p299-140 THE BOYS THAT RUN WITH THE ENGINE.

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We are deceived. There is not so much inequality of
talent as the world supposes. From the earliest ages,
there has been a conspiracy of caste, to blind and to mislead
the mass of mankind, by giving a monopoly of fame
to those who stand in certain positions. To all the rest,
renown has been denied, and they have been content
with a lot, not inevitable, but cunningly imposed; and
thus the world, at every period, has been converted into
a crowd of “stupid starers”—shouters for self-constituted
idols, when, if the truth were known, thousands of those
who submit to be lookers-on, and to be shut from the
historic page altogether, not only possess genius equal to
that of the hero, but, actually, albeit in an humbler field,
give unhonoured manifestations of superior ability. The
difference is, that one man is framed, gilded, and hung
up against the wall, to be looked at and admired, while
another plods along the dusty highway, without attracting
notice. An accident has been wanting. A concurrence
of circumstances has brought about greatness in one
instance, when, in the other, the individual did not happen
to be within range of the breeze of fortune at the
proper moment; and hence, his sails flap idly against the
mast, while the happier ship proudly careers across the
seas. Luck may not be a very euphonical word; but
there is much in luck. Instances of course arise, in
which the individual has not the innate force to improve
his luck, and is, therefore, rather overwhelmed than benefitted
by it. If a man be crank, and lack ballast, he is
swamped by the prosperous gale; but there are many
others who lag behind, only because they need the

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external impetus which has been fatal to him. If, then,
any one stands before our eyes, sparkling with reputation
and glittering with glory—like Gesler's cap upon a pole,
to which all are required to bow—let us shade our eyes
from the effulgence, and do honour rather to the luck,
than to him who has been the subject of it. Let us enquire
whether it has been his own strength of limb, or
the brawny muscle of propitious fortune, which has
borne him up the steep, and let us pay our respects
accordingly.

Glory, in the main, is a delusion. It is too often rather
a concession on our part, than a merit in him to whom it
is accorded. It is not so much the talent we admire, as
the chance which gave room for its exhibition. The
same elements of character might be at our side for a life-time,
and receive no appreciation. It is only when they
are successfully displayed in the arena peculiarly dedicated
to glory, that our wonder is moved. The dexterity
of a Talleyrand may retail dry goods, but who writes the
history of him that wields a yard-stick? The strategic
talent of a Napoleon may be evinced in robbing the
“watermillion” patches of New Jersey; but where is the
O'Meara to note the sayings of one who expiates his
offences in a county jail? Humanity is unjust to itself.
If genius be the thing to be admired, why should it command
our homage more readily when attired in feathers
and embroidery, than when skulking in rags and tatters?
Are the constituents of heroism less worthy when their
owner is in the hands of a constable, than when he is incarcerated
in an island prison like St. Helena? Never
credit it. We are fools to our false views and erroneous
estimates. We are struck by the circumstance, and not
by the essential. The ragamuffin's head has not been
adorned with a laurel wreath—he never, perhaps, caused
an illumination, except when dragged from his thieving

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ambush in the coal-hole, by the light of a single candle;—
but analyze his actions, put his motives and his achievements
into the crucible of philosophic reflection, and then
determine whether, in a happier sphere, he would not
have stolen “crowns” where he now filches shillings,
and have appropriated empires, instead of “hooking”
boots from an entry. Is it not true, then, that we esteem
the lucks and chances of a man, much more than we
reverence the man himself? Why, even when hero
meets hero, he receives the applause who carries off the
victory, when it is plainly apparent that accident alone
was decisive of the conflict. A chance shot disables the
frigate,—the bugler is killed, and does not call “boarders
to repel boarders,”—an aid-de-camp fails to convey
orders,—a Grouchy does not bring up the reserve in
time,—the success is determined by some petty failure in
the details of a masterpiece of skill, and he is hailed the
great one who stumbles into triumph. Blind luck draws
the bow-string round the neck of genius, and the goose
pecks out the eyes of the eagle.

The same injustice prevails throughout. Why should
familiarity breed contempt, but that we have what may
be called a proclivity to humbug—a disposition to be
deceived? And yet it will always be found, that no man
is a hero to his valet-de-chambre—no, nor to his wife, his
children, or his friends, except in some rare instances.
Who can believe that Peter, by our side,—Peter, whom
we have known from childhood upwards,—Peter, whom
we have rebuked, rebuffed and perhaps cuffed,—who can
think that Peter is a genius? And why not Peter?—who
is inevitably better than Peter? Warriors and statesmen?
They were not born warriors and statesmen. They were
once little Peters, probably Peters not so promising as
yours. Scurvy little Peters, crying on the stairs—rebuked,
rebuffed and cuffed, no doubt, like him. But we

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know Peter—know him too well, and seem to lose the
power of appreciation by that intimate knowledge; and in
this respect, as in all others, it is distance and ignorance
combined, which creates our astonishment. Thus it is,
indeed, that they err, who wish to see the great ones
close at hand; and thus the great ones err, who suffer
themselves unnecessarily to be seen close at hand. He
who really desires to enjoy the enchantment of the drama,
is not wise in thrusting himself behind the scenes. The
tyrant does not become more awful, when it is observed
that his portentous moustache and terrific eye-brow are the
product of a burnt cork; nor are the dancing-girls a whit
more full of fascination, when it appears that their roseate
blushes are the quintessence of brick-dust. And what
literary lion is there, in the long list of those who have
visited our shores, who did not lose his mane by the adventure?—
who did not sink in public estimation, and
gradually decline from the majesty of a quadruped, into
the ordinary two-legged condition of the indigenous man?
Where, in fact, is the exception? Not one. Familiarity
is the “Lion King.” It reduces all such rampant creatures
to the mere household standard, and puts them to
sleep before the fire.

But all these things are nevertheless wrong. Genius
is genius, whether the chance be afforded or not;—it is
still genius, and the same genius, whether its field be
small or great;—it is genius, notwithstanding, however
close it may be in our intimacy, and the truth of our prelude
may be demonstrated in all its branches, by a slight
recurrence to the history of “The Boys that run with the
Engine.”

They are but imperfect observers of human nature, who
look abroad and look upwards, to note character in its
more striking developments. If their study is man, the
true materials for research are best found close at hand.

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History is a falsifier. All actions, when viewed from a
distance, are seen through a distorting medium. The
so-called chronicles of the times, are but the mirage of
the desert, in which the parties represented often appear
upside down, one swelling to a gigantic stature, while
another dwindles to dwarfish proportions. Motives are
mistaken and results are exaggerated, and he who hopes,
in this way, to arrive at knowledge through the medium
of written records, must, by dint of preparatory study on
the living subject, have learned to separate the reality
from the fictitious. Cabinets and camps are well enough,
to be sure, if we are on our guard against the deceptive
glare which is almost invariably thrown around them—
if we are gifted with that rare discrimination which considers
the man himself, and not his embroidery; but, in
the generality of cases, it is our weakness to regard as
fine birds, all poultry which has been lucky enough to
trig itself out in fine feathers, and hence we are led into
errors innumerable,—our swans are geese, and the turkey
is often degraded to the rank of a buzzard. If, however,
we turn from courts and camps and cabinets, to the
engine houses of a great metropolis, we shall there find
action, and the springs to action,—action as energetic,
and the springs to action as forcible, as are to be seen
any where,—laid open to our view, without gilding and
without guile. Here is manhood in its opening flower,—
in the summer morning of its restlessness. The untrimmed
colt of aspiring ambition prances upon this plain;
a colt which may hereafter be the war-horse, with his
neck clothed in thunder—a more striking adornment,
as must readily be admitted, than even one of Tennent's
best fitting stocks, in all the glory of shining satin.
Diplomacy may perhaps be expanding in this group,
little restrained by the weak embraces of a thread-bare
jacket, and, by its side, stands that emulation, which

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may lead to the pinnacle of fame, though at present content
with carrying a torch, with bearing the massive
weight of a branch-pipe, with having the head of a rope,
or with having the hand of control upon the tongue of
the carriage. All propelling qualities are developed
here, and “the boys that run with the engine” have
within them every faculty necessary, in a more polished
condition, for the conduct of an empire.

And it is for these reasons, that “the boys that run
with the engine,” are deemed worthy of being sketched
by the cunning hand of the artist, and of having their
mental characteristics pourtrayed in an essay especially
devoted to the subject. Fastidious refinement may turn
its head aside in scorn, to luxuriate upon the historical
novel or the metaphysical romance, to contemplate representations
of man as he is not, and of woman as she ought
not to be; but these things are passing away, and it is to
be the glory of our time to “catch the manners living as
they rise,”—to look upon nothing as beneath its notice
which contributes to modify the dispositions of the
age.

Who, let us ask, is more of a “feature” in the countenance
of the times, as they exist hereabouts, than these juvenile
Rosicrucians—these Ghebers—these modern Fire-worshippers?
Who stand out more prominently on the
face of things than they who, by night and by day, sweep
like the wind along the streets, and, by their obstreperous
clamour, prevent even echo from indulging in a protracted
nap? Who are more active, more courageous, more
constantly on the alert,—who make more noise in the
world, or force their way more readily through every
obstruction, causing all people and all things to give way
before them, than “the boys that run with the engine?”
Who are more frequently heard, more often felt, or more
continually seen than these skimmers of the street, and

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are they not to find a place in the portraiture of the period?
It would be a gross dereliction of duty to suffer them to
pass unheeded.

The “spirit of fire,” which early seizes upon a considerable
portion of the youth of cities, is so far from
being properly subject to those who have that limited
species of control over them, which is accorded to parents
and guardians, that perhaps it may be said, there is no
other branch of insubordination which causes so much
trouble and uneasiness. To the “boss,” whose apprentices
have reached the state of development necessary for
the reception of the fever, an alarm of fire is a perfect
horror—not because his sympathies with the probable
sufferer are excessive—not because he mourns over the
ragings of the destructive element; but because he knows
that, under such circumstances, his authority is neutralized
and negatived—that his influence is so far gone that
“moral suasion” will not keep his boys to their work,
and that, if he expects that the shop is not to be left to
take care of itself, he must prevent its depopulation by
bringing the strong arm in play. To lock the door is
not sufficient, while windows remain practicable, and
even should the windows be hermetically sealed, egress
by the chimney would not be thought too much of a feat
to meet the call of paramount duty. Should the alarm
come in the night, it is in vain that the “old man”—all
superiors are “old men,” in modern phraseology, and our
standing in that respect is measured by rank, not years—
has made all fast and gone chuckling to bed, with the key
under his pillow. He forgets that sheds and fences and
out-houses are as available to intrepidity as a staircase, and
that “the boy that runs with the engine” can travel over
the exterior of a house with as little embarrassment as if
the laws of gravitation exercised no influence over him—
that, with his jacket under his arm and his boots slung

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about his neck, no denizen of the forest can run up perpendiculars
more cleverly than he; and, while the aforesaid
“boss” notes the heavy eyes and nodding heads
which hang during the day so listlessly over their task,
he never arrives at the true secret until he discovers that
“there was a fire last night.” Little did he dream—
poor unsuspicious soul!—when the midnight bell struck
on his ear, and he turned him again to sleep, after ascertaining
the key to be safe in its snug position—that Tom
and Dick and Ben, and all the rest, were off in triumph,
and that the energies which should have been expended
in his service, according to the articles of apprenticeship,
had been exhausted in extinguishing far distant flames.
He never thought that those hoarse yells, which broke his
rest with momentary dismay, emanated from most familiar
voices, nor that the unintelligible, but none the less fearful
on that account, “waugh-baugh-wulla-balloo!” which
sounded so dreadfully before his door, mingled with the
clanging of the bell and the fitful glancing of torches, was
a derisive cry, uttered for his especial edification, by one
of those whom he believed still to be slumbering in the
garret. Nor when at breakfast time, he told the lads how
loud was the alarm last night, and how the signal indicated
that the danger lay “nor-west,” did he mark the
cunning wink which stole from eye to eye, in mockery
of the ignorance that would give them information upon
a subject so familiar. Why the lads are all so harsh in
their tones, he cannot imagine, unless it be that the influenza
is about; but he does think that the variety of soil
upon their boots, indicates the fact of more previous travel
than he was aware of. At such times also, there are apt
to be unaccountable deficiencies in the quantity of cold
provisions in the cellar, which are scarcely to be attributed
to the gastronomic performances of a single cat. The
amateur fireman, on the return from service, is apt to

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feel the calls of appetite, and as he is, as it were, a principle
essential to the well-being of real estate, he takes
due care to nourish himself accordingly.

The learned may not perhaps have taken due cognisance
of the fact, but, in some divisions of knowledge,
the extent of information obtained by “the boys that run
with the engine,” is well calculated to move our wonder.
The amount of their acquaintance with local topography,
qualifies them to write articles for the Encyclopedia.
Not a court, lane or alley—not a hole nor a corner, in the
vast circumference of the town, which is not considerably
more familiar to them than a glove. They are the Plutarchs
of fire-plugs, knowing the history of each, and the
comparative merits of all. At every conflagration within
their experience, they can tell what engines were in service,
what hose companies had “attachments,” and how
many feet of hose were brought in play—who was earliest
on the ground, and obtained the most effective position,
with many other particulars with which the world, greatly
to its disadvantage, is never likely to become conversant.
If it were the nature of “the boys” to write, the annals
of the parish, as they would record them, could not fail
to form a whole library in itself.

On the score of emulation too, these lads are not to be
surpassed by the most ambitious of ancient or modern
times. Other people are regardful of creature comforts.
They will break away from the most interesting employment,
because dinner is ready, or because the hour has
come when they are in the habit of imbibing tea. When
the time arrives for going to bed, they cease from their
labours and get them to repose. They are slaves to
routine, and must travel continually in the accustomed
circle, or they are wretched in proportion to the extent to
which they have deviated; but it is not so with “the
boys that run with the engine.” The eccentricity is their

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delight. Rest, sleep, food, are nothing to them when
weighed in the balance with the pleasure of dragging a
heavy machine through the mud; and, that they may be
first at the engine house, they have often been known, on
the frostiest night, to leap from their warm couches,
rushing forth with their garments in a bundle, to dress
when they had reached their destination. Can disinterestedness,
generous emulation and glowing ambition,
attain a more exalted climax than this? It does not lie
within the range of possibility, and the higher value will
be affixed to it, when it is remembered that many of
these “young youths” have quite another character in the
more ordinary affairs of life. In matters of mere domestic
concernment, they who will labour so strenuously in the
cause of the engine, are, in frequent instances, found to be
in no way addicted to excessive exertion. A night alarm
will draw those from their beds, who are not easily enticed
therefrom at the call of business; and the most
lethargic lounger that ever dozed when he should have
been waking, or that ever skulked when work was at
hand, will cheerfully encounter any toil, if it happen to be
connected with the duties of the hose house.

The leading characteristic, however, of the class to
which we refer, is valour—enterprise, energy and valour.
Where could a nobler combination be discovered?
Next to a fire, the most glorious object to their view, is
a fight. But when both unite—when a fight is found at
a fire, and when the fire lights the way to a fight, who
are happier than “the boys that run with the engine?”
And reason good, if it be true that martial heroism is a
matter worthy of our aspirations. The elements of war
conjoin. The flames crackle—the fierce hurrah goes up—
columns charge—the heavy artillery comes lumbering
through the press—shrieks, groans, imprecations and denunciations,
are mingled thick with blows and thrusts.

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The glittering trumpet takes the place of the flashing
sabre, and quick as lightning, cuts “six” upon the head
and shoulders of the foe, stretching him senseless in the
kennel. The massive “spanner” makes short work of
the stoutest tarpaulin, and though the combatants may
long for the bullet, yet those who have had much experience
in the force of projectiles, have discovered that but
for the name of the thing, brickbats are likely to answer
just as well. All the joy of conflict is called forth in
such a field. It is not the distant and cold-blooded courtesy
of scientific manœuvre, where legs usurp the prerogative
of arms—it is the forlorn hope, the escalade, the
storm, the hand-to-hand engagement, developing “the
worth of the individual” and giving scope to personal
prowess—this is what invests it with fascination for the
engine boy; and what more could be accomplished, even
at a Waterloo, than to be picked up for dead and carried
home on a shutter? The essentials of glory are every
one attainable in such a struggle, and it is but that short-sightedness
on the part of the world, to which we have
already alluded, which prevents the proper distribution
of praise. It is true that the scarred veteran obtains no
pension to compensate for his knocks; but does that argue
that they did not smart as much as wounds that are better
paid for? The victor receives neither title nor riband;
but, in all likelihood, he has been quite as cruel, brutal and
oppressive, to the extent of the opportunity, as if he were
honoured with both.

In all associations, whether of men, boys or sheep,
there is invariably a bell-wether—a master spirit; one
who affords colour to their modes of thought, and furnishes
aim for their actions—who warms their spirit when their
courage flags—who lends them enterprise when they
falter, and gives concentration to their efforts. In an extended
sphere, such individuals bestow character on

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nations and on ages, leaving their impress upon all, and, in
a more confined circle, the personal stamp, though not so
widely spread, is made with equal distinctness. In the
group which forms the subject of our story, such a one
will be seen in the person of Hickey Hammer,—he who
leans against the wall, with club in hand and with a most
majestic sternness in his countenance—he, with the game-cock
look all over him—he, whose combativeness and
destructiveness are so prominent as to render it unavoidable
to wear his hat aslant, that, on one side at least, these
organs may be comparatively cool, to ensure safety to his
friends—he, Hickey Hammer, who has fierceness enough
in his composition to furnish a whole menagerie, and yet
leave sufficient surplus to animate and constitute a warrior.
Were there ample swing for Hickey Hammer—
had we the delights of civil war, or the charms of a revolution,
there would be one more added to the list of
heroes, and another picture would figure in the print shops.
But as it is, Hickey contrives to find some vent for his
inspiration, by getting up a quarrel about once a day, and
nourishing it into a genial combat—otherwise, he would
explode from the attrition of his own fiery spirits. Hickey
Hammer “runs with the engine,” because it goes to fight
fire, and he almost wishes that he were a bucket of water,
to grapple more directly with so fierce a foe. So irresistible
is his call to contend, that he is obliged to gratify
it, whether there be an object present or not. When he
goes to bed at night, or when he rises in the morning, the
exercise of his muscles is an invariable concomitant.
He strikes the air, parries imaginary blows, and passes
through all the action of a “heady fight,” with an energy
that is really alarming. Every door in the house bears
the imprint of his knuckles, and the very tables are splintered
by the weight of his fist. The “cocked hat” is to
him the beau ideal of shapes, and he labours to knock all

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things into that antiquated resemblance. Should old time
venture within reach of his arm, the existing moment
would at once be converted, by a similar process, into
“the middle of next week.”

It will be seen that one of his devoted admirers is endeavouring
to tell him a story about a Mr. Tompkins,
who had recently distinguished himself at a fire, and that
Hickey Hammer listens with his usual scornful impatience.

“Tompkins!” said Hickey, on the occasion referred
to; “well, and who is Tompkins, your great Tompkins?
Now I'll bring this thing to a pint at once; for when
there's so much talk, there's never a bit of fight.”

“I didn't say any thing about fight,” was the trembling
remonstrance of the admirer.

“But you cracked Tompkins up, didn't you, and
Tompkins pretends to be great shakes, don't he? What's
that but fight, I should like to know? Now the thing,
as I said before, is just this, and no more than
this. I don't pretend to be much; but can Tompkins
lick me? Could he lick me any way, fair stand up
and no closing in, or could he do it, rough and tumble
and no letting up? Talking about people is nonsense—
this is the how, to find out what a chap is good for.
Fetch on your Tompkins, and tie my right hand behind
me, if you like—that's all—yes, and he shall have six
cracks at me before I begin. I'm not particular about
odds. When you see this Tompkins, tell him so, and
ask if he or his big brother, if he has got one, or any of
the family, boss and all, would like to knock a chip off
my hat any afternoon. I'll clear them of the law. I
want them to do it—I'd give 'em something if they'd
do it. Just feel my arm—hickory and gum logs! Talk
of your Tompkinses! Who did they ever lick? I don't
even believe they were ever taken up because they were

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going to fight. Only wait till there's an alarm some
Sunday, and then show me Tompkins, if you want to see
a man forget what he had for dinner.”

In fact, Hickey Hammer considers himself sent here on
a special mission, to accommodate all customers, and
whenever he hears of a new comer, his first inquiry is
as to the individual's appreciation of his own prowess—
whether, like Tompkins, “he thinks he can lick Hickey
Hammer.” If he does think so, and ventures to say so,
why, Mr. Hammer sees to it that the difference of opinion
may be settled on the spot. So great is his love of truth,
that he cannot bear to leave any one in error upon a
point of such interest and importance. Had Hammer
lived in earlier times, he would have been the very flower
of chivalry—at present, he only rejoices in the distinction
of being “a bird.”

When squabbles are scarce and riots are a little out of
fashion, such events being somewhat epidemic, Mr.
Hammer, following the example of other great men,
makes the circumstance to suit himself, and, gathering a
flock of pupils and proselytes around him, often sets forth
on what he calls the “grand rounds.” This process consists
in taking an evening ramble from one engine house
to another, to have a glance at the collection of boys
there assembled; for each establishment has its separate
set of votaries, who believe that all virtue resides in their
gang, and that all excellence is combined in their engine.
If there are enough present to render the scene impressive,
Hickey Hammer sternly confronts the strangers, and, with
a lowering aspect, thus addresses them:

“Well, my lads, where's the bully?”

“What bully?” is the natural response, from those who
are yet to be indoctrinated into Mr. Hammer's mode of
doing business.

“I want to see the bully of this company—you've got

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a bully, I suppose. Everybody says so. Where is he?
Tell him to come to supper,” and, that there may be no
mistake as to his meaning, Hickey throws himself into
position, dealing forth experimental blows in the very
face of the bystanders, so nicely calculated as to distance,
that they are enabled to feel the “whiff and wind,” without
experiencing personal detriment, the insult being
assault enough, though rather constructive than positive,
and having no taint of battery.

If a bully be forthcoming, which is not often the case
upon an emergency so sudden and unexpected, the consequences
are obvious. The combat either comes off at
once, or is fixed for a more convenient spot and a subsequent
meeting. But, should the assailed party be without
a champion, Hickey challenges any two, or more, if
they like to undertake him, and this mode of proceeding
generally results in a set-to all round, requiring a constabulary
suppression, and furnishing material for many a
tale of traditionary narrative, in which Hickey Hammer
figures as the hero; in consequence whereof, all “the
boys that run with the engine,” of which Hickey Hammer
may be regarded as the patron, are Hickey Hammerites
in word and deed. They roll their trowsers up
higher than other boys—they roar louder than other
boys; they take the engine out on Sundays, and, if they
cannot get a fight in any other way, they dash deliberately
into every “carriage” that passes. Rare boys are “the
boys that run with the engine”—the choice and master-spirits
of the time.

p299-157 JACK SPRATTE'S REVENGE. A PISCATORIAL EPISODE.

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Do you know Mrs. Brownstout? Everybody ought
to know Mrs. Brownstout; for Mrs. Brownstout is in the
market—not for sale—matrimonially speaking, her market
was made long ago, and thence was derived the
hearty appellation in which she rejoices. But, as she
occupies a conspicuous stand in the Fish Market, it is
therefore presumed that everybody knows Mrs. Brownstout,
who presides over the eventful destinies of shad
and “pearch” and rockfish. That is, they know her
“superfishally,” if we may be allowed the expression—
in her commodities and in her outward appearance.
When she passes by, they possess that degree of acquaintance
with her exterior, to enable them to say “there goes
Mrs. Brownstout;” and when she is seated at her stand—
strange perversity of human nature, that it is always sure
to sit at its stand!—people are positive that it is really
Mrs. Brownstout. They recognise her by her gait, or
by her costume, or by the piscatorial circumstances that
surround her, which is about as much as the world in
general knows of any body. But the moral Mrs. Brownstout—
the historical Mrs. Brownstout—the metaphysical
Mrs. Brownstout—in short, the spiritual Mrs. Brownstout,
as contra-distinguished from the apparent Mrs. Brownstout,
who merely sells her fishes and takes your money,
why, what does society at large know of her? To the
popular eye, she counts one in the sum total of humanity—
a particle, and nothing more, in the vast conglomeration
of the breathing universe. There is no perception
of her mental identity—her intellectual idiosyncrasy

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attracts no attention—her past and her future are not inquired
into—the Mrs. Brownstout retrospective, and the
Mrs. Brownstout prospective, are equally disregarded, so
that those ambitious of shad may find her to be the Mrs.
Brownstout present; and thus the life of this estimable
lady, like the lives of most of us, is narrowed down to
the single point of immediate action—she and we are
important only when it happens that our services are
wanted. Our story—who has not got a story?—all our
beings, doings and sufferings—our loves, hopes, successes
and disappointments—all the trouble we have taken—the
vexations we have endured—the triumphs we have
achieved—who that encounters us in the street, ever thinks
of them, or reflects that each of us, as we pass on our
winding way, is a volume of exquisite experiences, bound
in calf, and well worthy of the closet perusal? Not one,
of all the vast multitude which throngs the path; and
hence it is that the world, collectively considered, is more
distinguished by folly than by wisdom, learning nothing
from the problems that have already been solved, but
preferring to stumble onward, from the beginning to the
end, without borrowing a ray of light from the lanterns of
those who have gone before.

But it has been resolved that Mrs. Brownstout shall not
be sacrificed in this unceremonious manner—that some
passages of her existence shall be snatched from oblivion,
to amuse or instruct, as the case may be, at least a portion
of those into whose hands our pages may be destined
to fall. For Mrs. Brownstout, notwithstanding the energetic
expression of the outward woman, has had her
share of the disasters which seem inevitable to the susceptible
temperament. She, too, has had her “trials of the
heart,” and has felt that though the poets seem to think
that the sphere of young love's gambols is chiefly located
“among the roses,” he may yet exercise much potency

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

when playing among the fishes. There is no scale armour
against the darts of Cupid, and, however steeled against
such impressions the fair one may be, it is found, sooner
or later, that she falls a prey to the tender passion.

It is an admitted fact, made evident by repeated observation,
that this world is full of people—men people and
women people—and that there are some among both,
who set out and travel to a considerable distance on their
earthly journey, upon the self-sustaining principle of
celibacy, in a heroic effort not to be bothered with appendages,
forgetting that, by a singular provision of
nature, their proper condition is that of being bothered,
and that, though they cannot see it, they must be bothered,
to be at all comfortable. When we are alone, we are not
bothered; yet who likes to be alone?


“Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place,”
said Selkirk, in default of the noise of children and of his
wife's “alarms,” and Selkirk had learned that stagnation
is a tiresome piece of work. A few of those, to whom
reference is made, protract their restless and uneasy experiment
of trying to live a quiet unperplexed life, in
which they are unquiet, and very much perplexed, until
the period for all human experiment is over. But the
great majority fail for lack of nerve, and retract, from a
late discovery of the truth. Your Benedicks and Beatrices
are almost sure to participate in the lot of those delineated
by the first of dramatists—they are certain, somehow or
other, to sink into the very calamity against which they
formerly protested, and, in an unguarded hour, malignant
fate delights to betray them to the common weakness.

To some extent, it was the fortune of Mrs. Brownstout
to be a living illustration of the truth of this principle. In
her maiden days, Miss Felicia Phinney laughed at the
importunities of her numerous admirers. Having early

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

gone into the fish business, she was confident in her own
resources, and felt but little disposed to sink to a secondary
place in the firm; and, therefore, “the gentlemen in
waiting” each experienced a rebuff, so sharply administered,
that they were but little disposed to put themselves
again in the way of being similarly astonished—as she
had a method of conducting herself little calculated to
mollify the disappointment experienced upon such occasions.

One night—it was a lovely night, during a warm spell
which succeeded a “cold snap,” in the early part of the
spring—shad were selling at seventy-five cents, and were
scarce at that—the moon shone sweetly upon the chimney-tops—
the fire-plugs, which were lucky enough to be on
the north side of the street, were tinged and tinted with
lines of fairy silver, and the beams of softened light played
with romantic effect upon the craggy sides and rough
fastnesses of the curb-stones. A balmy southern breeze
sighed through the streets and loitered round the corners
in lazy luxury, whispering soft nonsense in the ears of
the somnolent Charleys, as they dreamily indulged in
beatific visions of hot coffee and buckwheat cakes. All
nature, including the brickbats and paving-stones, seemed
to be wrapped in happy repose. The dogs barked not;
even the cats had ceased to be vocal, and when any of
these nocturnal wanderers appeared, it was plain from
their stealthy step and subdued deportment, that they, too,
felt the influence of the hour, and were unwilling to disturb
the magnificent but tranquil harmony of the picture.
It was, in short, a very fine night, particularly for the
season, and, though used by the undiscriminating many
for the mere domestic purposes of snoring slumber, for
which the coarser kind of night would answer just as well,
yet this especial night was worthy of a more elevated
fate; and it may be regarded as a great pity that such

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

nights as these do not come in the daytime, when they
would be better seen and more thoroughly admired—as
sleep, for the most part, is imperative, and as there are but
few of us who can manage its performance with our eyes
open.

The main object of nights of this description, taking it
for granted that every thing has its purpose, is to soften
the heart—to render it flexible, malleable, and susceptible
to the softer impressions. The sun, for instance, melts
the ice, and gives plasticity to many descriptions of candy;
but its warmest rays are ineffective, so far as the sympathies
of the soul are concerned. No one is apt to fall in
love at mid-day, or is much disposed to a declaration of
passion, at three o'clock of a sunny afternoon. Existence,
at these periods, is, in the main, altogether practical
and unimaginative—good enough, no doubt, for buying
and selling, and the eating of dinners; but not at all calculated
to elicit the poetry of the affections. Whereas
your moonlight evenings, when the frost is out of the
ground, play Prometheus to sentiment, and, when the
patient is not addicted to cigars and politics, both of which
are antagonistical to this species of refinement, are sure
to induce the bachelor to think that his condition is incomplete,
and that there are means by which he might
be made considerably happier. Thus it is that “our life
is twofold”—that before tea we are one person, and that
after this interesting event, we are somebody else.

It was on such an evening as we have attempted somewhat
elaborately to describe, and it was under such a
state of circumstances as we have incidentally alluded to,
that Jack Spratte escorted Miss Felicia Phinney home
from a tea party, given among themselves by the fish-merchants.
Jack Spratte had been as merry as a “grigge”
throughout the entertainment. He had danced and he
had sung—he had played “pawns” and “Copenhagen”

[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]

—he had “sighed in a corner”—he had loved his love
with a “C,” because she was “curious,” “crusty” or
“crooked,” and so forth; but still Jack Spratte was
heartwhole—sound as a roach, and as gracefully playful
as an eel. Jack Spratte, in that blind confidence for
which some men are remarkable, thought that the hook
had not yet been baited which was destined to discompose
the serenity of his gills, and that he was no catfish in a
pool, devoted to an early fry. He little dreamed that
celibacy is very “unsartin,” and that the cork lines and
the lay-out lines, together with the dipsies, to say nothing
of the gilling seines, the floats and the scoop-nets, are
always about, and that the most innocent nibble may
result in a captivation.

Jack Spratte was strong in spirit when he stepped forth
from the festive hall, and crooked his dexter arm for the
accommodation of Miss Felicia Phinney. He was jocose
in his criticisms and observations for a square or two, and
he reviewed the sports of the evening with a degree of
humour which entitled him to rank with the wits of the
time. But the night was one not to be resisted, even by
Jack Spratte. He soon found that his chest—the chest
enclosing his susceptibilities—was not a safety chest,
not a fireproof asbestos chest, such as they roast under
cords of blazing hickory, and submit without damage to
vast conflagrations—but, on the contrary, though he
never suspected it before, rather a weak chest—he had
an oppression at the chest—in short, an affection of the
chest, resulting in a palpitation of the heart—and his
tongue became hard and dry, while there was a peculiar
whizzing in his ears, as if the “Ice-breaker” were suddenly
letting off steam. He stammered and he trembled.

“It can't be the punch,” observed Jack Spratte, internally
to himself; “it can't be the punch that makes
me such a Judy. I didn't take enough of it for that—

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

no, nor do I believe it is the fried oysters; for I put plenty
of Cayenne pepper and mustard on 'em.”

No, Jack Spratte; it was neither the punch nor the
oysters. They are wronged by the suspicion. It was
the moonlight, chiefly, and Miss Felicia Phinney in the
second place. Amid the oysters, the punch and the
blazing lamps—amid the joke, the laugh and the song—
yea, even in the romp and in the redemption of pawns,
Jack Spratte was safe. But a walk into the air proved
fatal to him. The contrast was too much for his constitution,
like an icy draught on an August day. Mirth
often reacts into sensibility, and the liveliest strain easily
modulates into tenderness; just as extreme jocundity in a
child is but the prelude to a flood of tears.

Jack Spratte acted without premeditation, and instinctively
thought it wiser to begin afar off, and to approach
the subject by circumvallation. His first parallel was laid
as follows:

“Miss Phinney,” said he, and his voice faltered as he
spoke, “Miss Phinney, don't you think that pearches is
good, but that rockfishes is nicer—better nor sunnies?”

“Why, every goose knows that,” replied the lady,
forgetting, in her dislike to the professional allusion of
Spratte's remark, that geese are not particularly addicted
to fish—“but what are you talking about sich things now
for? We're not setting on the end of the wharf, I'd like
to know—are we?”

“No, we're not,” hastily ejaculated Jack Spratte, who
felt that the crisis of his fate was at hand; “but oh, Miss
Phinney!—oh, Miss Felicia Phinney!—don't trifle with
my dearest affekshins—don't keep me a danglin' and a
kickin', with a big hook right through the gristle of my
nose!”

The figurative style in which passion is apt to indulge,
was strikingly manifest in Mr. Spratte's mode of

[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

expression; but it may well be doubted whether it operated in
a way likely to promote his cause.

“Well, if ever I heerd of sich a tarnal fool!” was Miss
Phinney's unkind response; “Jack Spratte, I've not got
hold of your nose yet, whatever I may do if you keep
a cuttin' up in this crazy sort of way; and as for your
affekshins, take care there isn't kicks about your other
shins, which might hurt worse. Why—what—do—you—
mean—anyhow?” continued she, with great emphasis
and deliberation.

“I mean,” gasped Jack Spratte, so overcome by the
contending emotions of love and fear, that he was constrained
to catch hold of a lamp-post with his disengaged
hand, to prevent himself from falling; “what I mean is
this—you've got a nibble—yes, you've got a bite!—haul
me up quick, thou loveliest of sitters in the Jarsey market—
haul me up quick, and stow me away in your basket.
I'm hook'd and I am cotch'd—I'm your `catty' forvermore.
String me on a willow switch, and lug me right
away home!”

And Jack Spratte came near fainting upon the spot.
His heart was laid open—a feat of amatory surgery which
almost proved fatal to the daring lover.

Miss Felicia Phinney stepped back and gazed at him
in undisguised amazement.

“You, Jack!” said she, “you'd better jine the teeto-tallers
to-morrow, when you've got the headache. You
must be snapt now—any man that acts so queer, must be
blue.”

“No, no, no!—I thought it was the punch myself,
at first—but it's not—it's love—nothing but love—love,
without no water, no sugar, nor no nutmeg. They
couldn't make punch so strong—not even with racky-fortus,
stirred up with lignum-witey! Take pity on me,
do! Mayn't I hope, Phinney, mayn't I hope? If you

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

hav'n't time to love me now, I can wait till you're ready—
yes, wait a hopin'.”

“You're much more likely to be sent a hoppin', Mr.
Jack Spratte.”

“I only want to be on an understandin' now—sort of
engaged, and sort of not engaged—just to know who I
belong to.”

“Well, once for all, you wont belong to me, Jack
Spratte, no how it could be fixed,” and Miss Felicia
Phinney began to look enchantingly savage.

“Ah, now, don't—the cork's under—pull me up—
ah, do!”

Jack Spratte sank upon his knees, with mouth open
and upturned, as if he expected to be taken in hand immediately,
and to have the hook gently and scientifically
extracted, after the fashion of the experienced angler;
but he was doomed to disappointment; and, to continue
the metaphor, he may be regarded as a trout that broke
the snood, and was left among the bulrushes, to pine away,
with the barb deep in its gullet—an image, to express
this peculiar state of things, which is quite as poetical,
true and striking as if allusion were had to the “stricken
deer,” or to the “arrow-wounded dove.” Birds and
quadrupeds have had a monopoly in this matter quite too
long, and original sentiment must now prepare to dive
among the fishes, for the sake of novel illustration.

“Jack Spratte,” said the “scornful ladye,” “quit
lookin' like a sturgeon with the mumps—I've done with
you—get up and tortle home the straightest way there is,
and think yourself confounded lucky that you didn't get
spanked this very night. Marry you, indeed!—why, I
wouldn't marry a decent man, or a good-lookin' man, or a
man with some sort of sense in his head; and nobody
would ever tell so big a whacker as to say you are sich a
one. Now, do you hooey home, and don't try to follow

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

me, if you happen to know when a fool is well off;” and
the “scornful ladye” walked disdainfully away, with an
air like Juno in her tantrums.

Jack Spratte remained upon his knees, as if converted
into a perfect petrifaction. His eyelids never twinkled—
he seemed not even to breathe—to all intents and purposes,
he was, for the time being, a defunct Spratte, and
it is presumed that, to this day, he would still have been
found upon the same spot, like a spratte done in salt, if
the watchman had not threatened to arrest him for being
non com.

“Where is she?” exclaimed he wildly, as he started
to his feet.

“Where is what?” said the nocturnal perambulator.

“Mrs. Spratte!” cried Jack, with a bewildered air,
“Mrs. Jack Spratte, that is to be. I'm goin' to be married,
aint I?”

“I don't know whether you're going to be married
or not,” was the petulant reply; “but, if you don't go
away, you'll be like to spend the rest of the evening with
the capun, at the watch'us. It's not my business to tell
people when they're goin' to be married, whether they're
sprattes or gudgeons.”

“Yes, that's it—I am—I am a gudgeon!” said Spratte,
smiting his forehead and then darting away.

“A werry flat sort of a fish, that chap is,” said Charley,
with a sage expression.

Jack Spratte went directly home, just as he had been
bid—he went home, not with any definite purpose in
view—he did not want to sleep, he did not want to eat,
he did not want to sit down—he merely experienced an
undefined “want to go home,” peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon
race, when they do not exactly know what to do
with themselves, (all other people go out, under similar
circumstances,) and, therefore, home he went, very much

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

after the fashion of a livery-stable horse, when the gig
has been demolished, or the rider left in some friendly
ditch. He came home like a whirlwind; but yet his feelings
were those which may be supposed to belong to the
minor vegetables—the most diminutive of the potato tribe.
He had not been “strung upon a willow switch”—he,
Jack Spratte, was enrolled among the “great rejected”—
a goodly company enough; but he derived no consolation
from the thought.

Jack Spratte vowed vengeance!—Jack Spratte kept
his word!!

Many other lovers shared the fate which had befallen
the unhappy Spratte; and, to the general eye, it certainly
did appear as if Felicia Phinney was to realize her boast,
that “if other gals had to take up with husbands, she, at
least, could do without a master,” though it was perhaps
clear enough that, in any event, the master was likely to
be but a “negative quantity.”

Miss Felicia Phinney waxed onward in years, and, as
her years increased, her energy and her commanding
spirit seemed to gather new strength. She became omnipotent
in the market-house, and wo to those who dared
to undersell, or tried too perseveringly to cheapen her
commodities.

“Why now, aunty, is that the lowest?” was sometimes,
and not unfrequently, the question.

“Sattingly—what d'ye 'spect?—Fishes is fishes now,
and shad is skurse,” would be the tart reply, and the
saleswoman would slap a pair of shad together, until they
resounded through the arches of the market like the report
of a swivel—“skurse enough, and the profits being
small, them as prices, ought to buy—that's the principle
I go upon,” and the fishes would again be brought in
contact, to the great discomposure of all who happened
to be within hearing.

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

In appeals of this sort, the maiden fish-woman seldom
failed to be successful—especially when the customer
happened to be rather unpractised in the affairs of the
market—for there was something peculiarly imposing in
her tone and attitude, as she held a fish by the gills in each
hand. Mark Antony himself was not more persuasive
over the remains of the slain Cæsar, than was Miss Felicia
Phinney when haranguing over her “skurse shad.”

“Ha! ha! it's well she bought something,” would be
the after remark, “for if there's any thing I hate to do,
it is being obligated and necessiated to flop a customer
over the head with a shad—'specially if it's a lady, with
a bran-new, tearin' fine bonnet—a hard flop with a shad
is sudden death and run for the coroner, on spring fashions.
But when people prices, they've got to buy. I go
for principles, and if they wont buy, why, flopped they
ought to be, and flopped they must be, or our rights will
soon be done for. People are gettin' so sassy now, that
by'm'by, if they're not learnt manners, they'll take our
shad for nothin', and make us carry 'em home to boot.

There certainly appears to be a retributive principle in
nature, which, sooner or later, victimizes us as we have
victimized others—a species of moral lex talionis, which
returns the ingredients of our chalice to our own lips.
No man ever made a greater “bull” than he who manufactured
a brazen representative of the animal, that
Phalaris might roast his victims in it, and hear their bellowing
cries—for the ingenious artificer was himself the
earliest victim, and roared like a calf. The original
hangman does not live in story. It is but fair, however,
to infer that he died by the rope, and either strangled
himself, or had that friendly office performed for him by
another. All who introduced refinements in the application
of the axe—that most aristocratic of executive

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

instruments—have themselves been subjected to a different
process of “shortening” from any set down in Miss
Leslie's “Domestic Cookery;” and probably the inventor
of solitary confinement and the “Pennsylvania system of
prison discipline,” was she of the “mistleto bough”—the
identical lady of the “old oak chest.” The retributive
principle goes even further than this. There are retributive
husbands and retributive wives—such, at least, do
they seem to be—whose office appears to consist in being
a penance for previous jiltings, previous flirtations, and
antecedent insults of all kinds, to the blind little gentleman
who primitively sports with bow and arrow, disdaining
recourse to the use of fire-arms. In this sense, Mr.
Brownstout was a retribution—a retribution for all the
past offences of Miss Felicia Phinney. He had been
ambushed far onward in her course through time; so
that when she thought the past forgotten, and when she
had measurably forgotten the past, the retributive husband
might, like a steel trap, be sprung upon her.
Whether Brownstout—Mr. Brownstout—had been created
and trained for this especial purpose, does not appear.
He was but a little fellow, it is true—in this respect, his
person and his name were in evident contradiction to
each other; but he was an ample sufficiency to bring
about the purposes for which he was intended.

There is, they say, such a thing as love at first sight—
an instantaneous attack, resembling somewhat the unexpected
assault of cholera, in Calcutta or thereabouts, where
the victim, doubled up, at once falls to the ground. This
spontaneous combustion is not perhaps so frequent in
modern days, as when the world was younger. Time and
change, atmospherical or otherwise, modify all disorders,
and by these influences, love, like the lightning, has, to
a considerable extent, fallen under the control of science,
and has ceased to be so rash, sudden, and explosive as it

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

was; while the actual cases do not exhibit symptoms so
imminent and dangerous. Young gentlemen now-a-days
are not nearly so apt, according to the popular phrase, to
be “struck all of a heap,” as their grandfathers and their
paternal predecessors are represented to have been. The
Fire-King thought little of remaining in the oven until the
dinner was baked—a feat at which precedent ages would
have looked aghast—but experiment has since proved
that the generality of our kind are salamanders to the
same extent, and a similar truth appears to have been
demonstrated, as to the capacity existing in the present
era, to withstand the fire of the brightest eyes that ever
beamed from a side-box at the opera. Who ever hears
that Orlando has shot himself for love with a percussion
pistol, or with one of your six barrelled, repeating detonators?
No—that fashion expired before the flint lock
was superseded, and when the steam engine came roaring
along, the lover ceased to sigh,—instead of suffering
himself to be pale and disheveled, he looks in the mirror
and brushes his whiskers; and, as hearts are not
knocked about so violently as they were at the period of
small swords and chapeaus, it follows as a natural consequence,
that they are very rarely broken past repair.

Miss Felicia Phinney, it may be, from having so long
evaded the “soft impeachment,” was finally afflicted
somewhat after the fashion of our ancestors. Her constitution,
not being accustomed—perhaps we should say
seasoned—to such shocks, “took it hard.” An individual
of her “timber” could not be expected to “pine;”
but when Mr. Brownstout first insinuatingly and delicately
asked the price of a shad—in those very tones which
cause lovers' words to sound “so silver sweet by night”—
she felt that her hour had come—and that her “unhoused
free condition must be put in circumscription and
confine.” Whether she was affected by the force of

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

contrast, in joining which, as Mr. Sheridan Knowles has
taken occasion to remark, “lieth love's delight,” or whether
Mr. Brownstout only chanced to present himself at
the propitious moment, is a problem which the parties
themselves, unaccustomed as they are to such analysis,
could not undertake to solve. It is true that Felicia
Phinney was somewhat tall and not a little muscular, and
that Mr. Brownstout had no pretensions either to length,
or to any unusual degree of latitude in form. She was
bold, determined, and rather Stentorian in her vocalities—
he was mild, submissive and plausible, when it was
necessary—being both serpentine and dovelike.

Brownstout saw that he had made an impression.—
Every one intuitively knows when he has been thus fortunate;
and he justly thought that if he had been so successful
when only asking the price of a fish, results must
ensue proportionably greater, if he were actually to become
the purchaser of the article; for, if a mere tap at the door
is productive of notable consequences, a regular peal with
the knocker cannot fail to rouse the entire household.
Now Brownstout, who at that period was “a tailor by
trade,” but one who had a soul so much above buttons
that he could but rarely be persuaded to sew any of them
on, had a tolerably clear perception of the fact, that it
would be rather a comfortable thing—a nice thing, indeed—
to hang up his hat in a house of his own, and to
possess a wife gifted with the faculty of making money—
a sublunary arrangement of surpassing loveliness, provided
the wife be duly impressed with a sense of its symmetrical
proportions, and has the good taste not to recur
to the subject too often. On the one hand, he saw—“in
his mind's eye, Horatio”—enchanting visions of ninepins,
shuffleboard and other exercises of that sort, made still more
agreeable by proper allowances of ale and tobacco—while,
on the other hand, a sufficient basis—“a specie basis”—

[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

for all these absorbing delights was evident in a stand at
the mart piscatorial, femininely attended. There was a
beautiful harmony in this aspect of the case, that came
straight home to his bosom. It combined dignity with
utility—poetry with practice—the sweet with the useful,
in such architectural grace, that it was not in his nature
to abandon the prospect. He had what few men have—
a scheme of life before him, which dove-tailed into all his
peculiarities of disposition, and might be pronounced
perfect. It is not then to be wondered at that Thais at
Alexander's side, on the memorable evening when the
mail brought the election returns from Persia, was not
more soul-subduing than Miss Felicia Phinney seemed in
the eyes of the enraptured Brownstout.

It was not in his way, to be sure. He was not altogether
accustomed to such matters; but as he was aware
of the truth of the axiom, “nothing venture, nothing
have,” he ultimately made the desperate resolve to buy a
fish, and—reckless man!—to pay for it!—to buy, if
necessary to the completion of his great design, several
successive fishes and to pay for them, and he saw but one
difficulty in the way. His road was clear enough so far
as the mere purchase was involved; but it was the second
clause in the programme of the operation which somewhat
puzzled Mr. Brownstout, as indeed it often puzzles
financiers of a more elevated range. He might buy, but,
like Macbeth, he did not know how to “trammel up the
consequence,” which was to pay. It is true that a certain
practical philosopher has decided that “base is the
slave who pays;” yet there are times when circumstances
so combine against the principles of “free trade” that to
pay is unavoidable. Mr. Brownstout felt his situation to
be a case in point, and he was sadly puzzled as to the
mode in which this monetary obstacle was to be surmounted,
until he remembered that, in default of assets,

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

there is a mode of hypothecating one's hopes and prospects
so that they may be “coined to drachmas.” He
resolved to borrow on his personal liability, secured by
the “collateral” of his chances in matrimony, of course
promising a premium proportionate to the risk. For the
means of obtaining a half dollar's worth of fish, he was,
at a future day, to return a full dollar, which is not unreasonable,
considering the shadowy nature of prospective
dollars, dependent on contingencies—dollars, so situated,
are very uncertain dollars—dollars, which are “to be or
not to be,” as the fates may determine. When any one
says “I'll owe you a dollar,” it often requires acute ears
to detect even the approaching jingle thereof.

“A sweet morning, Miss Phinney!—a lovely morning—
quite circumambient and mellifluous, if I may use the
expression. Such mornings as this cause us bachelors
to feel like posts in a flower garden—we may look on, to
be sure, but no rosies and posies are blooming for us—we
are nothing but interlopers and don't belong to the family—
solitary and forlorn in the middle of the crowd. More
juvenile people, such as you, Miss Phinney, don't realize
those things; but for me!”—and Brownstout assumed an
expression peculiarly plaintive, as he stood in the market-house
vis-à-vis to the shad basket.

“I minds my own business, Mr. Brownstout, and never
trades in rosies and posies,” was the gentle reply; “the
beautifulest mornings, to my thinking, is them when people
bites sharp and are hungry for fish. Hyperflutenations
and dictionary things are not in my way;” but Miss
Phinney was evidently pleased with Brownstout's “hyper-flutenations
and dictionary things,” and liked them none
the worse probably because they were not very clearly
understood.

“You are right, madam—perfectly right. When
people have a taste for fish, they are generally fond of fish,

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and are likely to show their good sense by buying fish.
I'm very much attached to fish myself. How are fish
to-day?”

“Why, pretty well, I thank you, Mr. Brownstout;
how do you find yourself?”

This being the first attempt at a joke ever essayed by
Miss Felicia Phinney, she was quite pleased with the
darling, and she laughed—rather rustily, it must be confessed,
but she did laugh; and Brownstout, not being
deficient in tact, he laughed too. If you desire to win
people's hearts, always laugh at their jokes, whether good,
bad, or indifferent—more heartily, in fact, at those which
are bad and indifferent than at the good ones. It proves
your benevolence. The good joke can take care of itself
and walk alone, while the others are rickety and require
cherishing, and are also, on this account, the greater
favourites with the author of their being.

Brownstout laughed—“ha—ha—hugh!” and Miss
Phinney laughed—“he—he—haw!” Pretty well on
both sides. This intermingling of laughs often leads to
an intermingling of sighs, if care be taken not to laugh too
much; for a lover habitually jocose seldom prospers with
the fair, however deep the undertow of his sentimentality.
Brownstout was aware of this, and subsided betimes into
a more amiable 'haviour of the visage.

He finally bought his fish, and, as they dangled from
his hand, so did he dangle after Miss Phinney, and the
combined perseverance of dangling and purchasing at
last brought him to the haven of his hopes. They were
married, and Miss Felicia Phinney was duly metamorphosed
into Mrs. Brownstout.

But who had urged this ill-starred attachment to so dire
a catastrophe!—who but Jack Spratte—the Varney Spratte—
the Iago Spratte—the worse than Schedoni Spratte!—
Spratte, the rejected—Spratte, the despised!! He had

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never forgotten, though long years had elapsed, the outrage
to his tender emotions on that memorable night of
“Copenhagen and fried oysters”—of love and despair—
when the expression of his lacerated feelings had been
imputed to the effects of punch—when, in spite of assurances
that “the hook was through the gristle of his nose,”
the obdurate fair had refused to “pull him up.” Had
Jack Spratte been oblivious of his wrongs? No—they
had lain within his bosom as icy as a cold potato, while
the sweet cider of his affections had passed through all
the grades of fermentation—acetous and so forth—until
they had become vinegar, sharper than the north wind—
pepper vinegar, to which “picalillies” are not a circumstance.
The merry Spratte, in a single night, had been
converted into a pike of the fiercest description. He
frequented the shuffleboard—he early discovered the
secret of Mr. Brownstout's attachment—he treated to
slings and egg nog, until he ascertained the relative position
of parties, and all necessary particulars—he confirmed
Brownstout's wavering resolution—he lent him the
money to buy shad—and he, even he, stood groomsman
at the ceremony, covering his procrastinated triumph in
deceptive smiles, and eating cake as if his heart were filled
with sympathetic emotions.

Why did Jack Spratte do this?—why?—because he
knew Mr. Brownstout's sordid views—his nefarious designs—
his intention to frequent the ninepin alley and the
shuffleboard, while his wife sold fish in the market—his
resolution never to work again. It was Jack Spratte's
Revenge!! Diabolical Spratte!!!

The results which Jack Spratte had anticipated, as
some compensation for his sufferings, were not of slow
development. “Domestic uneasiness” gathered like a
cloud around the hearth-stone of the Brownstouts; for
Brownstout, being busily engaged in the pursuit of

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happiness, was not only absent the greater part of the day,
but rarely made his appearance at all until one or two
o'clock in the morning; and, when he did come, his first
visitation was to his wife's professional check apron, to
obtain an additional supply of the sinews of war.

“Husbands are luxuries, my dear, and must be paid
for accordingly,” was his only reply to words of remonstrance;
and when the aforesaid pocket was put out of
sight, he broke things by way of demonstration, until it
was again brought within reach.

Mrs. Brownstout, in the warmth of her affection, for a
time tried kindness as a means of reform—she winked at
her husband's idleness and made him a weekly allowance;
but his ideas on the subject of gentlemanly expenditure,
developed themselves too rapidly to be confined within
the bounds of such limits, and he had secret recourse to
the pocket, until the deficiencies thus occasioned became
too palpable to be concealed. The cash would not balance,
and, naturally enough, the patience of Mrs. Brownstout
then kicked the beam. She “flopped” her little
husband—not with a shad, as might be expected, but
with a shovel applied in its latitude, “broadside on.”

The next morning, silence reigned through the hapless
domicile of the Brownstouts. The masculine owner of
that name had disappeared, and with him the pocket,
check apron and all. Night after night he came not, and
Mrs. Brownstout grew meagre and dejected.

“I'm a lone widder feller,” sighed she, “or just as
bad. When you aint got your husband, it's pretty near
the same thing as if you hadn't none. But men is men
all the world over, and you can't help it no how. When
Brownstout fust came a courtin' to me, you'd a thought
butter wouldn't a melted in his mouth, he pretended to
be so sniptious. He swore he loved me; but now, just
because of a little difficulty about the shovel, he's shinned

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it like a white-head, with my pocket full of change and
all the spoons he could lay his hands on.”

And so Mrs. Brownstout one evening sallied forth in
search of the delinquent.

The bar was in full practice—clients and “cases”
flocked around it in abundance. Four “hands,” with
their sleeves rolled up, could scarcely, with all their quickness,
mix the “fancy drinks” fast enough to supply the
demand, so numerous were the applications for refreshment.
Corks were popping—the bottles gurgled—clouds
of cigar smoke were “rolling dun,” and men had to
speak at the very stretch of their voices, to be heard over
the thunder of the balls, as they went trolling along the
board and crashing among the ninepins, anon booming
back adown the trough. There, amidst the crowd, divested
of his coat and waistcoat, to give free play to muscular
action, was Brownstout!—the faithless Brownstout!—in
his glory. His cigar and his half-empty tumbler stood
upon an adjacent ledge—in the enthusiasm of the hour, he
had not only bared his arms, but likewise girt his body with
a bandana, and tucked his trowsers into his boots. There
was a streak of chalk upon his face, which gave its general
flush of excitement a still more ruddy tinge.

It was his throw!

Nicely did Brownstout poise the ponderous ball, which
rested on his right hand, while the forefinger of the left
remained for an instant upon its upper hemisphere. He
paused a moment for an inspiring sip and a preliminary
puff—and then—the living statues never displayed more
grace in attitude—every head projected, as if their owners
would penetrate into futurity, and see results before they
were accomplished. Brownstout bowed himself to the
task, scanning the interval with that eye of skill which
so surely betokens victory, and then, with a slide like

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that of the feathered Mercury—whizz!—bang!—slam!—
boom!—bump!—smash!!—crash!!!

“Another set-up!” is the general cry, and Brownstout,
with a back-handed sweep across his countenance, which
scarcely concealed the half-suppressed smile of conscious
genius beaming in every feature—though he would have
looked indifferent, had that been possible—turned himself
once more to his tumbler and to his cigar, like one
who felt that “he had done the state some service and
they knew it.” He had reason to be proud. Not only
had he achieved victory for his “pard'ners” and gained
the refreshment tickets—good for a drink and trimmings—
consequent thereon—but he had also secured several bets,
couched under the mysterious phrase of being for “something
all round.” Indeed, it is not certain that an “oyster
supper for six” was not also dependent on the result,
which Brownstout had mentally resolved should be an
oyster supper for one, on each of six specified nights, and
not an oyster supper for six, on one night; the last being
a common arrangement, but regarded by him as at war
with true economy, and as most “wasteful and ridiculous
excess.”

After the first burst of exultation was over, the victors
seemed suddenly to become athirst—they smacked their
lips, and made many other conventional signs expressive
of that condition, jogging the elbows of the defeated, and
asking, very significantly, “what shall it be?”—a sound
which awakened the smiles of “the bar,” the members
whereof began scientifically to handle the decanters
chiefly affected by Mr. Brownstout's “brave associates—
partners of his toil”—for had he not gained the decisive
“set-up?”

“Set-up!”—unlucky words! Well said Napoleon to
the Abbe De Pradt, that from the sublime to the ridiculous
there is but one step. It was so with the emperor.

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He and Brownstout both found that often when we have
gained a “set-up,” we are nearest to a “set-down.”

“Out of the way!” shrieked a well-known voice, the
owner of which was endeavouring to force a passage
through the crowd—“I'm sure he's here—he's always
here, and I'm come to fetch him!”

“The old woman!” exclaimed Brownstout, in trembling
dismay, as the tumbler slipped from his nerveless
hand, and the cigar rolled into the folds of his bosom.

“And old woman!” repeated the gentlemen of the bar,
letting fall their “muddlers.”

“His old woman!” re-echoed the ninepin players,
aghast.

“Brownstout's old woman!” was the general chorus.

“Run, Brown!”

“Hop, Stout!!”

“Make yourself scarce!”

Too late, alas! were these kindly hints from those who
would have saved their beloved friend from the infliction
of domestic discipline. Brownstout saw that retreat was
impossible. His wife's broad hand was upon him. He
fell back breathless with terror—it is presumed that reminiscences
of the shovel danced athwart his brain.

Like another Mephistophiles, Jack Spratte appeared
upon the scene. The author of mischief is always in at
the catastrophe.

“You are a precious set of warmint!” said Mrs. Brownstout,
as she glared fiercely around—“who am I to thank
for deludin' my old man to sich places as this, to waste
his time and my money on fools and foolery?”

“Thank me!” exclaimed Jack Spratte, hysterically,
“me!—me! to whom you guv' the mitten!—me, who
got the bag to hold!—me, whose nose was put out of
jint!—me, whose young hopes was drownded in cold
water almost before their eyes was opened!”

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The “adsum qui feci” of the Latin poet was never
more finely “done into English,” though it may well be
questioned whether the atrocious Spratte had ever heard
of Nisus and Euryalus.

The excitement became intense—the crowd huddled
around—the boys rushed from the pins to listen to the
denouement—and one thirsty soul at the bar showed his
interest in the matter, by hastily swallowing the contents
of three other gentlemen's glasses, to fortify himself for
the occasion, after which he also hurried to the centre.

“It was me that done it all!” continued Spratte, gesticulating
spasmodically—“I know'd he'd break your
heart!—I know'd he'd hook your money!—I know'd he'd
keep always goin' out and never comin' home agin! If
it hadn't been for me, he'd not have married you—but
now I'm revenged—now I'm happy—now I'm—ha! ha!
hugh!” and Jack Spratte sprung high into the air, and,
on his return to earth, spun round three times, and, exhausted
by emotion, fell prostrate, upsetting a table upon
which stood three “brandies” and one whisky punch.

Mrs. Brownstout dropped her hands, and suffered the
almost inanimate form of her husband to go lumbering to
the earth, while she stood petrified with despair at this
terrible revelation. Her heart was congealed, and every
bystander was stricken with horror at Spratte's having
been been such a “debaushed fish”—all were moved
inwardly, except the utilitarian who had imbibed the
other gentlemen's liquor, and he seized on the chance to
move outwardly, that he might sneak away without discharging
the dues for that which he had ordered himself.

There were no more ninepins that night—the moral influence
was such that the boys put out the lights without
being told to do so—if they had not, indeed, it is probable
the lights would have gone out of themselves. Mr.
and Mrs. Brownstout went home in a cab—they were too

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much overcome to walk. Jack Spratte recovered by slow
degrees—the three brandies and the whisky punch, in
which he was immersed, probably saved his life—but
Jack Spratte never smiled again, no matter how good the
joke. His bosom was seared—his heart was like a dried
cherry several seasons old, and so he became a drummer
in the marines, delighting only in the beating of tattoo
and reveille, as two of the most misanthropic of employments—
the one sending men to bed, while the other
forces them to get up. He was severe upon these points
of war, and it was noticed that he was always a little before
the time in the performance of each. Such are the
spiteful effects of blighted affections, which give acerbity
even to a musician! But Jack Spratte's revenge had
failed—most signally failed. After the events of the
ninepin alley, Brownstout was an altered man. He
might justly be spoken of as a great moral re-action.
Stung to the quick at having been made an instrument
of revenge—a mere drumstick of malignity—he burnt all
the tickets in his possession, “good,” as they were, “for
refreshments at the bar”—he returned the check apron
pocket to his wife, though probably it would have been
more acceptable if any thing had remained in it. The
spoons, however, were past redemption; but what are
spoons in comparison with matrimonial comfort—what
are spoons, when one's husband works in the daytime
and never goes out in the evenings? Mrs. Brownstout was
a happy woman, and never, in fact, hinted at “spoons,” unless
she had cause to suspect that her husband's thoughts
might perhaps be straying towards ninepins. That word
always brought him straight, and she but rarely had occasion
to say “spoons,” except on the Fourth of July or about
the Christmas holidays. As for the bibulous individual
before alluded to, the poetic catastrophe to which he was
an accidental witness, made him so dry that he has been

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busy ever since in a vain endeavour to quench his thirst.
He thinks of hiring himself out as a dam to any moderate
sized river, and would do so, if the navigation company
were liberal enough to put a drop of something
in the water, just to take the chill off and to correct its
crudities.

And such is the end of “Jack Spratte's Revenge.”

p299-185 CORNER LOUNGERS.

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There are men—many men—whose mental callipers
grasp only a single idea—the sun of whose thought revolves
about, warms and enlightens but one little world,
that world being the contracted universe (for universe it
is to them) of their own personal affairs and individual
interests. From some congenital defect in their intellectual
optics—as spectacles for the mind remain to be
invented, and as the concave lens has not yet been adjusted
to rectify the imperfect vision of the soul—they
live within a narrow horizon, and browse, as it were,
with a tether, having a certain circumference of grass,
without the ability to take a mouthful beyond its limits.
Nor, indeed, have they any desire for such epicurean adventure.
They do not so much as wish to glance into any
field which is not peculiarly their own. The clover which
belongs to them, satisfies all their wants, and to disturb
themselves at all, as to how other people make hay, is a
stretch of ambition to which they never aspire. Armies
may devour each other—navies may go down and submit
their Paixhans artillery to the investigation of the grampus
and other martial fishes,—empires may rock and reel, like
Fourth of July revellers, in the days when the evidence
of patriotism was to make the head heavier than the heels;
but the species to which we refer, still open their shops
with unshaken nerves, take their breakfast with undiminished
appetite, and go about their business with no thought
but that of making both ends meet. To bear a hand in
the grand work of ameliorating the condition of the human
race, is a matter, in their opinion, which qualifies one for
the first vacancy in the lunatic asylum. They belong to
no philanthropic associations to regulate the price of soap

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[figure description] Illustration.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]

in another hemisphere; nor have they ever entered into an
organization to compel the employing shoemakers of the
moon to give their apprentices half-holiday once a week.
They are sure that “Convention” must be something
relative to Bedlam, and that those who wish to reform
everybody else, must stand greatly in need of some such
operation themselves. An election, to them, is an annual
nuisance—a periodical eruption, made necessary by
a defective constitution, and all the meetings which go
before, are, in their eyes, merely the premonitory symptom
that disease is reaching a crisis. Processions and
parades move their pity, and when they think at all about
the turmoil of the outer world, it is only to wonder when
the fools will have it “fixed” to their liking.

Far different from these is that disinterested body of
men and boys who lounge at the corners of the way in a
great metropolis; members of the human family who may
be said to be always on hand and continually in circulation.
They literally are the pillars of the state. They
prop up lamp-posts—patronise fire-plugs, and encourage
the lindens of the street in their unpractised efforts to
grow. The luxuriant trees, which adorn the front of Independence
Hall, outstrip all others in umbrageous beauty,
because they, beyond all others, have been sustained by
the kindness of loungers; and they now strive to return
the compliment, by affording a canopy to intercept the rays
of the sun, and to avert the falling shower, from the
beloved friends who stand by them, have stood by them,
and will continue to stand by them, in every sort of
weather.

In ancient Rome, whenever that respectable republic
got itself into a difficulty with those unreasonable people
who were foolish enough to wish to regulate their own
affairs, and when the storm grew loud and threatening, it
was sometimes found necessary to intrust all things to the

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discretion of a dictator, whose duty it was “to take
care that the republic received no detriment.” But,
without the provisions of law—without the troubles and
dangers which flowed from the Roman practice, we are
happy in the possession of a host of such officers, unrecognised,
it is true, but not the less efficient, whose
chief employment and whose main delight it is, reckless
of honour and emolument, to take care that nothing
detrimental happens to the republic. Their regards are
always upon it, in jealous supervision. They are no
speculative overseers, who imperfectly attend to exterior
affairs, by lounging in slippered ease in luxurious offices,
disporting themselves over the newspapers of the day.
They are not influenced by the mere report of scouts, or
the sinister assertions of the interested; but make it their
daily practice to hear with their own ears and to see with
their own eyes. Nay, they push their zealous watchfulness
so far, that they may often be seen in the exercise
of their high functions, when other mortals, less gifted
with discrimination, can discover nothing to excite their
notice. When the pavier is at work in the highway,
heaving the weighty rammer with most emphatic groan,
not a pebble is driven to its place, that the genuine
lounger has not marked in every stage of its progress. No
gas-pipe is adjusted, without undergoing a similar scrutiny,
and the sanctified spot where the pig was killed or the
hound was run over, acquires such mysterious and fascinating
importance in the lounger's estimation, that he
will stand whole days in sombre contemplation of so distinguished
a locality. Even the base of Pompey's statue,
where great Cæsar fell, could not prove more attractive;
and Rizzio's blood, which stains the floor of Holyrood,
is not more dear to the antiquary than are the marks left
by an overturned wagon, to the non-commissioned superintendents
of the city. Indeed, they have been seen

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congregated for hours around the house from which the
tenants moved on the previous night, without complying
with the vexatious ceremony of paying the rent—a feudal
exaction perpetuated by landlords for the perplexity of
the people. Should a masterless hat be found, or a drop
of blood be discovered in the street, it forms a nucleus
for a gathering. No matter how slight the cause may
seem to the ordinary intellect, there are persons who look
more deeply into things, and derive wisdom from circumstances
apparently too trivial to deserve regard.

But they are secret, too. The perfect lounger, though
prodigal of his presence, is a niggard with his words. It
is his vocation to see, and not to speak. His inferences
are locked within the recesses of his own breast. He is
wary and diplomatic, and not like other individuals, to
be sounded “from the lowest note to the top of his compass,”
by the curiosity of each passing stranger. He
opposes no one in the acquisition of knowledge—he places
no stumbling-blocks in the way; but, by his taciturnity,
intimates that the results of his labours are not to be
obtained for nothing. It is his motto that if you desire
information, you must use the proper means to acquire it;
for you have the same natural qualifications for the purpose
as he.

That this characteristic belongs to the street lounger—
we have nothing to say about the inferior class who operate
solely within walls—is evident from the fact that it
rarely happens in the course of the most inquisitive life,
that any one, on approaching a crowd, can ascertain, by
inquiry of its component members, why it has assembled.
The question is either unheeded altogether, or else a
supercilious glance is turned upon the querist, with a
laconic response that the party does not know. Ostensibly,
nobody knows a jot about the matter, except the
fortunate few who form the inner circle, and, as it were,

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hem in all knowledge. They who extricate themselves
early from the interior pressure, and walk away, either
with smiling faces, as if the joke were good, or with a
solemn sadness of the brow, as if their sensibilities
had been lacerated, even they “don't know!” None
will tell, except perchance it be a luckless urchin not yet
taught to economize his facts, or some unsophisticated
girl with a market basket, who talks for talking's sake.
But who believes that the initiated “don't know”—that
the omnipresent lounger “don't know?” It is not to be
believed. He does know; but from some as yet undetermined
and unappreciated singularity of his nature, it is
rather his pleasure to be looked upon as ignorant, than to
“unlace his reputation” by proving false to so cardinal
a point in the practice of his kind, as to be a mere bulletin
for others' uses. What he knows, he knows—let that
content you. He has employment for all he has acquired,
which, to outward appearance, would be spoiled by participation;
but where, or how, or when he proposes to
use it, is a problem which remains to be solved.

Unawed by the state of the weather, these watchful
sentinels are always abroad; and so far are they elevated
above the influences of prevailing effeminacy, that they
indulge so little in home delights as to induce many to
believe that they dispense altogether with the enervating
comforts of a fixed domicile. When their nature must
needs “recuperate,” it is supposed they “rotate” for
repose, and that thus, by never couching themselves consecutively
in the same nest, they catch abuses napping,
by their sudden and unexpected appearance “so early in
the morning.”

But, whatever may be the private habits, entomologically
or ornithologically speaking, of “the corner
lounger,” he is a self-evident proposition and an undeniable
fact There may be doubts as to the existence of

[figure description] Page 171.[end figure description]

other things—all circumstantial nature may be disputed;
but he must be confessed. Go where you will, he is
there, and as he is there to everybody, his there must be
everywhere, paradoxical as it may seem. His visibility
is co-existent with your presence, and it would require
the pen of transcendentalism to explain the mysterious
nature of his wonderful ubiquity. We have not language
to pourtray the phenomena developed in this respect by a
civic lounger of the superlative class; but, in homely
phrase, if we may so express it, like a speck upon the
eye itself, look where you will, he stands full blown before
you. He is rarely seen in motion—never in transitu;
but he is at your elbow when you depart, and when you
have reached your end, the lounger is at the place in anticipation,
leisurely drumming with his heels upon a post
and bearing no traces of a forced march. By what magic
process this is accomplished, no one can tell. There is
no proof that he travels. There is no physical sign in his
appearance, to induce a belief that he excels in locomotion,
or has any taste for such active employment as would
seem to be necessary for achieving such results; and so
much are the scientific puzzled to account for the fact to
which we have reference, that a paper is said to be in
preparation for the “Philosophical Transactions,” having
for its object to determine “whether a corner lounger,
in his distinctive and individual capacity, be one or
many; or whether the specimen be not multitudinous,
in an identical shape and image, so that in the same form
and as one person, he is gifted with the capacity to be
everywhere at once.” Every nice observer will be inclined
to receive the last hypothesis as the correct impression;
for he must often have had abundant reason to
conclude that the lounger is really thus, “as broad and
general as the casing air”—a Monsieur Tonson who has
always “come again.”

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There are, however, certain peculiarities in this matter
which are also worthy of remark—little niceties in the
case which deserve their comment. As each man is supposed
to have his superintending star—his supervising
genius, which, both in weal and wo, hovers about his
footsteps or directs his course, so each individual has his
lounging “John Jones”—his familiar from the spirit-land
of loaferdom. We know him not, but in his palpable
form—we have exchanged no word or kindness with
him—he has no interest in our affairs, nor we in his—
there is no earthly tie existing; but when we have once
marked our coincident lounger, he is there for ever—our
inevitable fate—the everlasting frontispiece in the volume
of our experiences—our perpetual double, in sunshine or
in rain. Let the fact once be presented to your sensorium
that you rarely go to any place without seeing “that
man,” and your doom is sealed. You never will go
anywhere without seeing him, either there or on your way
there, from that time forth; and when you do not see him,
be assured that there is abundant reason to doubt whether
you are really yourself, and whether, notwithstanding
appearances, you are not mistaken in the person—so that
in shaving your apparent countenance, you may have
shaved an impostor, and in drinking your wine, you may
have been pouring refreshment down the throat of a rogue.
When a man is without his shadow, what assurance is
there that himself is he? But when one's reflex is present,
he may, in some cases, be satisfied that money put
in his own pocket, is not intrusted to the care of a peculator.
And in this way is it that wisdom derives comfort
from the phenomenon that we have attempted to
explain.

Is the citizen martially inclined, and does he attend
volunteer parades, to gratify the heroic longings of his
soul by having his toes macerated by iron heels, his ribs

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compressed by ruffian elbows, or his abdominal capacity
astonished by the musket-but of the authoritative sentinel,
who knocks the breath out of your body, while politely
exclaiming “stand back, gentlemen; a little further, if
you please!” There is his attendant lounger, in the best
of possible places, and safely beyond the reach of the mobrepressing
guard.

Is the foiled pickpocket borne triumphantly to office
of Recorder, Alderman or Mayor? Look ye now and see.
Within the rail of official function, close to magisterial
dignity, there stands your ghost, your “bodach glas;” not
antecedent or consequent, but instant. No need to wish,
or call, or wonder at his absence. You are here, and he
is—there—cause and effect, linked together by hooks of
steel. 'Tis your alter ego—your t'other eye.

Do you attend the burial of a friend, and walk in gloom
and silent sorrow? Dash aside your tears, and behold,
leaning against that funeral tree which overshadows the
sad procession, an evidence is apparent that even in grief
your unknown coadjutor is true to his vocation. You
will never be deserted—never!

Are you essentially humane, taking delight to see murder
choked and homicide made breathless, that the world
may become tender-hearted and averse to horrors by familiarity
with Ketch's delectable countenance? “That
man” is helping to support the rectangular superstructure
which reforms men by the speedy dislocation of their
vertebral column, and improves the age by the disjointing
of necks. He and Ketch seem to be sworn brothers.

But fear not. Though this circumstance of yours be
something that cannot be avoided, either by secresy respecting
your movements—for he is an intuition—by
rapidity of travel—for he is ubiquitous—or by cunning
evasion—for he is instinctive—yet no harm appears ever
to have arisen from this species of Chang and Engship—

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from this disjunctive Siamese twinnery, if we may so
venture upon a terminological experiment, and coin a
phrase to distinguish an unnamed idea. The “inevitable”
may be sad in his expression; but he shows no sign of
being mischievous in his soul, nor is his observation sarcastic
in its conclusions. He is a student of humanity,
ever at his book, but rather touched with melancholy at
the lession thus derived, than made misanthropic by a
knowledge of our weaknesses and follies. Exulting beauty
passes by him, and at the “rustling of silks and the creaking
of shoes,” which have betrayed so many hearts, he
sighs to think that a bad cold or a misdirected bucket
would soon reduce that joyousness to the most pitiable
plight. He looks plaintively at the unheeding dog, who,
ignorant of laws, and with muzzle at home, sports onward
to the fell clutches of the sordid Sambo, to whom canine
slaughter is a trade and profit; and he draws analogies
between puppyhood and youthful prime, revelling in wild
delights, and unwarned of “ketchers” till they are caught.
The lounger is a lonely moralist, who has too much general
sympathy to isolate affection by contracting his sphere
of usefulness—too disinterested to narrow himself down
to a pursuit of selfish aggrandizement—too full of heart to
be cooped within the ribs of a trade, and too anxious
about the general welfare ever to give rest to his anxious
eye. He is the general guardian—the foster mother of us
all; and perhaps it is our ignorance alone that regards him
as being exclusive in his attentions; just as childhood
thinks that a portrait watches all its movements, or as the
moon seems marching above our heads wherever we go.

Such as we have described is Nicholas Nollikins—he
with the breastpin—he who watches so intently the
shaving, evolved and elaborated from its parent stick by
the keen edge of his whittle. Though Nollikins appears
to be cutting, and it is reasonable to suppose that he is

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cutting, yet Nollikins is also thinking. In fact, he is a
sage—not such as they stuff ducks withal, or liquidate
into medicinal tea—but that sort of sage which has sagacity
for its result, better far than ducks or teas. Nollikins,
however, labours under a difficulty. He is reflective
and observant, but not practical. He never comes
to the application, for that word is particularly what he
dislikes; and hence the deep river of his probable usefulness
has its perfect navigation interrupted by a dam in
the channel. His ships never come to port. Nollikins
has in his time tried many trades; but none of them agreed
with him, except the office of being midshipman to an
oyster boat, and there were points even in this profession
which were repugnant to his finer emotions. “Raking”
on dry land is not perhaps so disagreeable; but let those
who think that words are identical and synonymous, and
represent the same thing at sea and ashore, try raking for
oysters, as Nicholas Nollikins did for a whole season, and
they will ever after have a correct appreciation of differences.
When the boat returned to the wharf, Nicholas
was at home. His taste for society could now be gratified.
The delicate aspirations of his nature found food in the
distribution of oysters, and his imagination had room to
expand as he opened the bivalves. What a delightful
compound of business and pleasure is that phase of the
oyster trade which sells wholesale, but yet does not scorn
the niceties of retail to the hungry wanderer! Benevolence
and information are here combined—to talk and to
eat—to question and to impart nourishment—to benefit
both the physique and the morale at the same time—who
would not be midshipman of an oyster boat—who could
not live whole days at the wharf, under such circumstances?
Nollikins could—Nollikins did—thrice happy
Nollikins!

But the genial sky always has clouds in it—a spring

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morning, be it as balmy as it may, is generally followed
by a cloudy afternoon. When oysters are sold and eaten,
it is a necessity, arising from the unfortunate state of
things in this sublunary sphere, that you must go after
additional oysters—that is, if you want more; for oysters,
unlike the accommodating shad, have not yet learned to
come up the river of themselves, that they may be caught
at the very door. Few things, in the eating way, have
that innate politeness so remarkable in the character of a
shad. Had the shad been blessed with feet and hands,
there cannot be a doubt but that it would complete its
measure of complaisance by walking up the street and
ringing at the bell, with a civil inquiry for the cook and
the gridiron. It would come about half an hour before
breakfast, and never defer its call till after tea. Commend
us to the shad, as the best mannered fish that swims.
Many men might go to school to the shad; and indeed, if
our piscatory learning be not at fault, the shad do assemble
in schools, to which cause possibly may be attributed
the excellence of their training. Always bow with
deference to a shad—it has travelled far to enjoy the
pleasure of your acquaintance. The oyster, however, is
churlish—it makes no free visitation, and upon this fact
hinges the fate of Nicholas Nollikins. He could not
abide the painful contrast which was brought home to his
sensibilities, by the change from the wharf to the cove—
from society to solitude—from the delicate play of the
iron-handled knife, (so favourable to the exhibition of
grace and skill,) to the heavy drag of rakes and tongs in
the oyster bed; and he, therefore, concluded to resign his
regular commission, and to obtain his living for the future
by dabbling only in the fancy branches of human employment.
When the boats come up, he has no objection to
taking a place, for the time being, as salesman to the
concern; and in this way, working only when urgent

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necessity compels, and consuming the rest of his existence
in the ornamentals of life, such as leaning against a post
and speculating on the chances and changes of terrestrial
affairs, our worthy Nicholas contrives to bite the sunny
side from the peach, leaving the green core for those who
are mean enough to be content with it.

Nicholas has a home, upon a desperate emergency;
but he does not trouble it often with his presence, for
reasons which he regards as perfectly adequate to excuse
any delinquency in this respect, which calumnious tongues
may think proper to lay to his charge.

“As for goin' home, Billy Bunkers,” said he, one day,
in confidence to the long lad with the short roundabout,
who leans upon the opposite side of the lamp post; “as
for goin' home, Billy, savin' and exceptin' when you
can't help it, why it's perfectly redicklis. If people's
opinyins could be made to agree, that would be one thing,
and you might go home. But as these opinyins don't
agree, why that's another thing, and it's best to clear out
and keep out, jist as long as you kin. What's your sitivation
when you do go home? There's the old man, and
there's the old voman and the rest of them, hurtin' your
feelins as bad as if they was killin' kittens with a brickbat.
As soon as you're inside of the door, they sing out
like good fellers, `Eh, waggybone!—Ho! ho! lazyboots!—
hellow, loafer!—ain't you most dead a workin' so hard?—
t'aint good for your wholesome to be so all-fired industrious!'
That's the way they keep a goin' on, aggravatin' you for
everlastin'. They don't understand my complaint—they
can't understand a man that's lookin' up to better things.
I tell you, Billy,” exclaimed Nicholas, with tears in his
eyes, “when a feller's any sort of a feller, like you and
me—”

“Yes,” replied Billy, complacently; “we're the fellers—
it takes us.”

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“When a feller's any sort of a feller, to be ketched at
home is little better than bein' a mouse in a wire-trap.
They poke sticks in your eye, squirt cold water on your
nose, and show you to the cat. Common people, Billy—
low, ornery, common people, can't make it out when
natur's raised a gentleman in the family—a gentleman all
complete, only the money's been forgot. If a man won't
work all the time—day in and day out—if he smokes by
the fire or whistles out of the winder, the very gals bump
agin him and say `get out of the way, loaf!' Now what
I say is this—if people hasn't had genteel fotchin' up,
you can no more expect 'em to behave as if they had
been fotch up genteel, than you can make good cigars
out of a broom handle.”

“That are a fact,” ejaculated Billy Bunkers, with emphasis;
for Billy has experienced, in his time, treatment at
home somewhat similar to that complained of by Nicholas
Nollikins.

“But, Billy, my son, never mind, and keep not a lettin'
on,” continued Nollikins, and a beam of hope irradiated
his otherwise saturnine countenance; “the world's
a railroad and the cars is comin'—all we'll have to do is
to jump in, chalked free. There will be a time—something
must happen. Rich widders are about yet, though
they are snapped up so fast. Rich widders, Billy, are
`special providences,' as my old boss used to say when
I broke my nose in the entry, sent here like rafts to pick
up deservin' chaps when they can't swim no longer.
When you've bin down twy'st, Billy, and are jist off
agin, then comes the widder a floatin' along. Why,
splatterdocks is nothin' to it, and a widder is the best of
all life-preservers, when a man is most a case, like you
and me.”

“Well, I'm not perticklar, not I, nor never was. I'll
take a widder, for my part, if she's got the mint drops,

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and never ask no questions. I'm not proud—never was
harrystocratic—I drinks with anybody, and smokes all
the cigars they give me. What's the use of bein' stuck
up, stiffy? It's my principle that other folks are nearly
as good as me, if they're not constables nor aldermen. I
can't stand them sort.”

“No, Billy,” said Nollikins, with an encouraging
smile, “no, Billy, such indiwidooals as them don't know
human natur'—but, as I was goin' to say, if there happens
to be a short crop of widders, why can't somebody
leave us a fortin?—That will do as well, if not better.
Now look here—what's easier than this? I'm standin'
on the wharf—the rich man tries to go aboard of the
steamboat—the niggers push him off the plank—in I
jumps, ca-splash! The old gentleman isn't drownded;
but he might have been drownded but for me, and if he
had a bin, where's the use of his money then? So he gives
me as much as I want now, and a great deal more when
he defuncts riggler, accordin' to law and the practice of
civilized nations. You see—that's the way the thing
works. I'm at the wharf every day—can't afford to lose
a chance, and I begin to wish the old chap would hurra
about comin' along. What can keep him?”

“If it 'ud come to the same thing in the end,” remarked
Billy Bunkers, “I'd rather the niggers would
push the old man's little boy into the water, if it's all the
same to him. Them fat old fellers are so heavy when
they're skeered, and hang on so—why, I might get
drownded before I had time to go to bank with the
check! But what's the use of waitin'? Couldn't we
shove 'em in some warm afternoon, ourselves? Who'd
know in the crowd?”

“I've thought of that, Bunkers, when a man was before
me that looked like the right sort. I've often said
to myself, `My friend, how would you like to be washed

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for nothin'?'—but, Billy, there might be mistakes—perhaps,
when you got him out, he couldn't pay. What
then?”

“Why, keep a puttin' new ones in to soak every day,
till you do fish up the right one.”

“It won't do, my friend—they'd smoke the joke—
all the riff-raff in town would be pushin' old gentlemen
into the river, and the elderly folks would have to give
up travellin' by the steamboat. We must wait, I'm
afeared, till the real thing happens. The right person will
be sure to come along.”

“I hope so; and so it happens quick, I don't much
care whether it's the old man, or his little boy, or that
rich widder, that gets a ducking. I'm not proud.”

“And when it does happen,” exclaimed Nollikins,
swelling with a triumphant anticipation, “who but me,
with more beard than a nannygoat, and a mile of gold
chain, goin' up Chestnut street! Who but Nollikins,
with his big dog!”

“Yes, and Billy Bunkers, with two big dogs, a chasin'
the pigs into the chaney shops.”

“Then you'll see me come the nonsense over the old
folks—who's loafer now!—and my dog will bite their
cat—who's ginger-pop and jam spruce beer, at this present
writin', I'd like to know!”

And, in a transport of enthusiasm, Nollikins knocked
the hat of Billy Bunkers, a shallow, dishlike castor, clear
across the street.

Thus, wrapped in present dreams and future anticipations—
a king that is to be—lives Nicholas Nollikins—
the grand exemplar of the corner loungers. There he
stations himself; for hope requires a boundless prospect
and a clear look out, that, by whatever route fortune
chooses to approach, she may have a prompt reception.
Nicholas and his tribe exist but for to-morrow, and rely

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firmly upon that poetic justice, which should reward those
who wait patiently until the wheel of fortune turns up a
prize. They feel, by the generous expansion of their
souls, by their impatience of ignoble toil, by their aspirations
after the beautiful and nice, that their present position
in society is the result of accident and inadvertency,
and that, if they are not false to the nature that is within
them, the time must come when the mistake will be rectified,
and “they shall walk in silk attire and siller hae
to spare,” which is not by any means the case at present.
All that can be expected just now, is, that they should
spare other people's “siller.”

STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON,
PHILADELPHIA.