The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales Part 15

[Footnote B: Semele (?)]

Well, and 'ows bizness, Samivel? You've got a good stand, and you're bound to succeed. But beware of the Cracker-Fiend. I'll tell you about him.

There vas a chap as used to _patronize_ me that vas one of the hungriest customers you ever did see. He was werry shabbily dressed, and he looked for all the world like the picturs I've seen of Shakspeare's "lean and hungry Cas.h.i.+er."

He used to come in, give his order, (generally a stew,) and then go and set down in a box and drop the curting. It allers looks suspicious for a customer to drop his curting _afore_ you bring him the oysters--_arterwards_ it's all perfectly proper, in course. Afore the stew was ready, he would call out--

"Waiter! crackers!"

The boy would hand him a basket; but when his stew was set before him, there warn't no crackers in _his_ box.

So ve put him on a allowance of a dozen crackers, which is werry liberal, considerin' as pickles and pepper-sarce is throw'd in gratis.

But he used to step out quietly and snake baskets of crackers outen other boxes, so's the other customers, as alvays conducted themselves like perfick gen'lemen, vas all the time a singing out, "Waiter! plate of crackers."

Then we kept a boy a-watching of him, so's to keep him in his box till he'd eat his oysters, and then you had to keep a werry sharp eye on him ven he was paying, and you vas a-makin' change, els't you'd hev all the crackers took off the counter.

One day arter he vas gone, ve found all the crackers missin' from one side of the room. Of course, ve suspected he done it, but how he done it vas as much a puzzle as the Spinks.

Next day, arter ve got him into his box, ve vatched and listened. Ve heard a queer kind of sound, like a man trying to play the jewsharp vith his boots; and, sir, ve detected the cracker-fiend a climbin'

over the part.i.tions into the neighborin' boxes, and a collarin' all the crackers he could come acrost.

Perhaps you think I vent into him like a knife into a Prince's Bay.

But I didn't do no such think. I treated him werry perlite, and gin him two dollars, a keg of crackers, and a jar of pickled oysters, on condition he'd go and patronize some other establishment. Keep an eye open for him, Samivel.

Be generous, Samivel, but don't carry generosity to XS, for an antidote I'm about to relate, out of my pusnol experience, ill.u.s.trates the evil effex of excessive philanthrophy.

A little gal used to come into my shop to buy oysters. I seen she was some kind of a foreigner, so I set her down for Dutch--as them vas the only foreigners I vas acquainted vith at the time. I artervards discovered she was French. She was werry thin, and as pale as a soft-sh.e.l.led clam; there was a dark blue color under her eyes, like these here muscle sh.e.l.ls. At first, she used to buy ninepence worth of oysters. Arter a while it came down to fourpence; and one day she only vanted two cents vorth. I asked her who they vas for, and she said,--

"For my grandfather; he is very sick, sare."

I followed her, and found out where her grandfather lived. So one night I opened four gallons of prime New Yorkers, put 'em in a kettle, took a lot of crackers and soft bread, and started for the Frenchman's. The little gal came to the door, and showed me up stairs.

The poor old customer was all alone, in bed, and yaller as a blanket.

He start up ven he see us, and exclaimed,--

_"Ah! mon Dieu! Antoinette, priez le gentilhomme de 'a.s.seoir."_

The leetle gal offered me a stool, but I didn't set down.

"Mounseer," said I, in some French manufactured for the occasion, "I havey broughtee you sommey oysteries," and I showed him the kittle, with the kiver off.

I thought his eyes kind of vatered at the sight, but he sighed, and turnin' to the leetle gal, said,--

_"Antoinette, dites a Monsieur, que je n'ai plus d'argent--pas un sou."_

I guessed it was something about money, so afore the leetle gal could translate it, I sang out,--

"I don't want no money, Mounseer; these here are free gratis, for nothin' at all. I always treats my customers once in a while."

That was a lie, Samivel--but never mind, I gin him a dozen, and the old fellur seemed to like 'em fust rate. Then I offered him some more, but he hung back. However I made him swallow 'em, and offered some to the leetle gal.

"After grandpapa," said she.

So I offered him some more.

"No more, I zank you; I 'ave eat too moosh."

I know'd he was only sogerin' out of delixy. So I says as perlite as possible,--

"None of that, old fellur--catch hold. I fetched 'em for you, and I'm bound to see you eat 'em."

"Sare, you are _too_ kind," said he; and he vent to vork again. Arter a spell, he stopped.

"Don't like 'em--hey?" says I, pretendin' to be mad.

"I sall prove ze contraire," said he, in a kind of die-away manner, and he went into 'em agin.

Presently, he gin over, and fell back on his piller murmurin'--

"Sare, you are too good."

I gin the balance to the leetle gal, and told her to come round in the mornin', and I'd fill her kittle for her, adding that her grandfather would be all straight in the mornin'.

Samivel! he _vas_ all straight in the morning, but just as stiff as a cold poker. The last two or three dozen finished him; his digestion wasn't strong enough for 'em, and he know'd it, but he eat himself to death out of politeness. The French are certingly the perlitest people on the face of the yairth.

Howsever, I see him buried decently, and I adopted the leetle gal. She was well brung up and educated, and she larned my darters French--the real Simon Pure--for she was a Canadian, and her grandfather came from Gascony. But his fate vos a orful lesson. Benevolence, like an oyster-roast, is good for nothink if it's over done. And now, Samivel, my boy, _a-jew_, for I have a _sworray_ this evenin', and receive half Beacon Street. _A-jew._

THE NEW YEAR'S STOCKINGS.

"Never crosses his t's, nor dots his i's, and his n's and v's and r's are all alike!" said, almost despairingly, Mr. Simon Quillpen, the painstaking clerk of old Lawyer Lat.i.tat, as he sat late at night, on the last day of the year, digging away at the copy of a legal doc.u.ment his liberal patron and employer had placed in his hands in the early part of the evening. "Thank Heaven!" he added, laying down his pen, and consulting a huge silver bull's eye which he pulled from a threadbare fob, "I shall soon get through this job, and then, hey for roast potatoes and the charming society of Mrs. Q.!" And with this consolatory reflection, he resumed his work with redoubled energy.

Mr. Quillpen was a little man; not so very little as to pa.s.s for a phenomenon, but certainly too small to be noticed by a recruiting grenadier sergeant. His nose was quite sharp and gave his mild, thin countenance, particularly as he carried his head a little on one side, a very bird-like air. He trod, too, gingerly and lightly, very like a sparrow or a tomt.i.t; and, to complete the a.n.a.logy, his head being almost always surmounted by a pen, he had a sort of crested, blue-jayish aspect, that was rather comical. Quillpen had a very little wife and three very little children, Bob, Chiffy, and the baby; the last the ultimate specimen of the _diminuendo_. It was well for them that they were so small, for Quillpen obtained his _starvelihood_ by driving the quill for Mr. Lat.i.tat at four hundred dollars a year, to which Mrs. Quillpen added, from time to time, certain little sums derived from making s.h.i.+rts and overalls at the rate of about ten cents the million st.i.tches.

Whether Mr. Lat.i.tat was able to pay more was a question that never entered the minute brain of Simon Quillpen; for he had so humble an opinion of his own merits, and was always so contented and cheerful, that he regarded his salary as enormous, and was wont playfully to sign little confidential notes Croesus Quillpen and Girard Quillpen, and on rare convivial occasions would sometimes style himself Baron Rothschild. But this last t.i.tle was very rarely indulged in, because it once sent his particular crony, a chuckle-headed clerk in the post-office, into a cachinnatory fit which was "rayther in the apoplectic line."

"To return to our muttons." Simon dug away at his copying with an occasional reverential glance at a certain low oaken door, opening into the _penetralia_ of this abode of law and righteousness, behind which oaken door, at that very moment, sat Mr. Lucius Lat.i.tat, either deeply engaged in the solution of some vast legal problem, or calculating the interest on an outstanding note, or consulting with chuckling delight a list of mortgages to be foreclosed.

Well--Quillpen finished his doc.u.ment, wiped his pen on a thick velvet b.u.t.terfly, laid it in the rack above the ink, pushed back his chair from the table, withdrew the cambric sleeve from his right arm, and smoothed down his wristbands, having first put on his India rubber overshoes. The fact is, he was very anxious to get home, and he could not go without first seeing Mr. Lat.i.tat. The idea of knocking at Mr.

Lat.i.tat's door on business of his own never once occurred to him. He would do that for a client, but not for himself. So he ventured on a series of low coughs, and finding no notice was taken of them, he dropped the poker into the coalhod, the most daring act he had ever perpetrated. The slight noise thus produced crashed on his guilty ears like thunder, or rather with the roar of a universal earthquake.

Slight, however, as it was, it brought out Mr. Lat.i.tat from his interior.

"What the deuse are you making such a racket for?" he exclaimed in tones that thrilled to the heart of his employee; then, without waiting for an answer, he slightly glanced at the table, and asked, "Have you got through that job?"

"Yes'm--I mean, yes'r" replied the quivering Simon.

"Well, then, you can go. I'm going myself. You blow out the lights and lock the room. And mind and be here early to-morrow morning. Nothing like beginning the New Year well. Good night."