One morning, as Marcus Wilkeson was idly turning the pages of a blue-and-gold favorite, the doorbell rang. In accordance with some mysterious law of acoustics, the sound was full three minutes descending the kitchen staircase, entering the keyhole of the kitchen door, and striking on the tympanum of Mash, the cook, who was sitting by the fire, reading the twenty-fifth chapter of "The Buttery and the Boudoir: A Tale of Real Life." When Mash became fully conscious (which was not till the end of the chapter) that the bell had rung, she expelled a sigh from her fat chest, and wiped the tears from her eyes with the end of her clean apron, and then went to the door with a noble resignation to her lot. There she found a stout elderly woman, bearing a note for "Marcus Wilkeson, Esq."
"Lor'! how slow you are!" said the stout woman, handing the letter to her.
Mash, who had read, in the twenty-third chapter, of the overwhelming way in which the heroine cook had answered an insult by dignified silence, said not a word in reply, but took the note, and slammed the door in the stout woman's face.
The exclamation "Bah!" and certain indistinct mutterings which were audible through the panels, convinced Mash that, by her self-denial, she had won a moral victory. It was with a feeling of excusable pride that she walked into the back parlor, and delivered the note to Marcus Wilkeson.
"Thank you, Mash," said he. It was a singular illustration of his excessive politeness, that he was no less grateful for paid services than for free.
Mash retired, thinking to herself that, if Mr. Wilkeson were only a pirate, a smuggler, a guerilla chieftain, or a dashing fellow in some unlawful, dangerous business, a few years younger, he would be a perfect hero.
Marcus did not recognize the handwriting of the address. Tearing open the envelope, he read the following lines, hastily scrawled on a bit of blue paper:
Wednesday, A.M.MARCUS WILKESON, ESQ.:SIR: Please come over and see me immediately. I have something important to communicate.Your obedient servant,ELIPHALET MINFORD.
"Something must be wrong," said Marcus; and startling thoughts then occurred to him. "Has her hard studying brought on illness? It can't be. She was well enough last evening. What can be the matter?"
Marcus Wilkeson's temperament was of that unfortunate nervous sort which is thrown off its balance by the slightest shock. His frame trembled as he put on his overcoat and hat; and, when he looked in the mirror, he noticed that his face was paler than usual, and his eyes were glassy. "Pooh! what a sensitive fool I am!" said he.
He walked hurriedly to Mr. Minford's, and mounted the long, creaking staircases, two steps at a time, tormenting himself all the way with vague apprehensions of evil.
When he entered the room, without knocking (as was his custom of late), he found the inventor standing in front of his machine, with bare arms, hard at work. Marcus nervously said, "Good morning," and stepped forward to shake him by the hand, but stopped when he saw that Mr. Minford averted his face, and did not move.
"I wished to show you a letter which I received a few minutes ago," said the inventor, still not facing Marcus, but busily filing off the rough edge of a brass wheel fresh from the mould. "There it is, on the table."
Marcus caught up the letter, and read the following:
NEW YORK, Wednesday Forenoon.MR. MINFORD:RESPECTED SIR: Allow a true friend and well wisher to ask a few questions. Who is this Mr. Marcus Wilkeson that has suddenly taken such an interest in your family affairs? What is his private history? Why is he relieving you from all trouble and expense in the education of your beautiful child? What are the man'srealmotives? Would it not be well to spare your eyes from your invention long enough to look into these matters a little? Pardon the suggestion. The office of a spy, and a secret accuser, is an unpleasant, and, perhaps, a thankless one. I should never have assumed it, but for the fact that your ardent devotion to science may render you the easy dupe--and your daughter the innocent victim--of a designing and heartless man of the world. I do not ask you to believe the writer of an anonymous note, and therefore I make no specific charges against this Wilkeson; but merely ask you to inquire into his private character, and, above all, his MOTIVES, for yourself.ONE OF MANY.
Though Marcus Wilkeson was as innocent as a child, in deed and thought, of the baseness hinted at in this letter, he felt that he was looking guilty. Astonishment and indignation kindled in his eyes; but a flush of shame mounted at the same time to his cheeks. Marcus had often said, that if he were tapped on the shoulder in the street, and charged with a petty theft, he would look guilty of grand larceny until he could regain command of his feelings. This diseased sensitiveness, inherited from his mother, was the curse of his physical and mental organization.
His shame was increased by a consciousness that the inventor was stealthily watching him, and studying the enlargement of those horrid red spots on his cheeks.
"When Marcus finished the letter, he put on an expression of outraged innocence--which matched poorly with the flaming tokens of guilt--and said:
"These are infernal lies, sir; and, if I knew the coward who wrote them, I would cram them down his throat."
"Of course they are lies," returned Mr. Minford. "Every anonymous letter writer is a liar--until it is proved that he tells the truth. I shall believe none of these low aspersions on your honor, Mr. Wilkeson, without conclusive evidence." As the inventor said this, not emphatically, Marcus saw that he believed all that the letter had insinuated.
By this time, Marcus had got his constitutional devil a little under control. There was something of real boldness and honesty in his eyes, as he answered:
"This is a distressing subject to talk or think of. But now that it has been brought before us, I demand a full investigation. Go, wherever you will, among those who know me, and inquire into my character. Recall everything that has occurred between us since the beginning of our acquaintance. Ask your daughter if I have ever spoken a word to her, or cast a look at her, which could justify these infamous insinuations. Thus much I ask of you, in justice to me."
"And I refuse, sir," said the inventor. "I will not insult you by an unworthy suspicion. The world is full of impertinent people, and we can no more stop their gabble, than that of swallows in the air. This nameless fellow signs himself 'One of Many,' That is probably a lie. But if there were thousands like himself prying into your and my affairs, I should not care. As for motives, none but fools and misanthropes trouble themselves aboutthem."
The inventor tossed off the last sentence contemptuously. But Marcus knew that he did attach a great importance to motives; although he could not fairly be ranked either among the misanthropes or the fools. He therefore replied:
"The whole world is welcome to inquire into my motives. As I understand them, they are: First, I take pleasure in your society, sir, because, like myself, you are a quiet, thinking man. Second, you have a hobby--your machine, there--and I admire people with hobbies. Third, I am fond of children, and--and--your daughter is a very pleasant, intelligent child. Fourth, you have insisted on selling me an interest in your invention, in return for a small loan, and that fact would draw me here, if nothing else did. These are motives enough to satisfy the most inquisitive mind, I should think."
Marcus said this with an attempt at a light laugh. But there was one motive not yet confessed--a motive which could hardly be called a motive, for it lay dim and half-formed within his brain. He had never, in his moments of self-inquisition, acknowledged its existence to himself. How could he, then, venture to disclose it to another? It was the suppression of this immature motive, that brought back that look of deceit and guilt to Marcus Wilkeson's ingenuous face.
This unfortunate physiognomical revelation was not lost upon the keen eyes of the inventor. But he said:
"Mr. Wilkeson, let us not say another word on this ridiculous subject. I am ashamed of myself for showing you the letter. I ought to have thrown it into the fire."
"There I differ with you, my dear sir," said Marcus. "You did perfectly right, and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to define my position here clearly, once and for all." Marcus could not avoid saying this much in mere civility to the inventor, but he indulged the private opinion that that gentleman should have burned the anonymous note.
"Who can have written this scoundrelly thing?" continued Marcus, turning over the letter, and then the envelope, for the twentieth time each, and minutely examining them.
The note was written on a half sheet of common letter paper. The manufacturer's stamp in the corner had been cut off, and the size of the half sheet further diminished by paring down one of the sides. The writing was what is known as "backhanded," in strokes which appeared at first sight to be of a uniform lightness. On inspecting it very closely, Marcus discovered a tendency, in this backhanded penmanship, to ascend from the line; and also that, in a few instances, the downward strokes on certain long letters were a trifle thicker than on others. That the writing was a man's, Marcus had no doubt, though he would have been puzzled to give the reasons which led him to that conclusion. The envelope was the ordinary prepaid-stamped one issued by the Government, and therefore could not contribute to the identification of the anonymous writer. The superscription was in the same backhand, and was peculiar in nothing but a small curved nourish, like Hogarth's line of beauty, beneath the words, "New York. City."
"The rascal has carefully disguised his hand," said Marcus, "and does not mean to be found out. I can say nothing more positive, than that it is written by somebody who has never corresponded with me. My memory of autographs happens to be pretty tenacious."
"And I am positive that it is written by no acquaintance of mine, or of my daughter's, for we have none--except you. As the case now stands, it is a mystery, not worth the exploring."
"Again I differ with you," said Marcus. "Whoever wrote this false letter, has powerful motives of hostility to me or you, or, perhaps--worse still--to your daughter. I must try to smoke him out of his hiding place. Meanwhile, I trust, sir, you will see the propriety of concealing this unpleasant matter from Miss Minford."
"Certainly, Mr. Wilkeson, certainly. As for myself, it is forever dismissed from my mind; and I cannot blame myself sufficiently for having troubled you with it." Mr. Minford here proffered his hand, which Marcus cordially shook, rejoicing to observe no trace of suspicion in the inventor's clear gray eyes.
"Allow me to retain this letter for the present," asked Marcus. "It may serve as a clue to the detection of the concealed scoundrel. I also beg that you will show me any other anonymous letters of the same character that may reach you."
Mr. Minford laughed. "The stove door is the pigeonhole where all such nonsense ought to be filed away. But just as you please. If any more come to hand, you shall see them. They may amuse you, as they do me. Ha! ha!"
Marcus echoed the laugh, but feebly. Then it occurred to him that Pet would soon be home, and he felt a strange aversion to meeting her, after what had happened. He therefore pleaded a pressing engagement at eleven o'clock (which it then was), and took his departure from the inventor's roof, but not without a warm and seemingly sincere invitation to "call soon."
Marcus walked slowly toward Broadway, musing and unhappy. To a man of his delicate and hyper-sensitive nature, an event of this kind was a vast disturbance. He felt that this anonymous letter was but the forerunner of a long series of troubles. That prescience which nervous people have of misfortunes portrayed to him a future black with disappointments and dangers.
"Hallo, Mark! What's the matter? You look as sad as a low comedian by daylight!" Previous to this salutation came a ringing slap on the left shoulder.
Marcus rather liked familiarities; but the slap, coming on him when his nerves were unstrung, startled him. He turned sharply; but the stern and indignant face wreathed into amiable smiles, when he saw that the lively gentleman behind him was only Wesley Tiffles. Everybody liked Wesley Tiffles; even those who bore the burden of his unlucky financial schemes uniting in cheerful testimony to his charming, companionable qualities. His presence was like a ray of sunlight to Marcus Wilkeson's beclouded mind; and when Wesley Tiffles hooked an arm in his (as he did to everybody on the second day of their acquaintance), Marcus felt his perplexities passing away from him, like electricity on a conducting rod.
Wesley Tiffles and his single diamond (the latter from the background of a third day's shirt) shone on him together; and Marcus laughed merrily in reply:
"I don't look sad now," said he. "I'm glad to see you, Tiffles. What are you driving atnow, eh?"
This question was continually poked at Tiffles. He changed his business so often.
"At the panorama of Africa, to be sure," said Tiffles. "It is a great idea, and I am constant to it, although several capital schemes have occurred to me since I first thought of it. But Africa deserves, and shall have the precedence."
"Oh! yes--I remember. And how far have you got along with this great work?"
"It's almost finished, thank you. Patching is the artist. You know Patching, of course--one of the most promising painters of the modern school. There were several Patchings very much praised by the Sunday papers, at the last National Academy Exhibition, though the hanging committee put them either among the dirt or the cobwebs. This conspiracy against Patching is far-reaching. It would seem as if his rivals of the Academy actually went about town calling upon people, and cautioning themnotto buy Patchings. Indeed, to such an extent has this outrageous attempt to put down a fellow artist been carried, that I know of but one Patching to be publicly seen in the city. It is an attic interior--a sweet thing, quite equal to Frère, and hangs behind a bar near Spring street. Perhaps you would like to examine it?"
"Hem! Not to-day. Some other time," answered Marcus, who, strangely enough, interpreted the question as an invitation to drink at his (Marcus's) expense.
"I did not mean to-day," said Wesley Tiffles. "Any time will do. Well, I have engaged this brilliant but neglected creature to paint my panorama. At first he refused--as I expected. He said that it would hurt his reputation. I argued to him, that, the larger the picture, the more the reputation; and said that I would put his name on the bills in type second only to my own. But he could not bring himself to see the matter as I did, and consented to paint it only on condition of profound secrecy. Price, one hundred dollars. You will therefore understand (Tiffles lowered his voice) that what I am saying to you is strictly confidential--as, indeed, all is that I say about my panorama. Secrecy alone gives value to these grand, original ideas."
Wesley Tiffles was always unbosoming himself to the world, and informing each individual hearer that his disclosure was strictly confidential.
"I give you my word," said Marcus. He wondered where Tiffles raised the money to pay the artist, but did not like to ask him.
"Now I have caught you, you must come and see how we get along. The work is going on at my room in the Bartholomew Buildings, only a few steps from here." (According to Tiffles, the Bartholomew Buildings were only a few steps from anywhere, when he wanted to take anybody to them.) "Patching will object to bringing in a stranger; but I can pass you off as a capitalist, who thinks of taking an interest in the panorama. Good joke, that!"
Marcus drew back a little at the joke; but Wesley Tiffles had proved so great a relief to his low spirits, that he determined to keep on taking him, and expressed his ardent desire to see the panorama.
The couple, arm in arm, sauntered into Broadway, and down that thoroughfare. Tiffles nodded to a great many acquaintances, and Wilkeson to a very few. People whom Tiffles did not know personally, he had short biographies of, and he entertained Marcus with an incessant string of anecdotes and memoranda of passers by. The walk was leisurely and uninterrupted, with two exceptions, when Wesley Tiffles broke suddenly from his companion, rushed into the entry of a photographic establishment, and examined numerous square feet of show portraits with profound interest. Marcus explained these impulsive movements on the supposition that Tiffles sought to escape from approaching duns. He noticed that that individual, while observing people who streamed by him on either side, kept one eye, as it were, about a block and a half ahead. In some parts of the world, Marcus might have objected to walking publicly with a man of such an eccentric demeanor. But he was well aware that, in New York, a citizen's reputation is not in the least degree affected by the company that he keeps.
They soon arrived at the Bartholomew Buildings--a rickety five-story edifice, which had been altered from a hotel to a nest of private offices. The basement was a restaurant, the first floor a dry goods store, and thence to the roof there was a small Babel of trades and professions known and unknown. No census taker had ever booked all the businesses and all the names under that comprehensive roof.
In the upper story of this building, at the end of a long, hall, the floor of which was hollowed in places by the feet of half a century, was the room, or office, as he called it, of Mr. Wesley Tiffles. There was no number, or sign, on the door, but only a card bearing the inscription, in a bold hand, "Back in five minutes." Mr. Tiffles always put out this standing announcement whenever he had occasion to absent himself from his office for an indefinite period. At the top of the door there was a swinging window, which was ever close fastened, and covered with four thicknesses of newspapers. Though door and window were shut, there came from this room, as if through pores of the wood and the glass, a strong odor of tobacco smoke. A voice within could be heard softly humming an operatic air.
Wesley Tiffles opened the door with a latch key, saying, "All right!" in a loud voice, as he did so. Marcus entered with him into a blue cloud of smoke heated to a sickly degree by a small coal stove with a prodigious quantity of pipe. Even Marcus's hardened lungs found it difficult to breathe.
The room was about twenty feet square. It had been a part of the laundry when the building was a hotel. The walls, from the floor to the low ceiling, appeared to be hung with a strange, dim tapestry. A second glance convinced Marcus Wilkeson that this seeming tapestry was the panorama, which was fastened on stretchers along three sides of the room, and rolled up in a corner as fast as completed. At the farther end of the room, barely visible through the smoke, was the figure of a man in a torn and dirty dressing gown, and an enormous black felt hat with a huge turn-up brim, of the kind supposed to be worn by the bandits of the Pyrenees. The back of the man was turned to Marcus Wilkeson, and he was making rapid dabs on the canvas with a long brush, frequently dipping into one of a series of pails or pans which stood on the floor by his side. He was smoking and humming the operatic air at the same time; and he pulled his great slouched hat farther over his eyes, as a signal for impertinent curiosity to keep its distance.
Wesley Tiffles whispered something about the eccentricities of genius, and then said:
"Mr. Patching. Allow me. Mr. Wilkeson. A capitalist, who thinks of taking a small interest in the panorama. Confidential, of course."
The artist turned round during these remarks, and presented the original of a portrait which Marcus remembered to have seen--dressing gown, hat, and all--in a small print-shop window in the Sixth Avenue. Touching the face he might have had doubt, but there was no mistaking the pattern of the dressing gown and the amazing hat. He also had a faint recollection of the thin face, the Vandyke beard, and the long, tangled hair at Mrs. Slapman's, on New Year's, but was not positive as to their identity. Mr. Patching's individuality lay chiefly in his hat.
The artist placed a moist hand, with one long finger nail like a claw, at the disposal of Marcus Wilkeson. The latter gentleman shook the member feebly, and distinctly felt the sharp edge of the long finger nail in his palm. It was an unpleasant sensation.
"Happy to meet aconfidentialfriend of Tiffles's," said Patching. "Painting panoramas is not exactly what I have been used to. An artist's reputation is his capital in trade, you know." He spoke slowly and languidly, as if hope and happiness were quite dead within him, and he had consented to live on only for the good of high Art.
"I understand," said Marcus. "The secret shall be inviolate."
"Nothing but my old friendship for Tiffles here could possibly have induced me to undertake the job. My enemies--and I have them, ha! ha!" (he said this bitterly)--"would like nothing better to say of Patching, than that he had got down to the panorama line of business. It would be a pretty piece of scandal."
"My lips are sealed, sir. But it strikes me, as a casual observer, that there is nothing to be ashamed of in this beautiful work of art." Marcus Wilkeson had the amiable vice of flattery.
Patching shrugged his shoulders, and made a contemptuous gesture toward the canvas with his outstretched brush. "A mere daub," said he. "One step higher than painting a barn or a board fence--that's all."
"Yet the true artist adorns what he touches," said Marcus.
Patching accepted the homage calmly, as one who knew that he deserved it. "A very just and discriminating remark, sir. I have no doubt that a person thoroughly familiar with my style would say, looking at this panorama, 'It has the severe simplicity of a Patching.' I consented to paint it, as Tiffles well remembers, only on condition that I should not wholly abase myself by abandoning the style upon which I have built up my reputation."
Tiffles, thus appealed to, corroborated the statement with a solemn bow.
The artist continued: "Fortunately, the subject is one peculiarly adapted to my genius. For instance: the desert of Sahara is a dead level of sand. It is a perfect type of severe simplicity in the highest sense. It exhibits no common display of gorgeous colors, such as poor artists and the ignorant crowd rejoice in. As far as the eye can see, there is a serene stretch of yellow sand, without even a blade of grass to break its awful immensity." (The artist, being on his favorite theme, took his pipe out of his mouth for the first time, and spoke with warmth.) "Look at that bit of desert, now. Does it not convey a perfect idea of solitude and desolation?"
Marcus Wilkeson glanced at about ten feet of straight yellow paint (which was all of the desert of Sahara not rolled up in the canvas), and said that it did--which was perfectly true.
"There are one hundred feet more, which you don't see, just like it. Another artist would have put in an oasis, or a stray hyena, or the bleached bones of an unfortunate traveller.Idid not. Why? Another would have worked up a sunset, or a moonrise, or a thunder storm, to give variety to the sky.Idid not. Why? The sky over my desert is an uninterrupted blue. There is not even a bird in it. There is nothing, in short, either on the ground or in the air, to take away the mind of the spectator, for one moment, from the sublime idea of a desert--an object which, considered aesthetically, is one of the grandest in the universe. This is severe simplicity. It is the highest school of Art."
"And the cheapest," observed Tiffles; "which is an important consideration when you have an acre or two of canvas to paint. It would cost a deal more to put in the sun and moon, travelling caravans, and other objects of interest, here and there."
"Incidentally it may be the cheapest," said Patching. "But that is a question for capitalists, and not for artists to determine. True Art never thinks of the expense."
"It always seemed to me to be the easiest school of Art," said Marcus Wilkeson. "I suppose, now, that you can dash off twenty or thirty rods of this a day."
Patching smiled with a lofty pity. "So I can. Not because it is the easiest, though--far from it; but because I happen to have a genius for quick and sure touches. You, not being a professional artist, think the execution of that scrap of desert and sky an easy matter. Perhaps you fancy that you could do it." There was the least infusion of satire in the artist's tone.
"Oh, no!" replied Marcus Wilkeson, who ever shrank from wounding the self-love of a fellow creature. "I am not rash enough to suppose that I could do it. I merely observed that it seemed--to my inexperienced eyes--an easy matter. A few strokes of yellow paint here, for sand, and a few strokes of blue paint there, for sky. But I am not even an amateur, and so my opinion goes for nothing."
"I admire your frankness," said Patching. "Now let me convince you practically. Be good enough to stand near this window with me."
Marcus moved to the spot indicated by the artist.
"Here," said Patching, "you are at about the same distance from the desert as the front row of spectators will be. Now look at it critically."
Marcus shaded his eyes with his left hand, cocked his head over his right shoulder, in the true critical style, and gazed on the scene.
"Do you see the harmony--the TONE, I may say--in the desert?" asked Patching, after a short pause.
"I think I do," responded Marcus, willing to oblige the artist.
"And the spiritual, or INNER meaning of the sky?"
"Ye-yes. It is quite perceptible."
"These are the effects of severe simplicity. But you must understand that a single mis-stroke of the brush would have spoiled all the harmony in the desert, or reduced the sky to a mere inexpressive field of blue vapor. Why? Genius alone can achieve such grand results by such apparently simple means. You comprehend?"
"Perfectly," said Marcus Wilkeson.
"Then I shall take a real pleasure in showing you more of the panorama which is already completed and rolled up. With this idea of severe simplicity in your mind, you will be prepared to appreciate the work,"
"I believe I have already remarked, that Mr. Wilkeson is a capitalist, and comes here expressly to look at the panorama," said Tiffles; with a wink at the artist.
"With every respect for him as a capitalist," returned Patching, "I see in him only the ingenuous student of Art, whom it is a happiness to teach."
The first instalment was a continuation of the desert with which Marcus had been already regaled. Patching begged him to observe the unfaltering harmony of the sand, and the protracted spirituality of the sky. Then came a jungle.
"You will note the severe simplicity here," observed Patching, "No meretricious effects. Nothing but strokes of green paint, up and down, representing the density of an African jungle. Yet how admirably these seemingly careless strokes, laid on by the hand of genius, convey the idea of DEPTH! You do not fail to notice the DEPTH, I presume?"
"I see it," said Marcus.
"Thatis severe simplicity," replied the artist.
At this point, Marcus noticed a brown something bearing a strong resemblance to the swamp stalk, known among boys as the cattail. "Excuse my ignorance of African plants," said he; "but what is that?"
The artist smiled. "Another happy illustration of my theory," said he. "It is the tail of a lion bounding through his native jungles. Why? The effect of suggesting the lion, so to speak, is much more thrilling than that of painting him at full length. Genius accomplishes by hints what mere talent fails to achieve by the utmost elaboration. You will not deny that that vague revelation of the lion's tail inspires a feeling of mystery and terror, which would not be caused by a full-length portrait of that king of beasts?"
Marcus Wilkeson did not deny it, but said that perhaps everybody could not identify the object as a lion's tail.
"That has all been thought of," said Tiffles. "I shall explain the panorama, you must understand. When I come to the lion's tail, I shall tell the audience what it is, and go on to give a full account of the lion, and his ferocious habits. This will gratify the women and small boys quite as much as seeing the lionin propria persona."
"Precisely. Very good," was the laughing acknowledgment. "And what is that thing, twisted like a piece of grapevine above the tall grass at this point?"
"The trunk of an elephant. Look a little farther on, as the canvas unrolls, and you will observe the white tusk of a rhinoceros protruding from the jungle with wonderful effect. Why? The two animals are advancing toward each other for mortal combat."
"I shall describe their terrific struggles," interrupted Tiffles. "Have read up Buffon for it."
"More lions' and elephants' tails, you observe," continued the artist; "also more rhinoceroses' tusks. It is well to have enough of them, to illustrate the teeming life of the African jungle. Also the head of a boa constrictor. Likewise the tail of one. Here we come to a change of scene. Mark how wonderfully a few strokes of dark-green paint, put on by the hand of genius, impart the idea of a pestiferous swamp. That odd-looking object, like a rock, is the head of a hippopotamus. A few feet beyond, you notice two things like the stumps of aquatic weeds. Those are the tails of two hippopotamuses engaged in deadly strife at the bottom of the swamp. The heads of crocodiles are thrust up here and there. Severe simplicity again."
The panorama, from thence nearly to the end of it--or rather the beginning--was a repetition of jungles and deserts, varied by an occasional swamp, all diversified with the heads and tails of indigenous animals. The last hundred feet was the river Gambier, over which Patching had introduced a sunrise of the most gorgeous description, at the earnest request of Wesley Tiffles.
Patching explained: "In my opinion, such effects are tawdry, and detract not only from the severe simplicity, but from the UNITY which should pervade a painting of this description. Of course, I wash my hands of all these innovations upon the province of high Art."
"And I cheerfully shoulder them," said Tiffles. "I know what the public want. They want any quantity of sunsets, crocodiles, lions, and other objects of interest. If we had time and money to spare, and I could overcome Patching's scruples--do you understand?--I would put 'em in twice as thick. Men of genius, like Patching, cannot be expected to be practical."
The artist shrugged his shoulders, and smiled.
Tiffles then repeated his invitation to Marcus to accompany him on his first expedition into the interior of New Jersey; but Marcus positively declined. Tiffles said he would send him a note a day or two before the panorama started, and hoped that Marcus would conclude to go, just for the fun of the thing.
Marcus then shook hands with Patching--who made his long finger nail amicably felt--and with Tiffles, and withdrew to the entry, followed by the latter individual.
Tiffles closed the door. "By the way," said he, as if the thought occurred to him then for the first time, "can you spare thirty-five dollars to-day? Pay you on the--let me see--on the first of next month. By that time the panorama will be fairly under headway, and coining money." (Tiffles always fixed his days of payment with great particularity.)
Marcus, without saying a word, produced his pocket book, and counted out thirty-five dollars. Tiffles had already borrowed from Overtop and Maltboy, but had generously spared the oldest of the three bachelors. Marcus felt that his time had come, and he would not meanly avoid his destiny. He placed the money in Tiffles's hand.
"Give you my note?" asked Tiffles.
"Oh, no!" said Marcus; "make it a matter of honor."
Tiffles pocketed the funds, placed his hand over his heart, and replied that it should be. "But, now I think of it," he suddenly added, "I want exactly sixty-three dollars--do you understand?--to see me through with this panorama. Suppose you make it twenty-eight dollars more."
Marcus smiled, and said that he didn't understand; whereat Tiffles laughed outright, to show that he took no offence at the refusal; and creditor and debtor parted with mutual good wishes.
The boy Bog had now become, professionally, a creature of the night. He was abroad at the, same hours as the burglars and garroters, and other owls and weasels of society. Fink & Co. (Bog was the Co.) had secured the bill posting for three theatres and one negro-minstrel hall. This they called their heavy business. Carrying the huge damp placards, had already given to Bog's shoulders a manifest tendency to roundness, which he was constantly trying to overcome by straightening up. Fink, who was the veteran bill poster of the town, was as round shouldered as a hod carrier. But Bog thought of somebody, and stood as nearly erect as he could.
The firm also obtained rather more than their share of ordinary bill posting, from doctors, drygoods dealers, and other people who find their profit in continually addressing the public from the summit of a dead wall, or the muddy level of the curbstones. This they called their light business. As it required neither strength nor practised dexterity of manipulation, the firm intrusted it to assistants.
There were a dozen of these, all stout, hulking young fellows nearly as old as Bog. They took a fancy to bill posting, and worked industriously and faithfully at it, because it was nocturnal, mysterious, romantic. The half dollar which they each received for a night's labor, enabled them to lounge about the streets all day in glorious indolence. Sometimes there was a prodigious rush of business, and then the firm were obliged to hire an extra force of boys.
Once, when a quack undertook to take the public by storm with his "New and Sure Cure for Dyspepsia," Fink & Co. put a colored poster as large as a dining table on every wall and high fence below Sixty-first street; small oblong bills every ten feet along the curbstones of Broadway, Bowery, Wall street, Fulton street, Cortlandt street, and Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Madison, and Lexington Avenues; besides throwing cheap circulars, folded, into the front yards of about four thousand residences in the fashionable quarters of the town--all in a single night. This immense job took one hundred boys.
Bog had been in this partnership since the first of January. It was now near the close of March. The firm had been very successful. Bog had comfortably supported himself and his aunt (whose rheumatism got worse in steady proportion as his business improved), and had invested more than two hundred and fifty dollars in a Wall-street savings bank.
With this money at his disposal, Bog might have thrown away the greasy cap and old coat and trowsers, spotted with paste, in which he pursued his occupation. But when Bog was at his business, he was not above his business. And he felt none the less attached to his old clothes because they were two inches too short in the legs and arms, and pinched him a little in all directions.
But Bog had a better suit, made of neat gray cloth, which he wore upon occasions. These occasions happened daily between three and four P.M. During that interval, it always fell out that Bog had no work to do which he could not postpone as well as not. And whether it rained or shone, the occasions brought him, like an inexorable fate, through the street where Miss Pillbody's school was situated. He would first stride smartly up the opposite sidewalk, whistling, and cast ardent glances at the lower windows of Miss Pillbody's school, shaded by green curtains with gold borders.
After going two blocks in that direction, he would cross the street, whistling yet, and march boldly up the other sidewalk, past Miss Pillbody's school, as on an enemy. But if there had been anybody to watch him closely--as there was not on that thronged street--that body would have seen that Bog's cheeks began to blush, and his eyes to be cast down, and his whistle to be fainter, as he hurried by the neat three-story brick building with the polished doorplate and handsome curtains.
Then he would loiter for a while in front of McFeeter's grocery, two corners remote, and gaze from that safe distance with intrepidity upon the abode of enchantment; after which he would screw his courage up to the point of marching past the house back and forth again, and would then resume his position at McFeeter's, and wait until four P.M., or about that time, when the envied door of Miss Pillbody's establishment would open, and an angel would dazzle upon his sight, with a music book in her hand instead of a harp, and a jaunty little chip bonnet on her head instead of a golden crown. If the harp and crown had suddenly taken their proper places, and a pair of spangled wings had blossomed right out of her shoulders, and the radiant creature, thus equipped, had spread her pinions and soared up to heaven, the boy Bog would hardly have been surprised. As this angel came down the happy front steps to the blessed pavement (Bog's mind supplying these adjectives), Bog would color up, and sneak off at his best walking pace in the opposite direction. He felt that, if Pet ever saw him, and should ask him what he was doing in that neighborhood, he should melt away in perspiring confusion on the spot.
He called at Mr. Minford's twice a week, to indulge in the hollow form of asking if he could do anything for him. There he confronted Pet, with that trembling figure and those averted eyes which an inexperienced thief may show before the man that he has robbed. But Pet knew not of the adoring spy.
One afternoon, the boy Bog had made his second detour, and was approaching the corner of the favored block, when a novel idea struck him. The very night before, Bog had posted bills of the play, "Faint Heart Ne'er Won Fair Lady." The gigantic lettering arose in his mind's eye, like the cross in Constantine's. He had never seen the drama, and he did not know to what extent Ruy Gomez pushed his audacity, and won the Countess by it. But the name of the drama held the moral of it; and the moral, as applied to Bog's case, was: "Stop at this corner, and take a good view of the, house." To do this, in Bog's opinion, was the height of boldness. But he thought of the huge parti-colored lettering, and he did it.
He stopped at the corner, and leaned recklessly against a hydrant. He looked at the house with a deliberation that amazed himself. At the same time, as a matter of instinctive caution, he kept his left leg well out toward the side street, so that he might retreat, should the door suddenly open and disclose the seraphic vision. He consulted his large bull's-eye silver watch (a capital timekeeper), and found that it was half past three o'clock, and he never knew her to be out before four.
This reflection emboldened him. "Faint Heart Ne'er Won Fair Lady," he thought again, and brought back his left leg to an easy position, crossing it with his right one against the hydrant. Then he feasted, with strange composure, upon the house.
Neither Bog nor a much wiser metaphysician could explain it; but the house, and all around it, seemed to be glorified by the loved one within. The newly painted door was bright with love; the polished doorplate and bell handle glistened with love. The name Pillbody looked, somehow, musical and winning, because the owner of that name was the teacher and dear companion of Pet. The carved stone roses over the door seemed to be truly the emblems of love. It was a silly notion; but, in Bog's eyes, love imparted a not unpleasant expression to the grim lions' faces that looked down from the roof. But the green window curtains with gold borders were the most significant symbols of love, in his eyes. Bog felt that curtains of any other color would be wholly out of place in that house. The patch of a garden, scarcely bigger than a bathroom, in front of the house; the single fir tree that grew up in the middle of it; the black iron railing; the door steps, and the pavement--all took their share of beatitude from the joy within. Bog could hear love rustle in the boughs of the young maple, that stood in its long green case like a fancy boot top, at the edge of the sidewalk.
As Bog was resting against the hydrant, absorbed in this delicious revery, and totally indifferent to the consequences, he was startled by a slight tap on the shoulder. He turned quickly, and saw--the man he hated--the man who pretended (Bog would never admit that it was more than a pretence) to save Pet from the falling boards.
"Well," said Bog, looking on this man as his mortal enemy, "What do you want of me?" He spoke in the gruff, defiant manner peculiar to children of the city.
The man's livid face and lead-colored eyes and white teeth all combined in a reassuring smile. "Nothing," said he, "my good fellow, but to do an errand."
"I say, now, who'd you take me for, hey?" answered Bog, shaking his head at the man, and feeling a tremendous desire to knock his shining hat off.
The man looked up and down Bog's cheap gray suit, and at his neatly polished shoes and his clean slouching cap, and then said:
"No offence meant, my lad. But I thought you wouldn't object to earning a quarter. You're only to deliver a letter at that house; that's all." He pointed to Miss Pillbody's.
"Hey--what house?" asked Bog, turning pale, with a strange and jarring combination of rage, jealousy, envy, and insulted dignity.
"The one with the bright doorplate, green curtains and gold borders. I thought you were looking at it as I came up."
"N-no, I wasn't. And what if I was, hey?"
"It strikes me you're rather touchy, my young friend," said the man, with his conciliatory smile. "Here's the letter, now, and a quarter. It's only a few steps. No answer required."
As Bog caught sight of the letter, done up in the long, rakish envelope which had just begun to come into fashion, and faintly perfumed, a lucky thought occurred to him.
The man saw that he wavered. "Only a step," said he. "And here is the quarter." He offered it to Bog between a thumb and finger.
"Why don't you deliver the letter yourself?" asked Bog.
"Oh! oh! for family reasons," answered the man, hesitating. "Miss Pillbody there is my aunt, and the lady to whom this letter is addressed is my cousin. The old woman and I have had a sort of falling out about the young one, you see. These little difficulties will occur in the best-regulated families. Come, take the letter. I'm in a hurry."
Bog allowed the letter to be thrust into his hand. He looked at it, and saw, as he expected, that it was addressed to "Miss Minford, Present." The direction was in a beautiful commercial hand, which was at once more hateful in his eyes than the most crabbed of writing.
"All right," said he. "I'll deliver it. Poh! never mind the quarter. I won't take it." Bog moved toward the house as he spoke.
"You're a queer fellow, but a good one. Well, you'll accept my thanks, at any rate."
He waited at the hydrant until Bog had delivered the letter.
Bog walked straight to the house, and up the steps, although his face was pale, and his knees trembled.
He rang the bell with a decisive pull, and, as he did so, glanced at the strange man, who nodded approvingly at him.
He suddenly turned his back on the strange man. With a quick movement of the fingers of his right hand, he thrust the letter up his coat sleeve: The next instant he whipped a handkerchief out of an inside breast pocket, and, with it, a stray copy of a new "Dentifrice" circular, which he had been distributing the night before. This circular was folded to about the size and shape of the letter. With the handkerchief he wiped his face, upon which there were real drops of sweat. The circular he slipped into his right hand, and then turned toward the strange man again, to show that he still held the letter. This bit of legerdemain took about three seconds.
In three seconds more, Bog heard footsteps approaching in the entry. What if his angel should come to the door? The thought sent a horrible, sickly sensation all over him, and the solid rock seemed to tremble beneath his feet.
The door opened, and something quite the opposite of an angel presented itself. It was Bridget; and her red hair was dishevelled, her face flushed to the parboiled tint, and her dress uncommonly damp and frowsy. A mop which she held in her hand explained everything.
"A circular, if you please," said Bog, in a quivering voice, poking the folded paper at her.
"A succular, is it? Miss Peelbody told me not to take any succulars for her. So 'way wid ye." Bridget put her hand on the door, and was about to swing it to.
"It isn't for Miss Pillbody at all," said Bog, fearful lest the strange man should see it refused, "but for your own pretty self."
Bridget smiled, for she was conscious that the compliment was deserved. She relaxed her hand on the door. "Fat is it?" said she.
"Hush!" said Bog, in a whisper; "a circular about the rights of servants, issued by the 'Servants' Mootual Protecting Society.'" (Bog thought of the name on the spur of the moment.) "Please take it--quick."
Bridget snatched the circular out of his hand, and was about to look at it, bottom side up, for she had not yet attained to the mystery of reading, when the musical voice of Miss Pillbody was heard at the back of the entry. "Bridget--what is wanted, Bridget?"
"Nothing ma'am, but one of these succular men. Bad luck to him! Here, now, take it."
She made a feint of handing back the circular to Bog, but concealed it, with the other hand, in her capacious bosom.
"Heaven bless ye!" said she, in a low voice, and then slammed the door in his face.
Bog came down the door steps quickly, and saw the strange man make a bow and a gesture of gratitude at him, and then disappear suddenly round the corner. Bog's first impulse was to follow him at a distance; but his curiosity to inspect the slender, perfumed letter, overcame it.
When Bog reached the awning in front of McFeeter's store--a sort of haven or putting-in place for him--he pulled out the letter, and was about to read it. Then it occurred to him that the situation was too much exposed. The strange man might come back, and see him with the open letter in his hand. Bog would have enjoyed a personal collision with him on any pretext; but to be caught in the act of reading the letter, would spoil the strategical advantage that Bog now had over him.
Bog moved on down a side street, and took his stand behind a huge wooden column surmounted by a gilded mortar and pestle. Here he was about to rip open the envelope, but a glance across the street discovered a policeman looking at him. Bog felt guilty and awkward. He coughed, and thrust the letter into his pocket, and moved on again. The exciting events of the morning had made Bog intensely nervous. He did not stop this time until he had gained his home.
His aunt was sitting in the front room, reading a book through a huge pair of silver-rimmed spectacles. There was a thick fold of flannel about her neck, and she smelt strongly of embrocation. As Bog rushed into the room, she groaned audibly, and laid down the book, as if it were a wicked enjoyment.
"I'm so bad to-day, Bog," said she. "Them shootin' pains'll be the death of me."
Bog responded not a word, but dashed across the apartment, and, entering his little sleeping room, closed the door, and bolted it.
"Unfeelin' creetur!" said his aunt. She stopped groaning, and took up her book and read again.
Bog seated himself on his hair trunk, and drew out the letter. There was a slight discussion within him on the abstract question of his right to open it. After turning it over twice, the question was decided in the affirmative. He slit the envelope with his thumb, and brought to light a billet faultlessly written, as follows:
"Frederick Lynville begs to present his compliments to Miss Minford, and to assure her, from the depths of his heart, that his feelings toward her are only those of the purest admiration for the matchless charms of her mind and person. He takes this method of explaining himself, because he has observed with great sorrow that Miss Minford has shown a desire to avoid him on several recent occasions, when they have accidentally met in the street. It was Mr. Lynville's blessed privilege, under Providence, to save Miss Minford's life; but he would not be selfish and base enough on that account to obtrude himself on Miss Minford's notice. Mr. Lynville would die sooner than be guilty of that discourtesy. He is not presumptuous enough to ask an answer to this letter. His only object in writing it, is to inform Miss Minford that he will not venture again upon the impropriety of speaking to her first when they next meet. Miss Minford will therefore be free to drop his acquaintance, or continue it, as she thinks best. Whatever fate she may decide for him, her happiness will still be his constant prayer."
Bog was ill versed in the art of complimentary letter writing. But the villany here seemed to be clumsily concealed. That the letter was full of danger to the object of his boyish idolatry, he had no doubt.
But why did Pet avoid this Frederick Lynville? Did she really dislike him? Or----. The thought of his own shyness toward the beautiful girl came into his mind like a flash. To avoid might be--to love.
The poor boy dropped the letter, and covered his face with his hands, and wept.
Love is not always selfish; and goodness is sometimes its own reward. In that bitter hour of his first real misery, Bog did not regret his kindness to the Minfords, or take credit to himself for having nobly concealed from their knowledge those little weekly gifts of money which he sent to them through the mail, when they were in poorer circumstances. He was not for a moment base enough to think that Pet would look with kinder eyes on him, if she but knew of his secret benefactions--which, up to this time, neither she nor her father had suspected, and which they would never learn from his lips.