Confessions Of Con Cregan Part 33

On the present occasion, however, it would seem a real expedition had been planned. Some had already sailed, others were to follow the very day after the lottery, and only waited to learn who was the fortunate winner of Butcher's mare, at that time waiting at Galveston for an owner.

I waited a long time, in hope of acquiring something like an insight into the scope of the enterprise, but in vain; indeed, it was easy to see that, of the company, not a single one, in all likelihood, intended to join the expedition. When I left the "Picayune," therefore, I was but little wiser than when I entered it; and yet somehow the whole scheme had taken a fast hold on my imagination, which readily filled in the details of what I was ignorant. The course of reading in which I had indulged on board Sir Dudley's yacht was doubtless the reason of this.

My mind had laid up so many texts for adventurous fancies that on the slightest pretext I could call up any quant.i.ty of enterprise and vicissitude.

A hundred times I asked myself if it were likely that any of these Texan adventurers would accept, of my services to wait upon them. I was not ignorant of horses, a tolerably fair groom, could cook a little,--that much I had learned on board the yacht; besides, wherever my qualifications failed, I had a ready witted ingenuity that supplied the place almost as well as the "real article."

"Ah!" thought I, "who knows how many are pa.s.sing at this moment whose very hearts would leap with joy to find such a fellow as I am,'

accustomed to in-door and out, wages no object, and no objection to travel! '" Possessed with this notion, I could not help fancying that in every look that met mine as I went, I could read something like an inquiry, a searching glance that seemed to say, "Bless me! ain't that Con? As I live, there's Con Cregan! What a rare piece of fortune to chance upon him at this juncture!"

I own it did require a vivid and warm imagination so to interpret the expressions which met my eyes at every moment, seeing that the part of the town into which I had wandered was that adjoining to the docks,--a filthy, gloomy quarter, chiefly resorted to by Jew slop-sellers, s.h.i.+p-chandlers, and such like, with here and there a sailors' ordinary usually kept by a negro or half-breed.

I had eaten nothing that day, and it was now late in the afternoon, so that it was with a very strong interest I peeped occasionally into the little dens, where, under a paper lantern with the inscription, "All for Twelve Cents," sat a company, usually of sailors and watermen, whose fare harmonized most unpleasantly with their features.

The combat between a man's taste and his exchequer is never less agreeable than when it concerns a dinner. To feel that you have a soul for turtle and truffles, and yet must descend to mashed potatoes and herrings; to know that a palate capable of appreciating a salmi des perdreaux must be condemned to the indignity of stock fish,--what an indignity is that! The whole man revolts at it! You feel, besides, that such a meal is unrelieved by those suggestive excursions of fancy which a well-served table abounds in. In the one case you eat like the beast of the field,--it is a question of supporting nature, and no more; in the other, there is a poetry interwoven that elevates and exalts. With what discursive freedom does the imagination range from the little plate of oysters that preludes your soup, to pearl fishery and the coral reefs, "with moonlight sleeping on the breaking surf!" And then your soup, be it turtle or mulligatawny, how a.s.sociated is it with the West Indies or the East, bearing on its aromatic vapor thousands of speculative reflections about sugar and slavery, pepper-pots, straw hats, pickaninnies, and the Bishop of Barbadoes; or the still grander themes of elephants, emeralds, and the Indus, with rajahs, tigers, punkahs, and the Punjaub!

And so you proceed, dreamily following out in fancy the hints each course supplies, and roving with your cutlets to the "cattle upon a thousand hills," or dallying with the dessert to the orange-groves of Zaute or Sicily.

I do love all this. The bouquet of my Bordeaux brings back the Rhone, as the dry muscat of my Johannisberg pictures the vine-clad cliffs of the Vaterland, with a long diminuendo train of thought about Metternich and the Holy Alliance--the unlucky treaty of '15--Vienna--Madame Schrader--and Castelli.

And how pleasantly and nationally does one come back with the port to our "ancient ally, Portugal," with a mind-painted panorama of Torres Vedras and the Douro,--with Black Horse Square and the Tagus,--"the Duke" ever and anon flitting across the scene, and making each gla.s.s you carry to your lips a heartfelt "long life to him!"

Alas and alas! such prandial delights were not for me; I must dine for twelve cents, or, by accepting the brilliant entertainment announced yonder, price half-a-dollar, keep Lent the rest of the week.

The temptation to which I allude ran thus:--

Ladies and Gentlemen's Grand Ordinary of all Nations

At 5 o'clock precisely.

Thumbo-rig--Mint julep--and a Ball. The "Half-dollar."

Monsieur Palamede de Rosanne directs the Ceremonies.

If there was a small phrase in the aforesaid not perfectly intelligible, it seemed, upon the principle of the well-known adage, only to heighten the inducement. The "Thumbo-rig" above might mean either a new potation or a new dance. Still, conceding this unknown territory, there was quite sufficient in the remainder of the advertis.e.m.e.nt to prove a strong temptation. The house, too, had a pretentious air about it that promised well. There was a large bow-window, displaying a perfect landscape of rounds and sirloins, with a tasteful drapery of sausages overhead; while a fragrant odor of rum, onions, fresh crabs, cheese, salt cod, and preserved ginger made the very air ambrosial.

As I stood and sniffed, my resolution staggered under the a.s.saults made on eye, nose, and palate, a very smartly-dressed female figure crossed the way, holding up her dress full an inch or so higher than even the mud required, and with a jaunty air displayed a pair of very pink stockings on very well-turned legs. I believe--I 'm not sure, but I fear--the pink stockings completed what the pickled beef began.

I entered. Having paid my money at the bar, and given up my hat and greatcoat, I was ushered by a black waiter, dressed in a striped jacket and trousers, as if he had been ruled with red ink, into a large room, where a very numerous company of both s.e.xes were a.s.sembled, some seated, some standing, but all talking away with buzz and confusion that showed perfect intimacy to be the order of the day. The men, it was easy to see, were chiefly in the "s.h.i.+pping interest." There was a strong majority of mates and small skippers, whose varied tongues ranged from Spanish and Portuguese to Dutch and Danish; French, English and Russian were also heard in the _melee_, showing that the Grand Ordinary had a world-made repute. The ladies were mostly young, very condescending in their manners, somewhat overdressed, and for the most part French.

As I knew no one, I waited patiently to be directed where I should sit, and was at last shown to a place between a very fat lady of creole tint--another dip would have made her black--and a little brisk man, whom I soon heard was Monsieur Palamede himself.

The dinner was good, the conversation easiest of the easy, taking in all, from matters commercial to social,--the whole seasoned with the greatest good-humor and no small share of smartness. Personal adventures by land and sea,--many of the latter recounted by men who made no scruple of confessing that they "dealt in ebony,"--the slave-trade.

Little incidents of life, that told much for the candor of the recounter, were heard on all sides, until at length I really felt ashamed of my own deficiency in not having even contributed an anecdote for the benefit of the company. This preyed upon me the more as I saw myself surrounded by persons who really, if their own unimpeachable evidence was to be credited, began the world in ways and shapes the most singular and uncommon. Not a man or woman of the party that had not slipped into existence in some droll, quaint fas.h.i.+on of their own, so that positively, and for the first time, I really grew ashamed to think that I belonged to "decent people" who had not compromised me in the slightest degree. "Voila un jeune homme qui ne dit pas un mot!" said a pretty-looking woman, with fair brown hair and a very liquid pair of blue eyes. The speech was addressed to me, and the whole table at once turned their glances towards me.

"Ay, very true," said a short, stout little skipper, with an unmistakable slash from a cutla.s.s across his nose; "a sharp-looking fellow like that has a story if he will only tell it."

"And you may see," cried another, "that we are above petty prejudices here; roguery only lies heavy on the conscience that conceals it." The speaker was a tall, sallow man, with singularly intelligent features; he had been a Jesuit tutor in the family of an Italian n.o.ble, and after consigning his patron to the Inquisition, had been himself banished from Rome.

Pressing entreaties and rough commands, half imperious instances and very seductive glances, all were directed towards me, with the object of extorting some traits of my life, and more particularly of that part of it which concerned my birth and parentage. If the example of the company invited the most unqualified candor, I cannot say that it overcame certain scruples I felt about revealing my humble origin. I was precisely in that anomalous position in life when such avowals are most painful. Without ambition, the confession had not cost me any sacrifice; while, on the other hand, I had not attained that eminence which has a proud boastfulness in saying, "Yes, I, such as you see me now,--great, t.i.tled, wealthy, and powerful,--I was the son of a newsvender or a lamplighter." Such avowals, highly lauded as they are by the world, especially when made by archbishops or chancellors, or other great folk, at public dinners, are, to my thinking, about as vainglorious bits of poor human nature as the most cynical could wish to witness. They are the mere victories of vanity over self-esteem. Now, I had no objection that the world should think me a young gentleman of the very easiest notions of right and wrong, with a conscience as elastic as gutta-percha, picking my way across life's stream on the stepping-stones made by other men's skulls,--being, as the phrase has it, a very loose fish indeed; but I insisted on their believing that I was well-born.

Every one has his weakness,--this was Con Cregan's; and as these isolated fissures in strong character are nearly allied with strength, so was it with me: had I not had this frailty, I had never cherished so intensely the pa.s.sion to become a gentleman. This is all digressionary; but I 'll not ask pardon of my dear reader for all that. If he be reading in his snug, well-cus.h.i.+oned chair, with every appliance of ease about him, he'll not throw down these "Confessions" for a bit of prosing that invites the sleep that is already hovering round him. If he has taken me up in the few minutes before dinner, he 'll not regret the bit of meditation which does not involve him in a story. If he be spelling me out in a mail-train, he'll be grateful for the "skipping" place, which leaves him time to look out and see the ingenious preparations that are making by the "down" or the "up" train to run into and smash the unhappy convoy of which he forms a part.

"Come, my young lad, out with it. Let us hear a bit about the worthy people who took the sin of launching you into the wide ocean. You must have had owners one time or other." This was said by a hearty looking old man, with hair white as snow, and an enormous pair of eyebrows to match.

"Willingly, sir," said I, with an air of the easiest confidence; "I should be but too proud if anything in a history humble as mine is could amuse this honorable company. But the truth is, a life so devoid of interest would be only a tax upon its patience to listen to; and as to my birth, I can give little, indeed no, information. The earliest record of my existence that I possess is from the age of two days and three hours."

"That will do,--do admirably!" chorused the party, who laughed heartily at the gravity with which I spoke, and which to them seemed an earnest of my extreme simplicity. "We shall be quite satisfied with that," cried they again.

"Well, then, gentlemen, thanking you for the indulgence with which you consent to overlook my want of accuracy, I proceed. At the tender age I have mentioned, I was won in a raffle!"

"Won in a raffle! won in a raffle!" screamed one after the other; and amid shouts of laughter the phrase continued to be echoed from end to end of the table. "That beats you hollow, Giles!" "By Jove, how scarce babies must be in the part you come from, if people take tickets for em!" Such were some of the commentaries that broke out amidst the mirth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 280]

"I move," said a dapper little Frenchman who had been a barber and a National Guard once, "I move that the honorable deputy make a statement to the Chamber respecting the interesting fact to which he has alluded."

The motion was carried by acclamation, and I was accordingly induced to ascend the tribune,--a kind of rude pulpit that was brought specially into the room, and stationed at the side of the president's chair; the comments on my personal appearance, age, air, and probable rank, which were made all the while, evidencing the most candid spirit one can well imagine.

"A right-down slick and shrewd 'un, darn me if he ain't!"

"A very wide awake young gemman," quoth number two.

"Il a de 'beaux yeux,' celui-la,"--this was a lady's remark.

"Set that young 'un among the girls 'down east,' and he'll mow 'em down like gra.s.s."

"A Londoner,--swell-mobbish a bit, I take it."

"Not at all, he a'nt; he's a bank clerk or a post-office fellow bolted with a lot of tin."

"Der ist ein echter Schelm," growled out an old Dantzic skipper; "I kenn him vehr wohl,--steal your wash wid a leetle scheer,--scissars you call him, ha! ha!"

"Ladies and gentlemen," said I, a.s.suming a pose of the most dignified importance, "before entering upon the circ.u.mstance to which you have so graciously attached a little interest, let me a.s.sure you--not that the fact can or ought to have any weight with this distinguished company--that I have no claim upon your sympathy with regard to any of the pleas whispered around me. I am neither thief, pickpocket, runaway postman, burglar, nor highwayman. If I be, as you are pleased to say, 'wide awake,' I believe it is only a common precaution, considering the company I find myself in; and if I really could lay claim to the flattering praise of a fair lady on the loft, it would be merely from what he was commonly called at the clubs, the Great 'Bora.s.sus,' he was listened to with interest and attention; and, in fact, from the extent of his knowledge of the subject, and his acquaintance with every detail of its history, each felt that to his Lords.h.i.+p ought by right to fall the fortunate ticket.

"So did it, in fact, turn out. After much vacillation, with the last two numbers remained the final decision. One belonged to the Royal Duke, the other to Lord E------.

"'You shall have a hundred guineas for your chance, E------,' said the Duke; 'what say you?'

"'Your Ruyal Highness's wish is a command,' said he, bowing and blus.h.i.+ng; 'but were it otherwise, and to any other than your Royal Highness, I should as certainly say nay.'

"'Then "nay" must be the answer to me also; I cannot accept of such a sacrifice: and, after all, you are much more worthy of such a treasure than I am,--I really only meant it for a present to Mori.'

"'A present, your Royal Highness!' cried he, horrified; 'I would n't give such a jewel to anything short of St. Cecilia,--the violin, you are aware, was her instrument.'

"'Now, then, for our fortunes!' cried the Duke, as he drew forth his ticket. 'I believe I 'm the lucky one: this is number 2000.'

"'Two thousand and one!' exclaimed Lord E------, holding up his, and, in an ecstasy of triumph, sat down to recover himself.

"'Here is the key, my Lord,' said one of the party, advancing towards him.