Part 17

A few days were sufficient to concoct details and arrange the programme. When Mrs. Jipson discovered, as she vainly supposed, the prevalence of "better sense" on the part of her husband, she was good as cranberry tart, and flew around in the best of humor, to hurry up the event that was to give _eclat_ to the new residence and family of the Jipsons, slightly dim the radiance or mushroom glory of the Tannersoil family, and create a commotion generally--above Bleecker street!

Jipson _drew_ on his employers, for a quarter's salary. The draft was honored, of course, but it led to some _speculation_ on the part of "the firm," as to what Jipson was up to, and whether he wasn't getting into evil habits, and decidedly bad economy in his old age. Jipson talked, Mrs. Jipson talked. Their almost--in fact, Mrs. J., like most ambitious mothers, thought, _really_--marriageable daughters dreamed and talked dinner parties for the full month, ere the great event of their lives came duly off.

One of the seeming difficulties was who to invite--who to get to come, and _where_ to get them! Now, originally, the Jipsons were from the "Hills of New Hampshire, of poor but respectable" birth. Fifteen years in the great metropolis had not created a very extensive acquaintance among solid folks; in fact, New York society fluctuates, ebbs and flows at such a rate, that society--such as domestic people might recognize as unequivocally genteel--is hard to fasten to or find. But one of the Miss Jipsons possessed an acquaintance with a Miss Somebody else, whose brother was a young gentleman of very _distingue_ air, and who knew the entire "ropes" of fashionable life, and people who enjoyed that sort of existence in the gay metropolis.

Mr. Theophilus Smith, therefore, was eventually engaged. It was his, as many others' vocation, to arrange details, command the feast, select the company, and control the coming event. The Jipsons confined their invitations to the few, very few genteel of the family, and even the diminutiveness of the number invited was decimated by Mr. Smith, who was permitted to review the parties invited.

Few domiciles--of civilian, "above Bleecker st.,"--were better illuminated, set off and detailed than that of Jipson, on the evening of the ever-memorable dinner. Smith had volunteered to "engage" a whole set of silver from Tinplate & Co., who generously offer our ambitious citizens such opportunities to splurge, for a fair consideration; while china, porcelain, a dozen colored waiters in white aprons, with six plethoric fiddlers and tooters, were also in Smith's programme. Jipson at first was puzzled to know where he could find volunteers to fill two dozen chairs, but when night came, Mr. Theophilus Smith, by force of tactics truly wonderful, drummed in a force to face a gross of plates, napkins and wine glasses.

Mrs. Jipson was evidently astonished, the Misses J. not a little vexed at the "raft" of elegant ladies present, and the independent manner in which they monopolized attention and made themselves at home.

Jipson swore inwardly, and looked like "a sorry man." Smith was at home, in his element; he was head and foot of the party. Himself and friends soon led and ruled the feast. The band struck up; the corks flew, the wine _fizzed_, the ceilings were spattered, and the walls tattooed with Burgundy, Claret and Champagne!

"To our host!" cries Smith.

"Yes--ah! 'ere's--ah! to our a--our host!" echoes another swell, already insolently "corned."

"Where the--a--where is our worthy host?" says another specimen of "above Bleecker street" genteel society. "I--a say, trot out your host, and let's give the old fellow a toast!"

"Ha! ha! b-wavo! b-wavo!" exclaimed a dozen shot-in-the-neck bloods, spilling their wine over the carpets, one another, and table covers.

"This is intolerable!" gasps poor Jipson, who was in the act of being kept _cool_ by his wife, in the drawing-room.

"Never mind, Jipson----"

"Ah! there's the old fellaw!" cries one of the swells.

"I-ah--say, Mister----"

"Old roostaw, I say----"

"Gentlemen!" roars Jipson, rushing forward, elevating his voice and fists.

"For heaven's sake! Jipson," cries the wife.

"Gentlemen, or bla'guards, as you are."

"Oh! oh! Jipson, will you hear me?" imploringly cries Mrs. Jipson.

"What--ah--are you at? Does he--ah----"

"Yes, what--ah--does old Jip say?"

"Who the deuce, old What's-your-name, do you call gentlemen?" chimes in a third.

"Bla'guards!" roars Jipson.

"Oh, veri well, veri well, old fellow, we--ah--are--ah--to blame for--ah--patronizing a snob," continues a swell.

"A what?" shouts Jipson.

"A plebeian!"

"A codfish--ah----"

"Villains! scoundrels! bla'guards!" shouts the outraged Jipson, rushing at the intoxicated swells, and hitting right and left, upsetting chairs, tables, and lamps.

"Murder!" cries a knocked down guest.

"E-e-e-e-e-e!" scream the ladies.

"Don't! E-e-e-e! don't kill my father!" screams the daughter.

Chairs and hats flew; the negro servants and Dutch fiddlers, only engaged for the occasion, taking no interest in a free fight, and not caring two cents who whipped, laid back and--

"Yaw! ha! ha! De lor'! Yaw! ha! ha!"

Mrs. Jipson fainted; ditto two others of the family; the men folks (!) began to travel; the ladies (!) screamed; called for their hats, shawls, and _chaperones_,--the most of the latter, however, were _non est_, or too well "set up," to heed the common state of affairs.

Jipson finally cleared the house. Silence reigned within the walls for a week. In the interim, Mrs. Jipson and the daughters not only got over their hysterics, but ideas of gentility, as practised "above Bleecker street." It took poor Jipson an entire year to recuperate his financial "outs," while it took the whole family quite as long to get over their grand debut as followers of fashion in the great metropolis.

Look out for them Lobsters.

Deacon ----, who resides in a pleasant village inside of an hour's ride upon Fitchburg road, rejoices in a fondness for the long-tailed _crustacea_, vulgarly known as lobsters. And, from messes therewith fulminated, by _some_ of our professors of gastronomics that we have seen, we do not attach any wonder at all to the deacon's penchant for the aforesaid shell-fish. The deacon had been disappointed several times by assertions of the lobster merchants, who, in their overwhelming zeal to effect a sale, had been a little too sanguine of the precise _time_ said lobsters were caught and boiled; hence, after lugging home a ten pound specimen of the vasty deep, miles out into the quiet country, the deacon was often sorely vexed to find the lobster no better than it should be!

"Why don't you get them alive, deacon?" said a friend,--"get them alive and kicking, deacon; boil them yourself; be sure of their freshness, and have them cooked more carefully and properly."

"Well said," quoth the deacon; "so I can, for they sell them, I observe, near the depot,--right out of the boat. I'm much obliged for the notion."

The next visit of the good deacon to Boston,--as he was about to return home, he goes to the bridge and bargains for two live lobsters, fine,

## active, lusty-clawed fellows, alive and kicking, and no mistake!

"But what will I do with them?" says the deacon to the purveyor of the _crustacea_, as he gazed wistfully upon the two sprawling, ugly, green and scratching lobsters, as they lay before him upon the planks at his feet.

"Do with 'em?" responded the lobster merchant,--"why, bile 'em and eat 'em! I bet you a dollar you never ate better lobsters 'n them, nohow, mister!"

The deacon looked anxiously and innocently at the speaker, as much as to say--"you don't say so?"

"I mean, friend, how shall I get them home?"

"O," says the lobster merchant, "that's easy enough; here, Saul," says he, calling up a frizzle-headed lad in blue pants--_sans_ hat or boots, and but one _gallows_ to his breeches, "here, you, light upon these lobsters and carry 'em home for this old gentleman."

"Goodness, bless you," says the deacon; "why friend, I reside ten miles out in the country!"

"O, the blazes you do!" says the lobster merchant; "well, I tell you, Saul can carry 'em to the cars for you in this 'ere bag, if you're goin' out?"

"Truly, he can," quoth the deacon; "and Saul can go right along with me."

The lobsters were dashed into a piece of Manilla sack, thrown across the shoulders of the juvenile Saul, and away they went at the heels of the deacon, to the depot; here Saul dashed down the "poor creturs" until their bones or shells rattled most piteously, and as the deacon handed a "three cent piece" to Saul, the long and wicked claw of one of the lobsters protruded out of the bag--opened and shut with a _clack_, that made the deacon shudder!

"Those fellows are plaguy awkward to handle, are they not, my son?" says the deacon.

"Not _werry_," says the boy; "they can't bite, cos you see they's got pegs down here--_hallo!_" As Saul poked his hand down towards the big claw lying partly out of the open-mouthed bag, the claw opened, and _clacked_ at his fingers, ferocious as a mad dog.

"His peg's out," said the boy--"and I can't fasten it; but here's a chunk of twine; tie the bag and they can't get out, any how, and you kin put 'em into yer pot right out of the bag."

"Yes, yes," says the deacon; "I guess I will take care of them; bring them here; there, just place the bag right in under my seat; so, that will do."

Presently the cars began to fill up, as the minute of departure approached, and soon every seat around the worthy deacon was occupied. By-and-by, "a middle-aged lady," in front of the deacon, began to _fussle_ about and twist around, as if anxious to arrange the great amplitude of her _drapery_, and look after something "bothering" her feet. In front of the lady, sat a _slab_-sided _genus_ dandy, fat as a match and quite as good looking; between his legs sat a pale-face dog, with a flashing collar of brass and tinsel, quite as gaudy as his master's neck-choker; this canine gave an awful--

"_Ihk!_ ow, yow! yow-oo--yow, ook! yow! _yow!_ YOW!"

"Lor' a massy!" cries the woman in front of the deacon, jumping up, and making a desperate splurge to get up on to the seats, and in the effort upsetting sundry bundles and parcels around her!

"Yow-_ook!_ Yow-_ook!_" yelled the dog, jumping clear out of the grasp of the juvenile _Mantillini_, and dashing himself on to the head and shoulders of the next seat occupants, one of whom was a sturdy civilized Irishman, who made "no bones" in grasping the sickly-looking dog, and to the horror and alarm of the entire female party present, he sung out:

"Whur-r-r ye about, ye brute! Is the divil _mad_?"

"Eee! Ee! O dear! O! O!" cries an anxious mother.

"O! O! O-o-o! save us from the dog!" cries another.

"Whur-r-r-r! ye _divil!_" cries the Irish gintilman, pinning the poor dog down between the seats, with a force that extracted another glorious yell.

"Ike! Ike! Ike! oo, ow! ow! Ike! Ike! Ike!"

"Murder! mur-r-r-der!" bawls another victim in the rear of the deacon, leaping up in his seat, and rubbing his leg vigorously.

"What on airth's loose?" exclaims one.

"Halloo! what's that?" cries another, hastily vacating his seat and crowding towards the door.

"O dear, O! O!" anxiously cries a delicate young lady.

"What? who? where?" screamed a dozen at once.

"Good _conscience!_" exclaims the deacon, as he dropped his newspaper, in the midst of the din--noise and confusion; and with a most singular and spasmodic effort to dance a "_high_land fling," he hustled out of his seat, exclaiming:

"Good conscience, I really believe they're out."

"Eh? What--what's out?" cries one.

"Snakes!" echoes an old gentleman, grasping a cane.

"Snappin' turtles, Mister?" inquire several.

"Snakes!" cried a dozen.

"Snappers!" echoes a like quantity of the dismayed.

"Snapper-r-r-r-rs!"

"Snake-e-e-es!" O what a din!

"Halloo! here, what's all this? What's the matter?" says the conductor, coming to the rescue.

"That man's got snakes in the car!" roar several at once.

"And snappin' turtles, too, consarn him!" says one, while all eyes were directed, tongues wagging, and hands gesticulating furiously at the astonished deacon.

"Take care of them! Take care of them! I believe I'm bitten clear through my boot--catch them, Mr. Swallow!" cries the deacon.

"Swallow 'em, Mr. Catcher!" echoes the frightened dandy.

"What? where?" says the excited conductor, looking around.

"Here, here, in under these seats, sir,--_my lobsters, sir_," says the deacon, standing aloof to let the conductor and the man with the cane get at the _reptiles_, as the latter insisted.

"Darn 'em, are they only lobsters!"

"Pooh! Lobsters!" says young Mantillini, with a mock heroic shrug of his shoulders, and looking fierce as two cents!

"Come out here!" says the conductor, feeling for them.

"Take care!" says the deacon, "the plaguy things have got their pins out!"

"Why, they are _alive_, and crawling around; hear the old fellow,--take care, Mr. Swaller--he's cross as sin!" says the man with the cane--"wasn't that a _snap_? Take care! You got him?" that indefatigable assistant continued, rattling his tongue and cane.

"I've got them!" cries the conductor.

"Put them in the bag, here, sir," says the deacon.

"Take them out of this car!" cries everybody.

"Plaguy things," says the deacon. "I sha'n't never buy another _live lobster!_"

Order was restored, passengers took their seats, but when young Mantillini looked for his dog, he had vamosed with the _Irishman_, at "the last stopping place," in his excitement, leaving a quart jug of whiskey in lieu of the dandy's dog.

The Fitzfaddles at Hull.

"Well, well, drum no more about it, for mercy's sake; if you must go, you must _go_, that's all."

"Yes, just like you, Fitzfaddle"--pettishly reiterates the lady of the middle-aged man of business; "mention any thing that would be gratifying to the children--"

"The children--_umph!_"

"Yes, the children; only mention taking the dear, tied-up souls to, to--to the Springs--"

"_Haven't_ they been to Saratoga? _Didn't_ I spend a month of my precious time and a thousand of my precious dollars there, four years ago, to be physicked, cheated, robbed, worried, starved, and--laughed at?" Fitzfaddle responds.

"Or, to the sea-side--" continued the lady.

"Sea-side! good conscience!" exclaims Fitzfaddle; "my dear Sook--"

"Don't call me _Sook_, Fitzfaddle; _Sook!_ I'm not _in_ the kitchen, nor _of_ the kitchen, you'll please remember, Fitzfaddle!" said the lady, with evident feeling.

"O," echoed Fitz, "God bless me, Mrs. Fitzfaddle, don't be so rabid; don't be foolish, in your old days; my dear, we've spent the happiest of our days in the kitchen; when we were first married, _Susan_, when our whole stock in trade consisted of five ricketty chairs--"

"Well, that's enough about it--" interposed the lady.

"A plain old pine breakfast table--" continued Fitz.

"I'd stop, just THERE--" scowlingly said Mrs. Fitz.

"My father's old chest, and your mother's old corner cupboard--" persevered the indefatigable monster.

"I'd go through the whole inventory--" angrily cried Mrs. Fitz--"clean down to--"

"The few broken pots, pans, and dishes we had--"

"Don't you--_don't you feel ashamed of yourself_?" exclaims Mrs. Fitz, about as full of anger as she could well contain; but Fitz keeps the even tenor of his way.

"Not at all, my dear; Heaven forbid that I should ever forget a jot of the real happiness of any portion of my life. When you and I, dear Sook (an awful scowl, and a sudden change of her position, on her costly rocking chair. Fitz looked askance at Mrs. Fitz, and proceeded); when you and I, _Susan_, lived in Dowdy's little eight by ten 'blue frame,' down in Pigginsborough; not a yard of carpet, or piece of mahogany, or silver, or silk, or satin, or flummery of any sort, the five old chairs--"

"Good conscience! are you going to have that over again?" cries Mrs. Fitz, with the utmost chagrin.

"The old white pine table--"

Mrs. Fitz starts in horror.

"My father's old chest, and your mother's old corner cupboard!"

Mrs. Fitz, in an agony, walks the floor!

"The few broken or cracked pots, pans and dishes, we had--"

Nature quite "gin eout"--the exhausted Mrs. Fitzfaddle throws herself down upon the sumptuous _conversazione_, and absorbs her grief in the ample folds of a lace-wrought handkerchief (bought at Warren's--cost the entire profits of ten quintals of Fitzfaddle & Co.'s A No. 1 cod!), while the imperturbable Fitz drives on--

"Your mother's old cooking stove, Susan--the time and again, Susan, I've sat in that little kitchen--"

Mrs. Fitzfaddle shudders all over. Each reminiscence, so dear to Fitzfaddle, seems a dagger to her.

"With little Nanny--"

"You--you brute! You--you vulgar--you--you Fitzfaddle. Nanny! to call your daughter N-Nanny!"

"Nanny! why, yes, Nanny--" says the matter-of-fact head of the firm of Fitzfaddle & Co. "I believe we did intend to call the girl Nancy; we _did_ call her Nanny, Mrs. Fitzfaddle; but, like all the rest, by your innovations, things have kept changing no better fast. I believe my soul that girl has had five changes in her name before you concluded it was up to the highest point of modern respectability. From Nancy you had it Nannette, from Nannette to Ninna, from Ninna to Naomi, and finally it was rested at Anna Antoinette De Orville Fitzfaddle! Such a mess of nonsense to _handle_ my plain name."

"Anna Antoinette De Orville"--said Mrs. Fitz, suddenly rallying, "_is_ a name, only made _plain_ by your ugly and countryfied prefix. De Orville is a name," said the lady.

"I should like to know," said the old gentleman, "upon what pretext, Mrs. Fitzfaddle, you lay claim to such a Frenchy and flighty name or title as De Orville?"

"Wasn't it my family name, you brute?" cried Mrs. Fitz.

"Ho! ho! ho! Sook, Sook, _Sook_," says Fitzfaddle.

"_Sook!_" almost screams Mrs. Fitz.

"Yes, _Sook_, Sook _Scovill_, daughter of a good old-fashioned, patriotic farmer--_Timothy Scovill_, of Tanner's Mills, in the county of Tuggs--down East. And when I married Sook (Mrs. Fitz jumped up, a rustling of silk is heard--a door slams, and the old gentleman finishes his domestic narrative, _solus!_), she was as fine a gal as the State ever produced. We were poor, and we knew it; wasn't discouraged or put out, on the account of our poverty. We started in the world square; happy as clams, nothing but what was useful around us; it is a happy reflection to look back upon those old chairs, pine table, my father's old chest, and Sook's mother's old corner cupboard--the cracked pots and pans--the old stove--Sook as ruddy and bright as a full-blown rose, as she bent over the hot stove in our parlor, dining room, and kitchen--turning her slap-jacks, frying, baking and boiling, and I often by her side, with our first child, Nanny, on my--"

"Well, I hope by this time you're over your vulgar Pigginsborough recollections, Fitzfaddle!" exclaims Mrs. Fitz, re-entering the parlor.

"I was just concluding, my dear, the happy time when I sat and read to you, or held Nanny, while you--"

"Fitzfaddle, for goodness' sake--"

"While you--ruddy and bright, my dear, as the full-blown rose, bent over your mother's old cook stove--"

"Are you crazy, Fitz, or do you want to craze me?" cried the really _tried_ woman.

"Turning your slap-jacks," continues Fitz, suiting the action to the word.

"Fitzfaddle!" cries Mrs. Fitz, in the most sublimated paroxysm of pity and indignation, but Fitz let it come.

"_While I dandled Nanny on my knee!_"

A pause ensues; Fitzfaddle, in contemplation of the past, and Mrs. Fitz fortifying herself for the opening of a campaign to come. At length, after a deal of "dicker," Fitz remembering only the bad dinners, small rooms, large bills, sick, parboiled state of the children, clash and clamor of his trips to the Springs, sea-side and mountain resorts; and Mrs. Fitz dwelling over the strong opposition (show and extravagance) she had run against the many ambitious shop-keepers' wives, tradesmen's, lawyers' and doctors' daughters--Mrs. Fitz gained her point, and the family,--Mrs. Fitz, the two now marriageable daughters--Anna Antoinette De Orville, and Eugenia Heloise De Orville, and Alexander Montressor De Orville, and two servants--start in style, for the famed city of Hull!

It was yet early in the season, and Fitzfaddle had secured, upon accommodating terms, rooms &c., of Mrs. Fitzfaddle's own choosing. With the diplomacy of five prime ministers, and with all the pride, pomp and circumstance of a fine-looking woman of two-and-forty,--husband rich, and indulgent at that; armed with two "marriageable daughters," you may--if at all familiar with life at a "watering-place," fancy Mrs. Fitzfaddle's feelings, and perhaps, also, about a third of the _swarth_ she cut. The first evident opposition Mrs. Fitz encountered, was from the wife of a wine merchant. This lady made her _entree_ at ---- House, with a pair of bays and "body servant," two poodles, and an immensity of band boxes, patent leather trunks, and--her husband. The first day Mrs. Oldport sat at table, her new style of dress, and her European jewels, were the afternoon talk; but at tea, the Fitzfaddles _spread_, and Mrs. Oldport was bedimmed, easy; the next day, however, "turned up" an artist's wife and daughter, whose unique elegance of dress and proficiency in music took down the entire collection! Mrs. Michael Angelo Smythe and daughter captivated two of Mrs. Fitzfaddle's "circle"--a young naval gent and a 'quasi Southern planter, much to her chagrin and Fitzfaddle's pecuniary suffering; for next evening Mrs. F. got up,--to get back her two recruits--a grand private _hop_, at a cost of $130! And the close of the week brought such a cloud of beauty, jewels, marriageable daughters and ambitious mothers, wives, &c., that Mrs. Fitzfaddle got into such a worry with her diplomatic arrangements, her competitions, stratagems,--her fuss, her jewels, silks, satins and feathers, that a nervous-headache preceded a typhus fever, and the unfortunate lady was forced to retire from the field of her glory at the end of the third week, entirely prostrated; and poor Jonas Fitzfaddle out of pocket--more or less--_five hundred dollars!_ The last we heard of Fitzfaddle, he was apostrophizing the good old times when he rejoiced in five old chairs--cook stove--slap-jacks, &c.!

Putting Me on a Platform!

Human nature doubtless has a great many weak points, and no few bipeds have a great itching after notoriety and fame. Fame, I am credibly informed, is not unlike a greased pig, always hard chased, but too eternal slippery for every body to hold on to! I have never cared a tinker's curse for glory myself; the satisfaction of getting quietly along, while in pursuit of bread, comfort and knowledge, has sufficed to engross my individual attention; but I've often "had my joke" by observing the various grand dashes made by cords of folks, from snob to nob, patrician to plebeian, in their gyrations to form a circle, in which they might be the centre pin! This desire, or feeling, is a part and parcel of human nature; you will observe it every where--among the dusky and man-eating citizens of the Fejee Islands--the dog-eating population of China--the beef-eaters of England, and their descendants, ye _Yankoos_ of the new world; all, all have a tendency for lionization.