Punctual to his appointment with Hobbleshank,
Puffer Hopkins, at a few minutes of
seven o'clock the next evening, directed his
steps toward Barrell's oyster-house, where in
due time he arrived, and made discovery of one
of the most singular little oyster-houses that
could be found throughout the whole of oystercating
Christendom. Mr. Jarve Barrell, it
would seem, had, in the golden age of his
career, been the proprietor of a large public
house, occupying an entire building, and surrounded
by his regiments of waiters and wine-bottles,
whose services were clamorously and
steadily demanded, by a mob of customers,
from six in the evening until one, morning; in
fact, the poor man's head had been half turned,
by the pressure of a prosperons and growing
business. But, somehow or other, oysters, one
unlucky season, grew smaller, waiters more
impudent for their pay and custom walked out
of that street into the next, on a visit to a
new landlord, who served his stews with silver
spoons and his oysters in scollop-shells, so that
poor Jarve Barrell was compelled, in spite of
himself, to clip his wings and confine himself
to an humbler cage; in a word, he rented his
second floor to a boarding-house keeper, took
in a barber at the rear of the first floor, and
continued business on his own account in the
front room of the same. A second decrease in
the size of shell-fish, the opening of a street
that carried travel in another direction, and
Barrell was forced into that last stronghold of
the oyster-man, the cellar; and there it was
that Puffer Hopkins now found him, standing
on one leg of his own and one that came out of
a fine piece of oak woods at West Farms, a
coarse white apron about his waist and a salamander
in his countenance, declaring stoutly to
a customer, that although he had roughed it
against the tide all his life, he was determined
to have his own way in dying.

Being questioned as to the way to which he
alluded, he proceeded to explain, that whenever
he felt the approaches of death, he should
hire a White-haller to pull him over to Staten
Island, cast anchor just above the richest bed
in the shore, and giving one good deep plunge,
said Jarve Barrell, “I'll carry myself to the bottom,
and stetching myself out on a picked
oyster-bed, make up my mind to die; so with
the tide rippling over my head, and a dozen or
more pretty mermaids standing about me, I'll
give up the ghost, and hold myself entitled to
haunt the bay and island ever after, with a
spruce ruffle of sea-weeds in my bosom.”

Puffer Hopkins was well pleased with the
joyous spirit of the decayed oyster-man, but had
scarcely heard him through when he detected
a quick clatter upon the steps, and turning, he
discovered his singular companion of the previous
night hurrying down. In a moment he
had Puffer by the hand, and hailed his appearance
with a sort of wondering enthusfasm, as
if it gave him great joy to find him there and
to take him again in a friendly grasp. Hobbleshank
interchanged a few words with Mr.
Jarve Barrell as to the influence of certain recent
enactments relating to oyster-beds upon
his own trade and custom, to which Mr. Jarve
Barrell gave very lucid and convincing replies.
and they set out forthwith for the Bottom Club,
This they were not long in finding, for Hobbleshank
guiding Puffer rapidly through sundry
dark alleys and by-ways, for which he seemed
to have a peculiar inclination, they reached a
building in front of which a dusky lamp was
glimmering, ascended two flights of stairs, and
knocked at a low dingy door.

The door was opened from within, and Puffer
advancing, with Hobbleshank in front, found
himself in a long narrow room, with a plain
pine table stretched through the centre, a forlorn-looking
eagle, with a bunch of arrowy
skewers in its talons and a striped flag about
its head for a turban, two or three carpenters'
benches along the walls, and the whole lighted
by four sombre tallow twopennics at the farthest
extremity.

Upon the table was planted a large earthen
pitcher, with an emblematic toper with his leg
cocked up, in a state of happy exaltation, displayed
on the side thereof in white ware—and
around the board were established a dozen individuals
or more, constituting the chief force
of the immortal Bottom Club.

The gentlemen of the Bottom Club, as they
presented themselves at that moment to Puffer
Hopkins, certainly furnished a remarkable
spectacle; the most remarkable feature of

[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]

which was, that all the large members of the
club, by some inscrutable fatality, were constrained
and restricted in small hats and irksome
jackets, while all the small members, by
some equally potent dispensation, were allowed
to revel in an unlimited wilderness of box-coat,
petersham, and tarpaulin. The delicate gentlemen
wore great rough neck-stocks and commanded
huge iron snuff-boxes on the table, and
the robust and muscular members assumed
dainty black ribands and elegant turn-down
collars, with more or less ruffle crisping up under
their broad heavy-bearded chins.

A thin, thoughtful gentleman, at one corner
of the table, was enveloped in an overgrown
vest, hideous with great red vines creeping all
over it, and large enough to serve the purposes
of a body-coat; and confronting him, at an opposite
corner, sat a stout omnibus-driver, making
himself as comfortable as he could in a
waistcoat, so many sizes too small, that it gaped
apart like a pair of rebellious book covers, and
drew his arms into a posture that resembled not
a little that of the wings of a great Muscovy
gander prepared for the spit.

“We welcome you,” said the pale thoughtful
man, rising and extending his right hand toward
Puffer as he advanced, while with his left
he secured the sails of his great red vest, “we
welcome you, Mr. Hopkins, to this association
of brethren. In us you see exemplified the
progress of social reform; we are wearing each
other's coats and breeches in a simultaneous
confusion, and, laboring under a passional excitement,
we may yet ameliorate our condition
so far as to undertake to pay each other's debts.
We are subjecting ourselves to a great experiment
for the benefit of mankind, the interests
of the total race. You see what hardships we
are undergoing”—he did, for at the mere mention
of the thing, the whole club wriggled in
their ill-assorted garments like so many clowns
in the very crisis of a contortion—“to test the
principles of an ameliorated condition of things.
Yet, sir, we are happy, very happy to see you
here to-night. This spot on which you stand,
is consecrated to freedom of opinion—to the festival
of the soul. This is no musical forest, no
Hindoo hunter's hut, got up for effect at the
amphitheatre; we haven't trees here alive with
real birds! the branches laden with living monkeys!
the fountains visited by longlegged flamingoes!
the greensward covered with gazelles,
grazing and sporting! Oh, no; we are a
mere caucus of plain citizens, in our everyday
dresses, sitting in this small room, on rough
benches, to re-organize society, and give the
world a new axle; that's all.”

Hereupon the thoughtful gentleman sat down,
the club looked at each other and shook their
heads, as much as to say, “This chairman of
ours is certainly a born genius;” and Puffer
and Hobbleshank were earnestly invited to the
upper end of the board, where they could possess
the immediate society of the intellectual
president, with the convenient solace of the
beer-pitcher. As soon as they were seated,
and furnished with a draught from the earthen
jug, to make them feel at home (a man always
feeling most at home when his wits are abroad),
the legitimate business of the club proceeded
with great spirit.

The first subject that was brought before
them was, a general consultation as to the part
the club—the friends of social reform and a re-organization
of society—should play in the approaching
election of a Mayor for the city and
county of New York; something striking and
decisive being always expected from the redoubted
Bottom Club. One member hinted and
proposed that there should be a general destruction
of the enemy's handbills; which was
amended so as to embrace a thrashing of the
enemy's bill-stickers, wherever found; which
was still further enlarged, so as to cover the
special case of freighting a hostile bill-sticker's
cart with building-stone and breaking a
bill-sticker's donkey's back. The cutting of
the flag-ropes, and sawing down of liberty-poles
next came up, and passed promptly—a stout
man in a small roundabout asseverating vehemently
that the price of firewood should be
brought down, if he stayed up till midnight three
nights in the week, to accomplish the benevolent
object. The club then proceeded to preamble
and resolve that they considered the liberty
of the citizens of this metropolis in imminent
danger, and that they would protect the
same at the hazard of their lives; by which the
Bottom Club meant, that they would hold themselves
prepared to breed a riot at five minutes'
notice, if found necessary to prevent a surplus
of voters on the opposite side from enjoying the
invaluable franchise of depositing their ballots.
Two sturdy members, belonging to the intellectual
and highly-refined fraternity of omnibus-drivers,
next pledged themselves in the most
earnest manner, to conduct their respective vehicles,
at such time as might be most apposite,
through the centre of any well-dressed crowd
that might be in the neighborhood of the poll,
and also to indulge in such incidental flourishes
of the whip on their way, as would inevitably
persuade the gentry to stand back. As beer and
brandy flowed through the club—which they
did, with a marvellous depth and celerity of
current—the tide of heady resolution deepended;
and they at length, in their extreme heat and
fervor, determined to throw off their coats to a
man, and enjoy a regular break-down dance
about the table.

With wonderful alacrity they carried this judicious
resolution into effect, by disrobing themselves
of coats, shad-bellies, and jackets, and
casting them in a heap on a sailor's chest established
under the eagle's wing. They then,
hand in hand, Hobbleshank and Puffer Hopkins
joining in, commenced capering in a circle,
dashing down, first the right heel and then the
left, with astonishing energy, and as if they
were driving in the nails of the floor all over
again; meantime roaring out the tag-ends of a

p265-180 [figure description] Page 177.[end figure description]

partisan song, which intimated that, “They
were the boys so genteel and civil, that cared
not a straw for Nick nor the devil;” with other
choice sentiments metrically stated. While
they were immersed in this elegant recreation,
a single gentleman—a member of the club—
who did not choose to partake thereof, sat apart
indulging in his own profound cogitations. He
was in many respects a peculiar personage,
and seemed to enjoy a copy-right way of his
own; which copy-right might have borne date
as early as his birth and entrance into the world,
for Nature had given him a pale, chalky countenance,
a sort of blank between youth and
age; a pair of knavish gray eyes, always turned
upward, and a nose of the same class, which
appeared most honestly to sympathize with
them. He was of a small, shrunken figure,
with a slight indication of a hump at the shoulders,
long, thin fingers, and legs of a somewhat
misshapen and imperfect character.

This singular little gentleman, as we said,
sat apart, indulging in his own thoughts; the
purport of which appeared presently to be, a
determination to investigate and scrutinize the
pockets of the various coats, jackets, and shad-bellies,
which had been laid aside by the dancers,
for to this task he now assiduously applied
himself, and while his companions were
enjoying themselves in their way, he enjoyed
himself in his own way, by divesting them of
such of their contents as suited his purposes,
whatever they might be. In this general scrutiny
it would have been an impeachment of his
talents as an inquisitor to have charged him
with neglecting the remotest corner or out-of-the-way
borough of the apparel either of Hobbleshank
or Puffer Hopkins.

Having accomplished this undertaking to his
own satisfaction, he established himself at a
side of the long table, planted a fur cap of great
antiquity, after a drunken fashion, over his
brows, dropped his head upon his folded arms,
and devoted himself, with great apparent zeal
and sincerity, to the business of sleeping.

Meantime the gentlemen of the Bottom Club
had wearied of their sport, and oppressed by
beer and hard work, they dropped into their
seats.

The pitcher went round, once, twice, and
thrice, and by this time they had attained an
elevation of conduct and expression that was
truly sublime to behold. The heavy-bearded
man swore, and laughed, and dashed his fist
upon the table, with the uproar of half-a-dozen
bakers at kneading time. The two omnibus-drivers,
for some unknown, and at this remote
period from the event, unconjecturable cause,
entered solemnly into a set-to, in which much
muscle and science were displayed, and which
ended in a most fraternal embrace under the
table.

A cadaverous, thoughtful man—not the chairman—
who was no talker but a wonderful deep
thinker and metaphysician, grew mysterious
and communicative, and hinted that he had
that in the pocket of his swallow-tail which
would raise a devil of a ferment if the public
but knew of it.

A fifth associate of the club, who still retained
an insufficient hat planted jauntily on
his head, thought it would be a capital idea—
a very capital idea—a devilish first-rate idea
in the way of a social re-organization—to get
together a parcel of gilt steeple-balls, and hatch
out a brood of young churches by clapping a
bishop upon them.

Another gentleman was inclined to think
that the Bottom Club had better mind its own
business, by petitioning the common council to
have jugglers appointed inspectors of election,
who could pass into the ballot-box two tickets
for one on their own side, and no tickets for
ever so many on the other.

A wide-mouthed member, the author of the
ditty that had been sung, and clerk and bell-ringer
to a neighboring market, became horribly
sentimental, shed tears in his beer, and
kissed his hand to the eagle at the other end of
the room. As the entertainments were manifestly
drawing to an end, Hobbleshank glanced
warily toward Puffer Hopkins, and made for
the door. But they were not let off so easily—
for simultancous with the rising of Puffer Hopkins
was that of the entire Bottom Club; and a
general friendly assault was begun upon the
person of that worthy young gentleman.

First, the gentlemen of the club insisted on
shaking hands all round toward the right, and
then all round toward the left; one or two
were resolved to embrace him, and did so; and
at last, after the pantomime, there was a unanimous
call for a speech from that gentleman,
which summons was, however, without a discovery
of the substitution on the part of the astute
members of the Bottom Club, responded to
by Hobbleshank, after his own peculiar fashion,
with a very happy allusion to the striped flag
and the refreshments.

The unshorn man hoped Puffer Hopkins
would come again, and vowed he was his friend
to command, from the state of Maine to Cape
May; and the metaphysical deep thinker, struggling
manfully with the beer he had imbibed,
promised next time to communicate something
of vital consequence to the welfare of this
Union; with which promises, protestations,
and God-speeds, Hobbleshank and Hopkins departed.