Ishmael
Small, presiding over the whole, like the very
genius of distress-warrants and chaotic chattels.
Men, women, and children—the tenants
of the row—gathered in the windows, looking
upon the wreck, pale-cheeked and hollow-eyed;
the cobbler alone, holding his station in a door-way,
and manfully vociferating against the iniquity
of the whole proceeding.

The cart was driven off; Messrs. Crany and
Jimmerson—the last with a dolefully bilious
complexion—trotting along, and keeping watch
on either side; and Mr. Meagrim, smoothbrowed
and unruffled, following with a hawk's
eye in the rear.