Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor Part 3

"That's a pretty little boy," said I. And then I asked Billy one of those senseless routine questions which must make children look at us, regarding the scope of our intellects very much as we look at Bushmen.

"How would you like to play with him?"

"Him!" replied Billy scornfully, "that's his first pair of boots; see him pull up his little breeches to show the red tops to 'em! But, crackey! isn't _she_ a smasher?"

After that we visited the wax figures and the sleepy snakes, the learned seal, and the gla.s.s-blowers. Whenever we pa.s.sed from one room into another Billy could be caught looking anxiously to see if the pretty girl and child were coming too.

Time fails me to describe how Billy was lost in astonishment at the Lightning Calculator--wanted me to beg the secret of that prodigy for him to do his sums by--finally thought he had discovered it, and resolved to keep his arm whirling all the time he studied his arithmetic lesson the next morning. Equally inadequate is it to relate in full how he became so confused among the wax-works that he pinched the solemnest showman's legs to see if he was real, and perplexed the beautiful Circa.s.sian to the verge of idiocy by telling her he had read in his geography all about the way they sold girls like her.

We had reached the stairs to that subterranean chamber in which the Behemoth of Holy Writ was wallowing about without a thought of the dignity which one expects from a canonical character. Billy had always languished upon his memories of this diverting beast, and I stood ready to see him plunge headlong the moment that he read the signboard at the head of the stairs. When he paused and hesitated there, not seeming at all anxious to go down till he saw the pretty girl and the child following after--a sudden intuition flashed across me. Could it be possible that Billy was caught in that vortex which whirled me down at ten years--a little boy's first love?

We were lingering about the elliptical basin, and catching occasional glimpses between bubbles of a vivified hair trunk of monstrous compa.s.s, whose k.n.o.bby lid opened at one end and showed a red morocco lining, when the pretty girl, in leaning over to point out the rising monster, dropped into the water one of her little gloves, and the swash made by the hippopotamus drifted it close under Billy's hand.

Either in play or as a mere coincidence the animal followed it. The other children about the tank screamed and started back as he b.u.mped his nose against the side; but Billy manfully bent down and grabbed the glove not an inch from one of his big tusks, then marched around the tank and presented it to the lady with a chivalry of manner in one of his years quite surprising.

"That's a real nice boy--you said so, didn't you, Lottie?--and I wish he'd come and play with me," said the little fellow by the young lady's side, as Billy turned away, gracefully thanked, to come back to me with his cheeks roseate with blushes.

As he heard this Billy idled along the edge of the tank for a moment, then faced about and said:

"P'raps I will some day. Where do you live?"

"I live on East Seventeenth Street with papa--and Lottie stays there, too, now--she's my cousin. Where d'you live?"

"Oh! I live close by--right on that big green square, where I guess the nurse takes you once in awhile," said Billy patronizingly. Then, looking up pluckily at the young lady, he added, "I never saw you out there."

"No; Jimmy's papa has only been in his new house a little while, and I've just come to visit him."

"Say, will you come and play with me some time?" chimed in the inextinguishable Jimmy. "I've got a cooking-stove--for real fire--and blocks, and a ball with a string."

Billy, who belonged to a club for the practise of the great American game, and was what A. Ward would call the most superior battist among the I. G. B. B. 0., or "Infant Giants," smiled from an alt.i.tude upon Jimmy, but promised to go and play with him the next Sat.u.r.day afternoon.

Late that evening, after we had got home and dined, as I sat in my room over "Pickwick" with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the door told of Daniel. I called "Come in!" and, entering with a slow, dejected air, he sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained silent, though occasionally looking up as if about to speak, then dropping his head again, to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down d.i.c.kens and spoke myself:

"You don't seem well to-night, Daniel?"

"I don't feel very well, uncle."

"What's the matter, my boy?"

"Oh-ah, I don't know. That is, I wish I knew how to tell you."

I studied him for a few minutes with kindly curiosity, then answered:

"Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you.

Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you're not hara.s.sed by any economical considerations, for you've all the money you want; and I know that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are scholarly. This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms-- listlessness, general dejection, and all--to three causes--dyspepsia, religious conflicts, love. Now, is your digestion awry?"

"No, sir; good as usual. I'm not melancholy on religion, and--"

"You don't tell me you're in love?"

"Well,--yes--I suppose that's about it, Uncle Teddy."

I took a long breath to recover from my astonishment at this unimaginable revelation, then said: "Is your feeling returned?"

"I really don't know, uncle; I don't believe it is. I don't see how it can be. I never did anything to make her love me. What is there in me to love? I've borne nothing for her--that is, nothing that could do her any good--though I've endured on her account, I may say, anguish. So, look at it any way you please, I neither am, do nor suffer anything that can get a woman's love."

"Oh, you man of learning! Even in love you tote your grammar along with you, and arrange a divine pa.s.sion under the active, pa.s.sive and neuter!"

Daniel smiled faintly.

"You've no idea, Uncle Teddy, that you are twitting on facts; but you hit the truth there; indeed, you do. If she were a Greek or Latin woman I could talk Anacreon or Horace to her. If women only understood the philosophy of the flowers as well as they do the poetry--"

"Thank G.o.d they don't, Daniel!" sighed I devoutly.

"Never mind--in that case I could entrance her for hours, talking about the grounds of differences between Linnaeus and Jussieu. Women like the star business, they say--and I could tell her where all the constellations are; but sure as I tried to get off any sentiment about them, I'd break down and make myself ridiculous. But what earthly chance would the greatest philosopher that ever lived have with the woman he loved if he depended for her favor on his ability to a.n.a.lyze her bouquet or tell her when she might look out for the next occultation of Orion? I can't talk bread-and-b.u.t.ter talk. I can't do anything that makes a man even tolerable to a woman!"

"I hope you don't mean that nothing but bread-and-b.u.t.ter talk is tolerable to a woman!"

"No; but it's necessary to some extent--at any rate, the ability is-- in order to succeed in society; and it's in society men first meet and strike women. And, oh, Uncle Teddy! I'm such a fish out of water in society!--such a dreadful floundering fis.h.!.+ When I see her dancing gracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows like little Jack Mankyn, who 'don't know twelve times,' can dance to her perfect admiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners--and all sorts of men without an idea in their heads have that--while I turn all colors when I speak to her, and am clumsy, and abrupt, and abstracted, and bad at repartee--Uncle Teddy! sometimes (though it seems so ungrateful to father and mother, who have spent such pains for me)--sometimes, do you know, it seems to me as if I'd exchange all I've ever learned for the power to make a good appearance before her!"

"Daniel, my boy, it's too much a matter of reflection with you! A woman is not to be taken by laying plans. If you love the lady (whose name I don't ask you, because I know you'll tell me as soon as you think best), you must seek her companions.h.i.+p until you're well enough acquainted with her to have her regard you as something different from the men whom she meets merely in society, and judge your qualities by another standard than that she applies to them. If she's a sensible girl (and G.o.d forbid you should marry her otherwise), she knows that people can't always be dancing, or holding fans, or running after orange-ice. If she's a girl capable of appreciating your best points (and woe to you if you marry a girl who can't!), she'll find them out upon closer intimacy, and, once found, they'll a hundred times outweigh all brilliant advantages kept in the show-case of fellows who have nothing on the shelves. When this comes about, you will pop the question unconsciously, and, to adapt Milton, she'll drop into your lap, 'gathered--not harshly plucked.'"

"I know that's sensible, Uncle Teddy, and I'll try. Let me tell you the sacredest of secrets--regularly every day of my life I send her a little poem fastened round the prettiest bouquet I can get at Hanft's."

"Does she know who sends them?"

"She can't have any idea. The German boy that takes them knows not a word of English except her name and address. You'll forgive me, uncle, for not mentioning her name yet? You see, she may despise or hate me some day when she knows who it is that has paid her these attentions; and then I'd like to be able to feel that at least I've never hurt her by any absurd connection with myself."

"Forgive you? Nonsense! The feeling does your heart infinite credit, though a little counsel with your head will show you that your only absurdity is self-depreciation."

Daniel bid me good-night. As I put out my cigar and went to bed my mind reverted to the dauntless little Hotspur who had spent the afternoon with me and reversed his mother's wish, thinking:

"Oh, if Daniel were more like Billy!"

It was always Billy's habit to come and sit with me while I smoked my after-breakfast cigar, but the next morning did not see him enter my room until St. George's hands pointed to a quarter of nine.

"Well, Billy Boy Blue, come blow your horn; what haystack have you been under till this time of day? We shan't have a minute to look over our spelling together, and I know a boy who's going in for promotion next week. Have you had your breakfast and taken care of Orab?"

"Yes, sir; but I didn't feel like getting up this morning."

"Are you sick?"

"No-o-o--it isn't that; but you'll laugh at me if I tell you."

"Indeed I won't, Billy!"

"Well"--his voice dropped to a whisper, and he stole close to my side--"I had such a nice dream about _her_ just the last thing before the bell rang; and when I woke up I felt so queer--so kinder good and kinder bad--and I wanted to see her so much that, if I hadn't been a big boy, I believe I should have blubbered. I tried ever so much to go to sleep and see her again; but the more I tried the more I couldn't. After all, I had to get up without it, though I didn't want any breakfast, and only ate two buckwheat cakes, when I always eat six, you know, Uncle Teddy. Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes, dear, so you couldn't get it out of me if you were to shake me upside-down like a savings bank."