The Humors of Falconbridge Part 64

"Betsy!" cries the old Captain, "come here. What say you--are you willing to remain spliced with the Doctor, or not? Hold up your head, my gal--speak out!"

"Yes--_I'm agreed, if he is_," said she.

"Well said, hurrah!" cries the Captain. "Now, sir (to the Doctor), to make all right and tight, I here give you, in presence of the 'Squire, my favorite daughter Betsy, and one of the best farms in the State of New York. Are you satisfied, Doctor?"

"Captain, I am. I shall try, sir, to make your daughter a happy woman!"

returned the Doctor, and he did; he became the founder of a large family, and one of the wealthiest men in the State.

Rather pleased, finally, with the _joke_, the Doctor managed to turn it upon the Captain, who in due course of law was arrested upon the charge of illegally personating a parson, and marrying a couple without a license! He was fined fifty dollars and costs; and of course was thus caused to laugh on the wrong side of his mouth.

Appearances are Deceitful.

There are a great many good jokes told of the false notions formed as to the character and standing of persons, as judged by their dress and other outward signs. It is a.s.serted, that a fine coat and silvery tone of voice, are no evidence of the gentleman, and few people of the present day will have the hardihood to a.s.sert that a blunt address, or shabby coat, are infallible recommendations for putting, however honest, or worthy, a man in a prominent att.i.tude before the world, or the community he moves in. Some men of wealth, for the sake of variety, sometimes a.s.sume an eccentric or coa.r.s.eness of costume, that answers all very well, as long as they keep where they are known; but to find out the levelling principles of utter nothingness among your fellow mortals, only a.s.sume a shabby apparel and stroll out among strangers, and you'll be essentially _knocked_ by the force of these facts. However, in this or almost any other Christian community, there is little, if any excuse, for a man, woman, or child going about or being "shabby." Let your garments, however coa.r.s.e, be made clean and whole, and keep them so; if you have but one s.h.i.+rt and that minus sleeves and body, have the fragments washed, and make not your face and hands a stranger to the refres.h.i.+ng and purifying effects of water.

General Pinckney was one of the old school gentlemen of South Carolina.

A man he was of the most punctilious precision in manners and customs, in courtesy, and cleanliness of dress and person; a man of brilliant talents, and, in every sense of the word, "a perfect gentleman!" Mr.

Pinckney was one of the members of the first Congress, and during his sojourn in Philadelphia, boarded with an old lady by the name of Hall, I think--Mrs. Hall, a staid, prim and precise dame of the old regime.

Mistress Hall was a widow; she kept but few boarders in her fine old mansion, on Chestnut street, and her few boarders were mostly members of Congress, or belonged to the Continental army. Never, since the days of that remarkable lady we read of in the books, who made her servant take her chair out of doors, and air it, if any body by chance sat down on it, and who was known to empty her tea-kettle, because somebody crossed the hearth during the operation of boiling water for tea,--exceeded Mistress Hall in domestic prudery and etiquette; hence it may be well imagined that "shabby people" and the "small fry" generally, found little or no favor in the eyes of the Quaker landlady of "ye olden time."

General Pinckney having served out his term or resigned his place, it was filled by another noted individual of Charleston, General Lowndes, one of the most courteous and talented men of his day, but the slovenliest and most shockingly ill-accoutred man on record. But for the care and watchfulness of one of the most superb women in existence at the time--Mrs. Lowndes,--the General would probably have frequently appeared in public, with his coat inside out, and his s.h.i.+rt over all!

General Lowndes, in starting for Philadelphia, was recommended by his friend Pinckney, to put up at Mistress Hall's; General P. giving General Lowndes a letter of introduction to that lady. Travelling was a slow and tedious, as well as fatiguing and dirty operation, at that day, so that after a journey from Charleston to Philadelphia, even a man with some pretensions to dress and respectable _contour_, would be apt to look a little "mussy;" but for the poor General's part, he looked hard enough, in all conscience, and had he known the _effect_ such an appearance was likely to produce upon Mistress Hall, he would not have had the temerity of invading her premises. But the General's views were far above "b.u.t.tons," leather, and prunella. Such a thing as paying deferential courtesies to a man's garments, was something not dreamed of in his philosophy.

"Mrs. Hall's, I believe?" said the General, to a servant answering the ponderous, lion-headed knocker.

"Yes, sah," responded the sable waiter. "Walk dis way, sah, into de parlor, sah."

The General stalked in, leisurely; around the fire-place were seated a dozen of the boarders, the aforesaid "big bugs" of the olden time. Not one moved to offer the stranger a seat by the fire, although his warm Southern blood was pretty well congealed by the frosty air of the evening. The General pulled off his gloves, laid down his great heavy and dusty valice, and quietly took a remote seat to await the presence of the landlady. She came, lofty and imposing; coming into the parlor, with her astute cap upon her majestic head, her gold spectacles upon her nose, as stately as a stage queen!

"Good evening," said the gallant General, rising and making a very polite bow. "Mrs. Hall, I presume?"

"Yes, sir," she responded, stiffly, and eyeing Lowndes with considerable diffidence. "Any business with me, sir?"

"Yes, madam," responded the General, "I--a--purpose remaining in the city some time, and--a--I shall be pleased to put up with you."

"That's impossible, sir," was the ready and decisive reply. "My house is full; I cannot accommodate you."

"Well, really, that _will_ be a disappointment, indeed," said the General, "for I'm quite a stranger in the city, and may find it difficult to procure permanent lodgings."

"I presume not, sir," said she; "there are _taverns_ enough, where strangers are entertained."

The gentlemen around the fire, never offered to tender the stranger any information upon the subject, but several eyed him very hard, and doubtless felt pleased to see the discomfitted and ill-accoutred traveller seize his baggage, adjust his dusty coat, and start out, which _he_ was evidently very loth to do.

Just as Lowndes had reached the parlor door, it occurred to him that Pinckney had recommended him to "put up" at the widow's, and also had given him a letter of introduction to Mrs. Hall. This reminiscence caused the General to retrace his steps back into the parlor, where, placing his portmanteau on the table, he applied the key and opened it, and began fumbling around for his letters, to the no small wonder of the landlady and her respectable boarders.

"I have here, I believe, madam, a letter for you," blandly said the General, still overhauling his baggage.

"A letter for _me_, sir?" responded the lady.

"Yes, madam, from an old friend of yours, who recommended me to stop with you. Ah, here it is, from your friend General Pinckney, of South Carolina."

"General Pinckney!" echoed the landlady, all the gentlemen present c.o.c.king their eyes and ears! The widow tore open the letter, while Lowndes calmly fastened up his portmanteau, and all of a sudden, quite an incarnation spread its roseate hues over her still elegant features.

Lowndes seized his baggage, and, with a "good evening, madam, good evening, gentlemen," was about to leave the inst.i.tution, when the lady arrested him with:

"Stop, if you please, sir; this is General Lowndes, I believe?"

"General Lowndes, madam, at your service," said he, with a dignified bow.

According to all accounts, just then, there was a very sudden rising about the fire-place, and a twinkling of chairs, as if they had all just been _struck_ with the idea that there was a stranger about!

"Keep your seats, gentlemen," said the General; "I don't wish to disturb any of you, as I'm about to leave."

"General Lowndes," said the widow, "any friend of Mr. Pinckney is welcome to my house. Though we are full, I can make room for _you_, sir."

The General stopped, and the widow and he became first-rate friends, when they became better acquainted.

Cigar Smoke

Few persons can readily conceive of the amount of cigars consumed in this country, daily, to say little or nothing of the yearly smokers. The growing pa.s.sion for the noxious weed is truly any thing but pleasantly contemplative. A boy commences smoking at ten or a dozen years old, and by the time he should be "of age," he is, in various hot-house developed faculties, quite advanced in years! And street smoking, too, has increased, at a rate, within a year past, that bids fair to make the Puritan breezes of our evenings as redolent of "smoke and smell," as meets one's nasal organic faculties upon paying a pop visit to New York.

There is but one idea of useful import that we can advance in favor of smoking, to any great extent, in our city: consumption and asthmatic disorders generally are more prevalent here than in other and more southern climates, and for the protection of the lungs, cigar smoking, to a moderate extent, may be useful, as well as pleasurable; but an indiscriminate "looseness" in smoking is not only a dead waste of much ready money, but injurious to the eyes, teeth, breath, taste, smell, and all other senses.

An Everlasting Tall Duel

After all the vicissitudes, ups and downs of a soldier's life, especially in such a campaign as that in Mexico, there is a great deal of music mixed up with the misery, fun with the fuss and feathers, and incident enough to last a man the balance of a long lifetime.

While camped at Camargo, the officers and privates of the Ohio volunteer regiment were paid off one day, and, of course, all who could get _leave_, started to town, to have a time, and get clear of their hard earnings.

The Mexicans were some pleased, and greatly illuminated by the Americans, that and the succeeding day. Several of the officers invested a portion of their funds in mules and mustangs. Among the rest, Lieut.

d.i.c.k Mason and Adjt. Wash. Armstrong set up their private teams. Now, it so fell out, that one of Armstrong's men stole Mason's mule, and being caught during the day with the stolen property on him, or he on it, the high-handed private, (who, barring his propensity to ride in preference to walking, was a very clever sort of fellow, and rather popular with the Adjutant,) nabbed him as a hawk would a pip-chicken.

"If I catch the fellow who stole my mule," quoth Lieut. d.i.c.k, "I'll give him a lamming he won't forget soon!"

And, good as his word, when the man was taken, the Lieutenant had him whipped severely. This riled up Adjt. Wash., who, in good, round, unvarnished terms, volunteered to lick the Lieutenant--out of his leathers! From words they came to blows, very expeditiously, and somehow or other the Lieutenant came out second best--bad licked! This sort of a finale did not set well upon the stomach of the gallant Lieutenant; so he ups and writes a challenge to the Adjutant to meet in mortal combat; and readily finding a second, the challenge was signed, sealed, and delivered to Adjt. Armstrong, Company ----, Ohio volunteers. All these preliminaries were carried on in, or very near in, Camargo. The Adjutant readily accepted the invitation to step out and be shot at; and, having scared up his second, and having no heirs or a.s.signs, goods, chattels, or other sublunary matters to adjust, no time was lost in making wills or leaving posthumous information. The duel went forward with alacrity, but all of a sudden it was discovered by the several interested parties that no arms were in the crowd. It would not very well do to go to camp and look for duelling weapons; so it was proposed to do the best that could be done under the circ.u.mstances, and buy such murderous tools as could be found at hand, and go into the merits of the case at once. At length the Adjutant and friend chanced upon a machine supposed to be a pistol, brought over to the Continent, most probably, by Cortez, in the year 1--sometime. It was a _scrougin_' thing to hold powder and lead, and went off once in three times with the intonation of a four-pounder.

"Hang the difference," says the Adjutant; "it will do."