Part 20

"One point of civility, only," he continued, "gentlemen, remains to be adjusted between us, and as it is in my power to settle it, I shall be most happy to do so. You infernal old rogues you, you whipped me for evincing a due regard and love for my wife, and now, lest you perpetrate the outrage again 'gainst all law and reason, I'll give you a lesson that will last your lifetime. Boatswain, strip each of these rogues to the waist, lash them fast and put on your cat-o'-nine tails forty stripes each!"

The boatswain, mid the laugh and acclamation of the whole crew, went to the work with a hearty good will, and after giving the magistrates and selectmen a fine dressing all around, he cut them loose, put them in their boat, and the ship set sail down the harbor and soon disappeared in the dim dist cut ocean.

Mysteries and Miseries of Housekeeping.

People of experience tell awful stories about the miseries of boarding, and boarding-houses, and it is very clearly palpable to us that keepers of boarding-houses could a tale unfold of their own miseries, equal, if not double that of the luckless creatures who board. That housekeeping has its joys it would be vain to deny, but we need no ghost come from the grave to inform us that the secrets of the kitchen are as numerous and as harrowing, as all can attest that ever had occasion to keep house or hire a "Betty."

When Mr. Peter Perriwinkle got married, he exclaimed against hotels, and abominated boarding-houses; quitting both species of human habitations, he "up" and rented a house, and to hear his glowing description of the house--such a cosy little three-storied brick house, on a street too broad for the neighbors opposite to see into his front parlors, and no houses in the rear from which the prying eye of the curious and idle could spy into back kitchen closets or dinner pots--in brief, Perriwinkle went on with that strain of domestic eloquence, peculiar to new beginners in the arts and mysteries of housekeeping, and after a general detail of the quiet comfort and unalloyed happiness he and Mrs. P. were bound to enjoy for the balance of their lives, we merely observed--

"Ah, my dear sir, you've but the ephemeral bright side of your vision yet. But no matter, dear Pete, as the man said of the sausages--hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst."

"But, brother Jack, I've no reason to look for any thing but a good time. Haven't I married one of the best women in the world? I'm too experienced in life, my boy, to call any female women angels, doves, or sugar plums, you know, but my wife is a real woman!"

"Yes, Pete, she is all that," said we.

"Well, ain't I square with the world? Enough laid up for a wet day--don't care twopence ha'penny for politics, or soldier fol-de-rols--who wins or who loses in such hums?"

"Granted, old fellow."

"I tell you I've a perfect little paradise of a house engaged, furnished and provisioned for a twelvemonth."

"No doubt of all that."

"As to friends and acquaintances, I have plenty, and of the right stripe, too; I'd swear to that without any reluctance."

"I hope, Peter, you have."

"Then what in faith do you imagine I have in embryo to upset or disturb the even tenor of my way, old boy? Come, answer that."

"Does your domestic apparatus work well?"

"I haven't tried it yet."

"Are your appurtenances--your household appointments--from kitchen to parlor, from coal cellar to top scuttle, all they are cracked up to be?"

"Well, you see, the fact is, I can't tell that, yet."

"Do your chimneys draw? Does your range or cooking stove do things up brown? Have you got your Bettys?"

"I vow you've sort of got me this time, brother Jack; but I'll find out, soon, and let you know."

"Do, if you please, Peter, and let us hear an account of how things are working after the first quarter's experience."

Perriwinkle opened with a neat supper party. We attended, and every thing looked cap-a-pie; new, tasteful and happy as any thing human under God's providence and the art and judgment of man could promise. At midnight the company dispersed, all wishing the Perriwinkles life, love, and lots of the small fry.

Months passed, full three; we met our old and familiar friend, Peter Perriwinkle, and as we had not seen him for some time, we met with greetings most cordial.

"How is every thing, old boy--paradise regained?"

"Ah," said Peter, with an ominous shake of the head, "dear Jack,--we've a great deal to learn in this world, and as our old friend Sam Veller says, whether its worth while to pay so much to learn so little, at cost--is a question."

"You begin to think so, eh?"

"Things don't work quite so smooth as I expected--I've moved!"

"What? Not so soon?"

"Yes, sir," said Perriwinkle; "that house was a nuisance!"

"A nuisance? Why, I thought you were in raptures with it?"

"Had water every wet spell, knee-deep in the cellar; full of rats, bugs, and foul air."

"You don't say so?"

"Yes, I do," said Perriwinkle, mournfully. "Chimneys smoked, paper peeled off the walls, Mrs. P. got the rheumatics, a turner worked all night, next door, the fellow that had previously lived or stayed in the house, ran off, leaving all his bills unpaid, and our door bell was incessantly kept ringing by ugly and impudent duns, and the creditors of the rascal, whom I did not know from a side of sole leather. I lived there in purgatory!"

"Too bad," said we. "Well, you've moved, eh?"

"Moved--and such an infernal job as it was. You know the two vases I received as a present from my brother, at Leghorn; I wouldn't have taken $100 each, for them--"

"They are worth it; more too."

"The carman dropped one out of his hands, broke it into a half bushel of flinders, and I hit the centre table upon which the other stood, with a chair, and broke it into forty pieces. But, that wasn't any thing, sir. My wife packed up the elegant set of china presented her by her sister, in a large clothes basket, and set it out in the hall, and while our Irish girl and the carman were carrying out a heavy trunk, the girl lost her balance and fell bump into the basket. She weighed over two hundred pounds--every article of the china was crushed into powder!"

"This was too bad," said we, condolingly.

"Our carpets were torn in getting them up, for I had them put down fast and tight, never supposing they'd come up until thread-bare and out of fashion; they were stained and daubed. The veneering of the piano and other furniture is scratched and torn; a hundred small matters are mutilated. Franklin thought a few moves was as bad as a fire; one move convinces me that the old man was right. But, my dear fellow, I won't bore you with my miseries. We are now moved, and look comfortable again. Call and see us, do. Good bye."

About a fortnight after meeting Perriwinkle, one evening we went up town to see him and his lady. Mrs. P., before marriage, was an uncommon even-tempered and most amiable woman. She had now been married about six months. Upon entering the parlor we found Mrs. P. laboring under much "excitement," and poor Peter--he was doing his best to pacify and soothe her--

"Halloo! what's the trouble?"--we were familiar enough to ask the question--as they were alone, without intruding.

"Take a seat, John," said Perriwinkle. "Mrs. P. and the cook have had a misunderstanding. A little muss, that's all."

"Mr. Humphries," responded the irritated wife, "you don't know how one's temper and good nature are put out, sir, by housekeeping; by the impudence, awkwardness, and wasteful habits of servants, sir."

"Oh! yes, we do, Mrs. P.; we've had our experience," we replied.

"Well, sir," she continued, "I have suffered so in ordering, directing, and watching these women and girls--had my feelings so outraged by them, time and again, since we began housekeeping, that I vow I am out of all manner of patience and charity for them. We have had occasion to change our help so often, that I finally concluded to submit to the awkwardness that cost us sets of china, dozens of glasses, stained carpets, soiled paints, smeared walls, rugs upon the top of the piano, and the piano cloths put down for rugs; Mr. P.'s best linen used for mops, and puddings boiled in night-caps. But, sir, when this evening I found the dough-tray filled with the chambermaid's old clothes, she wiping the lamps with our linen napkins, and the cook washing out her stockings in the dinner pot--I gave way to my angry passions, and cried with vexation!"

And she really did cry, for female blood of Mrs. P.'s pilgrim stock, couldn't stand that, nohow.

P. S.--Perriwinkle and lady sold off, and took rooms at the Tremont House, in order to preserve their morals and money.

Miseries of a Dandy.

That poverty is at times very unhandy--yea, humiliating, we can bear witness; but that any persons should make their poverty an everlasting subject of shame and annoyance to themselves, is the most contemptible nonsense we know of. During our junior days, while officiating as "shop boy," behind a counter in a southern city, we used to derive some fun from the man[oe]uvres of a dandy-jack of a fellow in the same establishment. He was of the bullet-headed, pimpled and stubby-haired _genus_, but dressed up to the _nines_; and had as much pride as two half-Spanish counts or a peacock in a barnyard.

Charley was mostly engaged in the ware rooms, laboratory, etc., up stairs. He would arrive about 7 A. M., arrayed in the costume of _the latest style_, as he flaunted down Chestnut Street--by the way, it was a long, idle tramp, out of his road to do so,--his hair all frizzled up, hat shining and bright as a May morn, his dickey so stiff he could hardly expectorate over his _goatee_, while his "stunnin'" scarf and dashing pin stuck out to the admiration of Charley's extensive eyes, and the astonishment of half the clerks and all the shop boys along the line of our Beau Brummell's promenade!

It was very natural to conceive that Charley was impressed with the idea, that he was the envy of half the men, and the _beau_ ideal of all the women he met! But your real dandy is no particular lover of women; he very naturally so loves himself that he lavishes all his fond affection upon his own person. So it was with our _beau_--he wouldn't have risked dirtying his hands, soiling his "patent leathers," or disarranging his scarf the thirteenth of an inch, to save a lady from a mad bull, or being run down by a wheelbarrow! Charley, to be sure, would walk with them, talk with them, beau them to the theatre, concert or ball room, provided always--they were dressed all but to within half an inch of their lives! The man who introduced a new and _stunnin_' hat, scarf, or coat, Charley would swear friendship to, on sight! A shabby, genteel person was his abomination; a patch or darn, utterly horrifying! He lived, moved, breathed--ideally, his ideality based, of course, upon ridiculous superfluities of life--leather and prunella, entirely. Charley looked upon "a dirty day" as upon a villanously-dressed person, while a bright, shining morn--giving him amplitude to make a "grand dash," won from him the same encomiums to the producer that he would bestow on the getter-up of an elegant pair of cassimeres--commendable works of an artist! The _genus_ dandy, whether of savage or civilized life, is a felicitous subject for peculiar, speculative, comparative analogy or _analysis_; we shall pursue the shadow no farther, but come to the substance.

After arriving at the establishment, Charley would strip off his "top hamper," placing his finery in a closet with the care and diligence of a maiden of thirty, and upwards. Then, donning a rude pair of over-alls and coat, he condescended to go to work. Now, in the said establishment, our _beau_ had few friends; the men, girls, and boys were "down" upon him; the men, because of his dandyism; the females hated him, because Charley stuck his long nose _up_ at "shop girls," and wouldn't no more notice them in the streets, than if they were chimney sweepers or decayed esculents! We boys didn't like him no how, generally, though it was policy for him to treat us tolerably decent, because his pride made it imperiously necessary that some of the "little breeches" should do small chores, errands, bringing water from the street, carrying down to _the shop_ goods, etc., which might otherwise devolve upon himself. But men, girls and boys were always scheming and practising jokes and tricks upon the _beau_. The boys would all rush off to dinner--first having so dirtied the water, hid the towels and soap, that poor Charley would necessarily be obliged to go down into the public street and bring up a bucket of the clean element to wash his begrimed face and hands. And mark the difficulties and _diplomacy_ of such an arrangement. Charley would slip down into the lower entry, peep out to see if any body was looking,--if a genteel person was visible, the _beau_ held back with his bucket; after various reconnaissances, the coast would appear clear, and the _beau_ would dash out to the pump, agitate "the iron-tailed cow" with the force and speed of an infantile earthquake--snatch up the bucket, and with one _dart_ hit the doorway, and glide up stairs, thanking his stars that nobody "seen him do it!"

In one of these _forays_ for water, the _beau_ was decidedly cornered by two of the "shop girls." They, sly creatures, observed poor Charley from an upper "landing" of the stairway, in the entry below, watching his chance to get a clear coast to fill his dirty bucket. The moment the beau darted out, down rush the girls--slam to the door and bar it!

The _beau_, dreaming of no such diabolical inventions, gives the pump an awful _surge_, fills the bucket, looks down the street, and--O! murder, there come two ladies--the first _cuts_ of the city, to whom Charley had once the honor of a personal introduction! With his face turned over his shoulder at the _ladies_--his nether limbs desperately nerved for _tall walking_,--he dashes at the supposed open entryway, and--nearly knocked the panel out of the door, smashing the bucket, spilling the water, and slightly killing himself!

It was almost "a cruel joke," in the girls, who, taking advantage of the stunning effect of the operation, unbarred the door and vanished, before poor Charley picked himself up and scrambled into the lower store to recuperate.

Weeks ran on; the beau had enjoyed a respite from the wiles of his persecutors, when one morning he was forced to come down into the store in his working gear, well be-spattered with oleaginous substances, dust and dirt; in this gear, Charley presented about as ugly and primitive a looking Christian, as might not often--before California life was dreamed of--be seen in a city. We _did_ quite an extensive retail trade--the store was rarely free from _ton_-ish citizens, mostly "fine ladies," in quest of fine perfumes, soaps, oils, etc., to sweeten and decorate their own beautiful selves. But, before venturing in, our _beau_ had an eye about the horizon, to see that no impediments offered; things looked safe, and in comes the beau.

We were upon very fair terms with Charley, and he was wont to regale us with many of his long stories about the company he _faced_ into, the "conquests" he made, and the times he had with this and that, in high life. Fanny Kemble was about that time--belle of the season! _Lioness_ of the day! setting corduroy in a high fever, and raising an awful _furore_--generally! Alas! how soon such things--cave in!

Charley got behind the counter to stow away some articles he had brought down, and began one of his usual harangues:

"Theatre, last night, Jack?"

"No; couldn't get off; wanted to," said we.

"O, you missed a grand opportunity to see the fashion beauty and wealthy people of this city! Such a house! Crowded from pit to dome, met a hundred and fifty of my friends--ladies of the first families in town, with all the 'high boys' of my acquaintance!"

"And how did Fanny _do_ Juliet?" we asked.

"Do it? Elegant! I sat in the second stage box with the two Misses W. (Chestnut street belles!) and Colonel S. and Sam. G., and his sister (all _nobs_ of course!), and they were truly entranced with Miss Kemble's Juliet! I threw for Miss G. her elegant bouquet,--Fanny kissed her fingers to me, and with a _look_ at me, as I stood up so--(the beau gave a tall _rear up_ and was about to spread himself, when glancing at the door, he sees--two ladies! right in the store!) _thunder!_" he exclaims.

If the beau had been hit by a streak of lightning, he would not have _dropped_ sooner than he did, behind the counter.

The ladies proved to be _nobody_ else than those of the very two Misses W. themselves; they lived close by, and frequently came to the store. Beneath our counter were endless packages, broken glass, refuse oils, rancid perfumes, dust, dirt, grease, charcoal, soap, and about everything else dingy and offensive to the eye and nose. The place afforded a wretched refuge for a hull so big and nice as our beau's, but there he was, much in our _way_ too, with the mournful fact, for Charley, that if those "fine ladies" stayed less than half an hour, without overhauling about every article in the store, it would be a white stone indeed in the fortunes of the beau! The ladies sat; they dickered and examined--we exhibited and put away, the beau lying crouched and crucifying at our feet, and we sniggering fit to burst at the _contretemps_ of the poor victim. Charley stood it with the most heroic resignation for full twenty minutes, when the two Misses W. got up to go. Casting their eyes towards the door, who should be about to pass but the divine Fanny!

Fanny Kemble! Seeing the two Misses W., whose recognition and acquaintance was worth cultivating--even by the haughty queen of the drama and belle of the hour; she rushed in, they all had a talk--and you know how women can talk, will _talk_ for an hour or two, all about nothing in particular, except to _talk_. Imagine our beau,--"Phancy his phelinks," as _Yellow Plush_ says, and to heighten the effect, in comes the boss! He comes behind the counter--he sees poor Charley sprawling--he roars out:

"By Jupiter! Mr. Whackstack, are you sick? _dead_?"

"Dead?" utters Fanny.

"A man dead behind your counter, sir?" scream the Misses W.!

With one desperate _splurge_, up jumps the beau; rushes out, up stairs--gets on his clothes, and we did not see him again for over two years!

A Juvenile Joe Miller.

We observed a small transaction last Wednesday noon, on Hanover street, that wasn't so coarse for an urchin hardly out of his swaddling clouts. He was a cunning-looking little fellow, and poking his head into a shoe shop, he bawls out in a very keen, fine, silvery voice--

"S-a-a-y, Mister-r-r--"

"Eh?--what?" says the shop-keeper.

"Somebody's got your boots out here!"

Supposing, of course, that somebody was pegging away with a bunch of his _wares_ at the door, Lapstone rushes out and cries--

"Where?"

"There," says the shaver; "they're there--somebody's got 'em--hung up 'long your window there."

Lapstone seized a box lid to give the juvenile joker a flip, but he scooted, grinning and ha! ha!-ing in the most provoking strain.

"Selling" a Landlord.

During the great gathering of people in Quakerdom, while the Whigs were dovetailing in Old Zack, an artful dodger, a queer quizzing Boston friend of mine, thought a little _side play_ wouldn't be out of the way, so to work he goes to get up a muss, and I'll tell you how he managed it, nice as wax.

Among the Boston delegates--self-constituted, _a la_ Gen. Commander--was a certain gentleman, remarkable for his probity, decorum, and extreme sensitiveness. Well, A., the _wag_, and B., the _victim_, landed together, but selected, in the general overflow and hurly-burly, different lodgings. Next morning, A. finds B. stowed away in ----'s Hotel, fine as a fiddle, snug as a bug, in a good room, and doing about _as_ well as could be expected. A. had had indifferent luck, and the quarters he had lit upon were any thing but comfortable, the inmates of the Hotel being stowed away in _tiers_, like herrings in a box. A. thought he'd _oust_ his innocent and unsuspecting friend, and crack his joke, if it cost a law suit, just for the sake of variety.

With the _address_, and _partly the_ dress--a white hat--of a man of the _mace_, A. steps up to the bar of ----'s Hotel, and after carefully scrutinizing the register, finds the autograph of the victim, then smiles suspiciously, enough to say to the observant bar-keeper--

"Aha! I've found him!" Then leaning cautiously forward towards that person, says A.--

"Is this man here yet? Is he in the house?"

"I b'leave he is, sur,--I know he is, sur," says the Milesian, overlooking the register himself.

"Come here last night?" continues A., in his suspicious strain.

"He did, sur!" answers the grog-mixer.

"Has nothing but a valise and umbrella?" says A.

"Nothing else, sur, I believe," is the reply.

"That's him! that's him! I've found him!" exultantly exclaims A., while the bar-keeper and landlord, who had now come forward, eagerly wanted to know if any thing was wrong with the gentleman whose arrival was being discussed.

"Step aside, sir," says A. to the proprietor; "I don't want any disturbance made, at such a time; it might do your fine establishment more harm than good; _but_, there is a person stopping in your house that I have followed from Boston; I have kept my eye on his movements(!); I know his designs, his practices, _well_; I'm on his track--he dodged me last night, but I've found him--"

"Well, do you pretend to assert that this man (scrutinizing the register) is a pick-pocket, a thief, or something of the kind, sir?" earnestly inquired the proprietor.

"You keep _mum_, sir," said A., coolly tapping the lappel of the landlord's coat--"I've got him _safe!_ Let him rest for awhile--I've got him! Do you understand?" says the wag, winking a knowing, significant _wink_ at the landlord.

"No, cuss me if I do understand you, sir!" sharply replies the landlord. "If there is a dangerous or disreputable person in my house, sir, I would thank you to tell me, sir, and I will soon put him where the dogs won't bite him, sir!"

"There is no use of unnecessary alarm, my friend," says A., in a low tone; "the truth is, this person whom I have followed here, has made a heavy _draw_ on one of our Boston banks, by means of certain checks and certificates, and--"

"Oho! That's it, eh?" interposes the landlord, beginning to see his guest in a more _dignified_ light, that of a splendid thief; so his rigid frown, called in play by the supposition that a petty rascal was on his premises, subsided into a wise smile, which A. interrupts with--