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CHAPTER VII - IRONS IN THE FIRE
Opes Strepitumque.
The food of the body differs not so greatly for the fool or the
sage, the elephant or the cock-sparrow; and similar chemical
elements, variously disguised, support all mortals. A brief
study of Pinkerton in his new setting convinced me of a kindred
truth about that other and mental digestion, by which we
extract what is called "fun for our money" out of life. In the
same spirit as a schoolboy, deep in Mayne Reid, handles a
dummy gun and crawls among imaginary forests, Pinkerton
sped through Kearney Street upon his daily business,
representing to himself a highly coloured part in life's
performance, and happy for hours if he should have chanced to
brush against a millionnaire. Reality was his romance; he
gloried to be thus engaged; he wallowed in his business.
Suppose a man to dig up a galleon on the Coromandel coast,
his rakish schooner keeping the while an offing under easy sail,
and he, by the blaze of a great fire of wreckwood, to measure
ingots by the bucketful on the uproarious beach: such an one
might realise a greater material spoil; he should have no more
profit of romance than Pinkerton when he cast up his weekly
balance-sheet in a bald office. Every dollar gained was like
something brought ashore from a mysterious deep; every
venture made was like a diver's plunge; and as he thrust his
bold hand into the plexus of the money-market, he was
delightedly aware of how he shook the pillars of existence,
turned out men (as at a battle-cry) to labour in far countries,
and set the gold twitching in the drawers of millionnaires.
I could never fathom the full extent of his speculations; but
there were five separate businesses which he avowed and
carried like a banner. The Thirteen Star Golden State Brandy,
Warranted Entire (a very flagrant distillation) filled a great part
of his thoughts, and was kept before the public in an eloquent
but misleading treatise: _Why Drink French Brandy? A Word
to the Wise._ He kept an office for advertisers, counselling,
designing, acting as middleman with printers and bill-stickers,
for the inexperienced or the uninspired: the dull haberdasher
came to him for ideas, the smart theatrical agent for his local
knowledge; and one and all departed with a copy of his
pamphlet: _How, When, and Where; or, the Advertiser's
Vade-Mecum._ He had a tug chartered every Saturday
afternoon and night, carried people outside the Heads, and
provided them with lines and bait for six hours' fishing, at the
rate of five dollars a person. I am told that some of them
(doubtless adroit anglers) made a profit on the transaction.
Occasionally he bought wrecks and condemned vessels; these
latter (I cannot tell you how) found their way to sea again under
aliases, and continued to stem the waves triumphantly enough
under the colours of Bolivia or Nicaragua. Lastly, there was a
certain agricultural engine, glorying in a great deal of vermilion
and blue paint, and filling (it appeared) a "long-felt want," in
which his interest was something like a tenth.
This for the face or front of his concerns. "On the outside," as
he phrased it, he was variously and mysteriously engaged. No
dollar slept in his possession; rather he kept all simultaneously
flying like a conjurer with oranges. My own earnings, when I
began to have a share, he would but show me for a moment,
and disperse again, like those illusive money gifts which are
flashed in the eyes of childhood only to be entombed in the
missionary box. And he would come down radiant from a
weekly balance-sheet, clap me on the shoulder, declare himself
a winner by Gargantuan figures, and prove destitute of a
quarter for a drink.
"What on earth have you done with it?" I would ask.
"Into the mill again; all re-invested!" he would cry, with infinite
delight. Investment was ever his word. He could not bear
what he called gambling. "Never touch stocks, Loudon," he
would say; "nothing but legitimate business." And yet, Heaven
knows, many an indurated gambler might have drawn back
appalled at the first hint of some of Pinkerton's investments!
One, which I succeeded in tracking home, and instance for a
specimen, was a seventh share in the charter of a certain ill-
starred schooner bound for Mexico, to smuggle weapons on the
one trip, and cigars upon the other. The latter end of this
enterprise, involving (as it did) shipwreck, confiscation, and a
lawsuit with the underwriters, was too painful to be dwelt upon
at length. "It's proved a disappointment," was as far as my
friend would go with me in words; but I knew, from
observation, that the fabric of his fortunes tottered. For the rest,
it was only by accident I got wind of the transaction; for
Pinkerton, after a time, was shy of introducing me to his
arcana: the reason you are to hear presently.
The office which was (or should have been) the point of rest for
so many evolving dollars stood in the heart of the city: a high
and spacious room, with many plate-glass windows. A glazed
cabinet of polished redwood offered to the eye a regiment of
some two hundred bottles, conspicuously labelled. These were
all charged with Pinkerton's Thirteen Star, although from
across the room it would have required an expert to distinguish
them from the same number of bottles of Courvoisier. I used to
twit my friend with this resemblance, and propose a new
edition of the pamphlet, with the title thus improved: _Why
Drink French Brandy, when we give you the same labels?_
The doors of the cabinet revolved all day upon their hinges; and
if there entered any one who was a stranger to the merits of the
brand, he departed laden with a bottle. When I used to protest
at this extravagance, "My dear Loudon," Pinkerton would cry,
"you don't seem to catch on to business principles! The prime
cost of the spirit is literally nothing. I couldn't find a cheaper
advertisement if I tried." Against the side post of the cabinet
there leaned a gaudy umbrella, preserved there as a relic. It
appears that when Pinkerton was about to place Thirteen Star
upon the market, the rainy season was at hand. He lay dark,
almost in penury, awaiting the first shower, at which, as upon a
signal, the main thoroughfares became dotted with his agents,
vendors of advertisements; and the whole world of San
Francisco, from the businessman fleeing for the ferry-boat, to
the lady waiting at the corner for her car, sheltered itself under
umbrellas with this strange device: Are you wet? Try Thirteen
Star. "It was a mammoth boom," said Pinkerton, with a sigh of
delighted recollection. "There wasn't another umbrella to be
seen. I stood at this window, Loudon, feasting my eyes; and I
declare, I felt like Vanderbilt." And it was to this neat
application of the local climate that he owed, not only much of
the sale of Thirteen Star, but the whole business of his
advertising agency.
The large desk (to resume our survey of the office) stood about
the middle, knee-deep in stacks of handbills and posters, of
_Why Drink French Brandy?_ and _The Advertiser's Vade-
Mecum._ It was flanked upon the one hand by two female
type-writers, who rested not between the hours of nine and
four, and upon the other by a model of the agricultural
machine. The walls, where they were not broken by telephone
boxes and a couple of photographs--one representing the wreck
of the James L. Moody on a bold and broken coast, the other
the Saturday tug alive with amateur fishers--almost
disappeared under oil-paintings gaudily framed. Many of these
were relics of the Latin Quarter, and I must do Pinkerton the
justice to say that none of them were bad, and some had
remarkable merit. They went off slowly but for handsome
figures; and their places were progressively supplied with the
work of local artists. These last it was one of my first duties to
review and criticise. Some of them were villainous, yet all
were saleable. I said so; and the next moment saw myself, the
figure of a miserable renegade, bearing arms in the wrong
camp. I was to look at pictures thenceforward, not with the eye
of the artist, but the dealer; and I saw the stream widen that
divided me from all I loved.
"Now, Loudon," Pinkerton had said, the morning after the
lecture, "now Loudon, we can go at it shoulder to shoulder.
This is what I have longed for: I wanted two heads and four
arms; and now I have 'em. You'll find it's just the same as
art--all observation and imagination; only more movement.
Just wait till you begin to feel the charm!"
I might have waited long. Perhaps I lack a sense; for our whole
existence seemed to me one dreary bustle, and the place we
bustled in fitly to be called the Place of Yawning. I slept in a
little den behind the office; Pinkerton, in the office itself,
stretched on a patent sofa which sometimes collapsed, his
slumbers still further menaced by an imminent clock with an
alarm. Roused by this diabolical contrivance, we rose early,
went forth early to breakfast, and returned by nine to what
Pinkerton called work, and I distraction. Masses of letters
must be opened, read, and answered; some by me at a
subsidiary desk which had been introduced on the morning of
my arrival; others by my bright-eyed friend, pacing the room
like a caged lion as he dictated to the tinkling type-writers.
Masses of wet proof had to be overhauled and scrawled upon
with a blue pencil--"rustic"--"six-inch caps"--"bold spacing
here"--or sometimes terms more fervid, as for instance this,
which I remember Pinkerton to have spirted on the margin of
an advertisement of Soothing Syrup: "Throw this all down.
Have you never printed an advertisement? I'll be round in half
an hour." The ledger and sale-book, besides, we had always
with us. Such was the backbone of our occupation, and
tolerable enough; but the far greater proportion of our time was
consumed by visitors, whole-souled, grand fellows no doubt,
and as sharp as a needle, but to me unfortunately not diverting.
Some were apparently half-witted, and must be talked over by
the hour before they could reach the humblest decision, which
they only left the office to return again (ten minutes later) and
rescind. Others came with a vast show of hurry and despatch,
but I observed it to be principally show. The agricultural
model for instance, which was practicable, proved a kind of
flypaper for these busybodies. I have seen them blankly turn
the crank of it for five minutes at a time, simulating (to
nobody's deception) business interest: "Good thing this,
Pinkerton? Sell much of it? Ha! Couldn't use it, I suppose, as
a medium of advertisement for my article?"--which was
perhaps toilet soap. Others (a still worse variety) carried us to
neighbouring saloons to dice for cocktails and (after the
cocktails were paid) for dollars on a corner of the counter. The
attraction of dice for all these people was indeed extraordinary:
at a certain club, where I once dined in the character of "my
partner, Mr. Dodd," the dice-box came on the table with the
wine, an artless substitute for after-dinner wit.
Of all our visitors, I believe I preferred Emperor Norton; the
very mention of whose name reminds me I am doing scanty
justice to the folks of San Francisco. In what other city would a
harmless madman who supposed himself emperor of the two
Americas have been so fostered and encouraged? Where else
would even the people of the streets have respected the poor
soul's illusion? Where else would bankers and merchants have
received his visits, cashed his cheques, and submitted to his
small assessments? Where else would he have been suffered to
attend and address the exhibition days of schools and colleges?
where else, in God's green earth, have taken his pick of
restaurants, ransacked the bill of fare, and departed scathless?
They tell me he was even an exacting patron, threatening to
withdraw his custom when dissatisfied; and I can believe it, for
his face wore an expression distinctly gastronomical. Pinkerton
had received from this monarch a cabinet appointment; I have
seen the brevet, wondering mainly at the good nature of the
printer who had executed the forms, and I think my friend was
at the head either of foreign affairs or education: it mattered,
indeed, nothing, the prestation being in all offices identical. It
was at a comparatively early date that I saw Jim in the exercise
of his public functions. His Majesty entered the office--a
portly, rather flabby man, with the face of a gentleman,
rendered unspeakably pathetic and absurd by the great sabre at
his side and the peacock's feather in his hat.
"I have called to remind you, Mr. Pinkerton, that you are
somewhat in arrear of taxes," he said, with old-fashioned,
stately courtesy.
"Well, your Majesty, what is the amount?" asked Jim; and
when the figure was named (it was generally two or three
dollars), paid upon the nail and offered a bonus in the shape of
Thirteen Star.
"I am always delighted to patronise native industries," said
Norton the First. "San Francisco is public-spirited in what
concerns its Emperor; and indeed, sir, of all my domains, it is
my favourite city."
"Come," said I, when he was gone, "I prefer that customer to
the lot."
"It's really rather a distinction," Jim admitted. "I think it must
have been the umbrella racket that attracted him."
We were distinguished under the rose by the notice of other and
greater men. There were days when Jim wore an air of unusual
capacity and resolve, spoke with more brevity like one pressed
for time, and took often on his tongue such phrases as
"Longhurst told me so this morning," or "I had it straight from
Longhurst himself." It was no wonder, I used to think, that
Pinkerton was called to council with such Titans; for the
creature's quickness and resource were beyond praise. In the
early days when he consulted me without reserve, pacing the
room, projecting, ciphering, extending hypothetical interests,
trebling imaginary capital, his "engine" (to renew an excellent
old word) labouring full steam ahead, I could never decide
whether my sense of respect or entertainment were the stronger.
But these good hours were destined to curtailment.
"Yes, it's smart enough," I once observed. "But, Pinkerton, do
you think it's honest?"
"You don't think it's honest!" he wailed. "O dear me, that ever I
should have heard such an expression on your lips!"
At sight of his distress, I plagiarised unblushingly from Myner.
"You seem to think honesty as simple as Blind Man's Buff,"
said I. "It's a more delicate affair than that: delicate as any art."
"O well! at that rate!" he exclaimed, with complete relief.
"That's casuistry."
"I am perfectly certain of one thing: that what you propose is
dishonest," I returned.
"Well, say no more about it. That's settled," he replied.
Thus, almost at a word, my point was carried. But the trouble
was that such differences continued to recur, until we began to
regard each other with alarm. If there were one thing Pinkerton
valued himself upon, it was his honesty; if there were one thing
he clung to, it was my good opinion; and when both were
involved, as was the case in these commercial cruces, the man
was on the rack. My own position, if you consider how much I
owed him, how hateful is the trade of fault-finder, and that yet I
lived and fattened on these questionable operations, was
perhaps equally distressing. If I had been more sterling or
more combative things might have gone extremely far. But, in
truth, I was just base enough to profit by what was not forced
on my attention, rather than seek scenes: Pinkerton quite
cunning enough to avail himself of my weakness; and it was a
relief to both when he began to involve his proceedings in a
decent mystery.
Our last dispute, which had a most unlooked-for consequence,
turned on the refitting of condemned ships. He had bought a
miserable hulk, and came, rubbing his hands, to inform me she
was already on the slip, under a new name, to be repaired.
When first I had heard of this industry I suppose I scarcely
comprehended; but much discussion had sharpened my
faculties, and now my brow became heavy.
"I can be no party to that, Pinkerton," said I.
He leaped like a man shot. "What next?" he cried. "What ails
you, anyway? You seem to me to dislike everything that's
profitable."
"This ship has been condemned by Lloyd's agent," said I.
"But I tell you it's a deal. The ship's in splendid condition;
there's next to nothing wrong with her but the garboard streak
and the sternpost. I tell you Lloyd's is a ring like everybody
else; only it's an English ring, and that's what deceives you. If
it was American, you would be crying it down all day. It's
Anglomania, common Anglomania," he cried, with growing
irritation.
"I will not make money by risking men's lives," was my
ultimatum.
"Great Caesar! isn't all speculation a risk? Isn't the fairest kind
of shipowning to risk men's lives? And mining--how's that for
risk? And look at the elevator business--there's danger, if you
like! Didn't I take my risk when I bought her? She might have
been too far gone; and where would I have been? Loudon," he
cried, "I tell you the truth: you're too full of refinement for this
world!"
"I condemn you out of your own lips," I replied. "'The fairest
kind of shipowning,' says you. If you please, let us only do the
fairest kind of business."
The shot told; the Irrepressible was silenced; and I profited by
the chance to pour in a broadside of another sort. He was all
sunk in money-getting, I pointed out; he never dreamed of
anything but dollars. Where were all his generous, progressive
sentiments? Where was his culture? I asked. And where was
the American Type?
"It's true, Loudon," he cried, striding up and down the room,
and wildly scouring at his hair. "You're perfectly right. I'm
becoming materialised. O, what a thing to have to say, what a
confession to make! Materialised! Me! Loudon, this must go
on no longer. You've been a loyal friend to me once more; give
me your hand!--you've saved me again. I must do something to
rouse the spiritual side; something desperate; study something,
something dry and tough. What shall it be? Theology?
Algebra? What's Algebra?"
"It's dry and tough enough," said I; "a squared + 2ab + b
squared."
"It's stimulating, though?" he inquired.
I told him I believed so, and that it was considered fortifying to
Types.
"Then that's the thing for me. I'll study Algebra," he concluded.
The next day, by application to one of his type-writing women,
he got word of a young lady, one Miss Mamie McBride, who
was willing and able to conduct him in these bloomless
meadows; and, her circumstances being lean, and terms
consequently moderate, he and Mamie were soon in agreement
for two lessons in the week. He took fire with unexampled
rapidity; he seemed unable to tear himself away from the
symbolic art; an hour's lesson occupied the whole evening; and
the original two was soon increased to four, and then to five. I
bade him beware of female blandishments. "The first thing you
know, you'll be falling in love with the algebraist," said I.
"Don't say it even in jest," he cried. "She's a lady I revere. I
could no more lay a hand upon her than I could upon a spirit.
Loudon, I don't believe God ever made a purer-minded
woman."
Which appeared to me too fervent to be reassuring.
Meanwhile I had been long expostulating with my friend upon
a different matter. "I'm the fifth wheel," I kept telling him.
"For any use I am, I might as well be in Senegambia. The
letters you give me to attend to might be answered by a sucking
child. And I tell you what it is, Pinkerton: either you've got to
find me some employment, or I'll have to start in and find it for
myself."
This I said with a corner of my eye in the usual quarter, toward
the arts, little dreaming what destiny was to provide.
"I've got it, Loudon," Pinkerton at last replied. "Got the idea on
the Potrero cars. Found I hadn't a pencil, borrowed one from
the conductor, and figured on it roughly all the way in town. I
saw it was the thing at last; gives you a real show. All your
talents and accomplishments come in. Here's a sketch
advertisement. Just run your eye over it. "Sun, Ozone, and
Music! PINKERTON'S HEBDOMADARY PICNICS!"
(That's a good, catching phrase, "hebdomadary," though it's
hard to say. I made a note of it when I was looking in the
dictionary how to spell hectagonal. 'Well, you're a boss word,'
I said. 'Before you're very much older, I'll have you in type as
long as yourself.' And here it is, you see.) 'Five dollars a head,
and ladies free. MONSTER OLIO OF ATTRACTIONS.'
(How does that strike you?) 'Free luncheon under the
greenwood tree. Dance on the elastic sward. Home again in
the Bright Evening Hours. Manager and Honorary Steward, H.
Loudon Dodd, Esq., the well-known connoisseur.'"
Singular how a man runs from Scylla to Charybdis! I was so
intent on securing the disappearance of a single epithet that I
accepted the rest of the advertisement and all that it involved
without discussion. So it befell that the words "well-known
connoisseur" were deleted; but that H. Loudon Dodd became
manager and honorary steward of Pinkerton's Hebdomadary
Picnics, soon shortened, by popular consent, to the Dromedary.
By eight o'clock, any Sunday morning, I was to be observed by
an admiring public on the wharf. The garb and attributes of
sacrifice consisted of a black frock coat, rosetted, its pockets
bulging with sweetmeats and inferior cigars, trousers of light
blue, a silk hat like a reflector, and a varnished wand. A
goodly steamer guarded my one flank, panting and throbbing,
flags fluttering fore and aft of her, illustrative of the Dromedary
and patriotism. My other flank was covered by the ticket-
office, strongly held by a trusty character of the Scots
persuasion, rosetted like his superior and smoking a cigar to
mark the occasion festive. At half-past, having assured myself
that all was well with the free luncheons, I lit a cigar myself,
and awaited the strains of the "Pioneer Band." I had never to
wait long--they were German and punctual--and by a few
minutes after the half-hour, I would hear them booming down
street with a long military roll of drums, some score of
gratuitous asses prancing at the head in bearskin hats and
buckskin aprons, and conspicuous with resplendent axes. The
band, of course, we paid for; but so strong is the San
Franciscan passion for public masquerade, that the asses (as I
say) were all gratuitous, pranced for the love of it, and cost us
nothing but their luncheon.
The musicians formed up in the bows of my steamer, and
struck into a skittish polka; the asses mounted guard upon the
gangway and the ticket-office; and presently after, in family
parties of father, mother, and children, in the form of duplicate
lovers or in that of solitary youth, the public began to descend
upon us by the carful at a time; four to six hundred perhaps,
with a strong German flavour, and all merry as children. When
these had been shepherded on board, and the inevitable belated
two or three had gained the deck amidst the cheering of the
public, the hawser was cast off, and we plunged into the bay.
And now behold the honorary steward in hour of duty and
glory; see me circulate amid crowd, radiating affability and
laughter, liberal with my sweetmeats and cigars. I say
unblushing things to hobbledehoy girls, tell shy young persons
this is the married people's boat, roguishly ask the abstracted if
they are thinking of their sweethearts, offer Paterfamilias a
cigar, am struck with the beauty and grow curious about the
age of mamma's youngest who (I assure her gaily) will be a
man before his mother; or perhaps it may occur to me, from the
sensible expression of her face, that she is a person of good
counsel, and I ask her earnestly if she knows any particularly
pleasant place on the Saucelito or San Rafael coast, for the
scene of our picnic is always supposed to be uncertain. The
next moment I am back at my giddy badinage with the young
ladies, wakening laughter as I go, and leaving in my wake
applausive comments of "Isn't Mr. Dodd a funny gentleman?"
and "O, I think he's just too nice!"
An hour having passed in this airy manner, I start upon my
rounds afresh, with a bag full of coloured tickets, all with pins
attached, and all with legible inscriptions: "Old Germany,"
"California," "True Love," "Old Fogies," "La Belle France,"
"Green Erin," "The Land of Cakes," "Washington," "Blue Jay,"
"Robin Red-Breast,"--twenty of each denomination; for when it
comes to the luncheon, we sit down by twenties. These are
distributed with anxious tact--for, indeed, this is the most
delicate part of my functions--but outwardly with reckless
unconcern, amidst the gayest flutter and confusion; and are
immediately after sported upon hats and bonnets, to the
extreme diffusion of cordiality, total strangers hailing each
other by "the number of their mess"--so we humorously name
it--and the deck ringing with cries of, "Here, all Blue Jays to
the rescue!" or, "I say, am I alone in this blame' ship? Ain't
there no more Californians?"
By this time we are drawing near to the appointed spot. I
mount upon the bridge, the observed of all observers.
"Captain," I say, in clear, emphatic tones, heard far and wide,
"the majority of the company appear to be in favour of the little
cove beyond One Tree Point."
"All right, Mr. Dodd," responds the captain, heartily; "all one to
me. I am not exactly sure of the place you mean; but just you
stay here and pilot me."
I do, pointing with my wand. I do pilot him, to the
inexpressible entertainment of the picnic; for I am (why should
I deny it?) the popular man. We slow down off the mouth of a
grassy valley, watered by a brook, and set in pines and
redwoods. The anchor is let go; the boats are lowered, two of
them already packed with the materials of an impromptu bar;
and the Pioneer Band, accompanied by the resplendent asses,
fill the other, and move shoreward to the inviting strains of
Buffalo Gals, won't you come out to-night? It is a part of our
programme that one of the asses shall, from sheer clumsiness,
in the course of this embarkation, drop a dummy axe into the
water, whereupon the mirth of the picnic can hardly be
assuaged. Upon one occasion, the dummy axe floated, and the
laugh turned rather the wrong way.
In from ten to twenty minutes the boats are along-side again,
the messes are marshalled separately on the deck, and the
picnic goes ashore, to find the band and the impromptu bar
awaiting them. Then come the hampers, which are piled upon
the beach, and surrounded by a stern guard of stalwart asses,
axe on shoulder. It is here I take my place, note-book in hand,
under a banner bearing the legend, "Come here for hampers."
Each hamper contains a complete outfit for a separate twenty,
cold provender, plates, glasses, knives, forks, and spoons: an
agonized printed appeal from the fevered pen of Pinkerton,
pasted on the inside of the lid, beseeches that care be taken of
the glass and silver. Beer, wine, and lemonade are flowing
already from the bar, and the various clans of twenty file away
into the woods, with bottles under their arms, and the hampers
strung upon a stick. Till one they feast there, in a very
moderate seclusion, all being within earshot of the band. From
one till four, dancing takes place upon the grass; the bar does a
roaring business; and the honorary steward, who has already
exhausted himself to bring life into the dullest of the messes,
must now indefatigably dance with the plainest of the women.
At four a bugle-call is sounded; and by half-past behold us on
board again, pioneers, corrugated iron bar, empty bottles, and
all; while the honorary steward, free at last, subsides into the
captain's cabin over a brandy and soda and a book. Free at last,
I say; yet there remains before him the frantic leavetakings at
the pier, and a sober journey up to Pinkerton's office with two
policemen and the day's takings in a bag.
What I have here sketched was the routine. But we appealed to
the taste of San Francisco more distinctly in particular fetes.
"Ye Olde Time Pycke-Nycke," largely advertised in hand-bills
beginning "Oyez, Oyez!" and largely frequented by knights,
monks, and cavaliers, was drowned out by unseasonable rain,
and returned to the city one of the saddest spectacles I ever
remember to have witnessed. In pleasing contrast, and
certainly our chief success, was "The Gathering of the Clans,"
or Scottish picnic. So many milk-white knees were never
before simultaneously exhibited in public, and to judge by the
prevalence of "Royal Stewart" and the number of eagle's
feathers, we were a high-born company. I threw forward the
Scottish flank of my own ancestry, and passed muster as a
clansman with applause. There was, indeed, but one small
cloud on this red-letter day. I had laid in a large supply of the
national beverage, in the shape of The "Rob Roy MacGregor
O" Blend, Warranted Old and Vatted; and this must certainly
have been a generous spirit, for I had some anxious work
between four and half-past, conveying on board the inanimate
forms of chieftains.
To one of our ordinary festivities, where he was the life and
soul of his own mess, Pinkerton himself came incognito,
bringing the algebraist on his arm. Miss Mamie proved to be a
well-enough-looking mouse, with a large, limpid eye, very
good manners, and a flow of the most correct expressions I
have ever heard upon the human lip. As Pinkerton's incognito
was strict, I had little opportunity to cultivate the lady's
acquaintance; but I was informed afterwards that she
considered me "the wittiest gentleman she had ever met." "The
Lord mend your taste in wit!" thought I; but I cannot conceal
that such was the general impression. One of my pleasantries
even went the round of San Francisco, and I have heard it
(myself all unknown) bandied in saloons. To be unknown
began at last to be a rare experience; a bustle woke upon my
passage; above all, in humble neighbourhoods. "Who's that?"
one would ask, and the other would cry, "That! Why,
Dromedary Dodd!" or, with withering scorn, "Not know Mr.
Dodd of the Picnics? Well!" and indeed I think it marked a
rather barren destiny; for our picnics, if a trifle vulgar, were as
gay and innocent as the age of gold; I am sure no people divert
themselves so easily and so well: and even with the cares of
my stewardship, I was often happy to be there.
Indeed, there were but two drawbacks in the least considerable.
The first was my terror of the hobbledehoy girls, to whom
(from the demands of my situation) I was obliged to lay myself
so open. The other, if less momentous, was more mortifying.
In early days, at my mother's knee, as a man may say, I had
acquired the unenviable accomplishment (which I have never
since been able to lose) of singing _Just before the Battle._ I
have what the French call a fillet of voice, my best notes scarce
audible about a dinner-table, and the upper register rather to be
regarded as a higher power of silence: experts tell me besides
that I sing flat; nor, if I were the best singer in the world, does
_Just before the Battle_ occur to my mature taste as the song
that I would choose to sing. In spite of all which
considerations, at one picnic, memorably dull, and after I had
exhausted every other art of pleasing, I gave, in desperation, my
one song. From that hour my doom was gone forth. Either we
had a chronic passenger (though I could never detect him), or
the very wood and iron of the steamer must have retained the
tradition. At every successive picnic word went round that Mr.
Dodd was a singer; that Mr. Dodd sang _Just before the
Battle_, and finally that now was the time when Mr. Dodd
sang _Just before the Battle;_ so that the thing became a
fixture like the dropping of the dummy axe, and you are to
conceive me, Sunday after Sunday, piping up my lamentable
ditty and covered, when it was done, with gratuitous applause.
It is a beautiful trait in human nature that I was invariably
offered an encore.
I was well paid, however, even to sing. Pinkerton and I, after
an average Sunday, had five hundred dollars to divide. Nay,
and the picnics were the means, although indirectly, of bringing
me a singular windfall. This was at the end of the season, after
the "Grand Farewell Fancy Dress Gala." Many of the hampers
had suffered severely; and it was judged wiser to save storage,
dispose of them, and lay in a fresh stock when the campaign re-
opened. Among my purchasers was a workingman of the name
of Speedy, to whose house, after several unavailing letters, I
must proceed in person, wondering to find myself once again
on the wrong side, and playing the creditor to some one else's
debtor. Speedy was in the belligerent stage of fear. He could
not pay. It appeared he had already resold the hampers, and he
defied me to do my worst. I did not like to lose my own
money; I hated to lose Pinkerton's; and the bearing of my
creditor incensed me.
"Do you know, Mr. Speedy, that I can send you to the
penitentiary?" said I, willing to read him a lesson.
The dire expression was overheard in the next room. A large,
fresh, motherly Irishwoman ran forth upon the instant, and fell
to besiege me with caresses and appeals. "Sure now, and ye
couldn't have the heart to ut, Mr. Dodd, you, that's so well
known to be a pleasant gentleman; and it's a pleasant face ye
have, and the picture of me own brother that's dead and gone.
It's a truth that he's been drinking. Ye can smell it off of him,
more blame to him. But, indade, and there's nothing in the
house beyont the furnicher, and Thim Stock. It's the stock that
ye'll be taking, dear. A sore penny it has cost me, first and last,
and by all tales, not worth an owld tobacco pipe." Thus
adjured, and somewhat embarrassed by the stern attitude I had
adopted, I suffered myself to be invested with a considerable
quantity of what is called wild-cat stock, in which this excellent
if illogical female had been squandering her hard-earned gold.
It could scarce be said to better my position, but the step
quieted the woman; and, on the other hand, I could not think I
was taking much risk, for the shares in question (they were
those of what I will call the Catamount Silver Mine) had fallen
some time before to the bed-rock quotation, and now lay
perfectly inert, or were only kicked (like other waste paper)
about the kennel of the exchange by bankrupt speculators.
A month or two after, I perceived by the stock-list that
Catamount had taken a bound; before afternoon, "thim stock"
were worth a quite considerable pot of money; and I learned,
upon inquiry, that a bonanza had been found in a condemned
lead, and the mine was now expected to do wonders.
Remarkable to philosophers how bonanzas are found in
condemned leads, and how the stock is always at freezing-point
immediately before! By some stroke of chance the, Speedys
had held on to the right thing; they had escaped the syndicate;
yet a little more, if I had not come to dun them, and Mrs.
Speedy would have been buying a silk dress. I could not bear,
of course, to profit by the accident, and returned to offer
restitution. The house was in a bustle; the neighbours (all
stock-gamblers themselves) had crowded to condole; and Mrs.
Speedy sat with streaming tears, the centre of a sympathetic
group. "For fifteen year I've been at ut," she was lamenting, as
I entered, "and grudging the babes the very milk, more shame
to me! to pay their dhirty assessments. And now, my dears, I
should be a lady, and driving in my coach, if all had their
rights; and a sorrow on that man Dodd! As soon as I set eyes
on him, I seen the divil was in the house."
It was upon these words that I made my entrance, which was
therefore dramatic enough, though nothing to what followed.
For when it appeared that I was come to restore the lost fortune,
and when Mrs. Speedy (after copiously weeping on my bosom)
had refused the restitution, and when Mr. Speedy (summoned
to that end from a camp of the Grand Army of the Republic)
had added his refusal, and when I had insisted, and they had
insisted, and the neighbours had applauded and supported each
of us in turn; and when at last it was agreed we were to hold
the stock together, and share the proceeds in three parts--one
for me, one for Mr. Speedy, and one for his spouse--I will leave
you to conceive the enthusiasm that reigned in that small, bare
apartment, with the sewing-machine in the one corner, and the
babes asleep in the other, and pictures of Garfield and the
Battle of Gettysburg on the yellow walls. Port wine was had in
by a sympathiser, and we drank it mingled with tears.
"And I dhrink to your health, my dear," sobbed Mrs. Speedy,
especially affected by my gallantry in the matter of the third
share; "and I'm sure we all dhrink to his health--Mr. Dodd of
the picnics, no gentleman better known than him; and it's my
prayer, dear, the good God may be long spared to see ye in
health and happiness!"
In the end I was the chief gainer; for I sold my third while it
was worth five thousand dollars, but the Speedys more
adventurously held on until the syndicate reversed the process,
when they were happy to escape with perhaps a quarter of that
sum. It was just as well; for the bulk of the money was (in
Pinkerton's phrase) reinvested; and when next I saw Mrs.
Speedy, she was still gorgeously dressed from the proceeds of
the late success, but was already moist with tears over the new
catastrophe. "We're froze out, me darlin'! All the money we
had, dear, and the sewing-machine, and Jim's uniform, was in
the Golden West; and the vipers has put on a new assessment."
By the end of the year, therefore, this is how I stood. I had
made
By Catamount Silver Mine.......... $5,000
By the picnics.............................. 3,000
By the lecture............................... 600
By profit and loss on capital
in Pinkerton's business............. 1,350
------
$9,950
to which must be added
What remained of my grandfather's
donation.................................. 8,500
------
$18,450
It appears, on the other hand, that
I had spent.................................... 4,000
------
Which thus left me to the good....... $14,450
A result on which I am not ashamed to say I looked with
gratitude and pride. Some eight thousand (being late conquest)
was liquid and actually tractile in the bank; the rest whirled
beyond reach and even sight (save in the mirror of a balance-
sheet) under the compelling spell of wizard Pinkerton. Dollars
of mine were tacking off the shores of Mexico, in peril of the
deep and the guarda-costas; they rang on saloon-counters in the
city of Tombstone, Arizona; they shone in faro-tents among the
mountain diggings; the imagination flagged in following them,
so wide were they diffused, so briskly they span to the turning
of the wizard's crank. But here, there, or everywhere I could
still tell myself it was all mine, and what was more convincing,
draw substantial dividends. My fortune, I called it; and it
represented, when expressed in dollars, or even British pounds,
an honest pot of money; when extended into francs, a veritable
fortune. Perhaps I have let the cat out of the bag; perhaps you
see already where my hopes were pointing, and begin to blame
my inconsistency. But I must first tell you my excuse, and the
change that had befallen Pinkerton.
About a week after the picnic to which he escorted Mamie,
Pinkerton avowed the state of his affections. From what I had
observed on board the steamer, where methought Mamie
waited on him with her limpid eyes, I encouraged the bashful
lover to proceed; and the very next evening he was carrying me
to call on his affianced.
"You must befriend her, Loudon, as you have always
befriended me," he said, pathetically.
"By saying disagreeable things? I doubt if that be the way to a
young lady's favour," I replied; "and since this picnicking I
begin to be a man of some experience."
"Yes, you do nobly there; I can't describe how I admire you," he
cried. "Not that she will ever need it; she has had every
advantage. God knows what I have done to deserve her. O
man, what a responsibility this is for a rough fellow and not
always truthful!"
"Brace up, old man, brace up!" said I.
But when we reached Mamie's boarding-house, it was almost
with tears that he presented me. "Here is Loudon, Mamie,"
were his words. "I want you to love him; he has a grand
nature."
"You are certainly no stranger to me, Mr. Dodd," was her
gracious expression. "James is never weary of descanting on
your goodness."
"My dear lady," said I, "when you know our friend a little
better, you will make a large allowance for his warm heart. My
goodness has consisted in allowing him to feed and clothe and
toil for me when he could ill afford it. If I am now alive, it is to
him I owe it; no man had a kinder friend. You must take good
care of him," I added, laying my hand on his shoulder, "and
keep him in good order, for he needs it."
Pinkerton was much affected by this speech, and so, I fear, was
Mamie. I admit it was a tactless performance. "When you
know our friend a little better," was not happily said; and even
"keep him in good order, for he needs it" might be construed
into matter of offence; but I lay it before you in all confidence of
your acquittal: was the general tone of it "patronising"? Even if
such was the verdict of the lady, I cannot but suppose the
blame was neither wholly hers nor wholly mine; I cannot but
suppose that Pinkerton had already sickened the poor woman
of my very name; so that if I had come with the songs of
Apollo, she must still have been disgusted.
Here, however, were two finger-posts to Paris. Jim was going
to be married, and so had the less need of my society. I had not
pleased his bride, and so was, perhaps, better absent. Late one
evening I broached the idea to my friend. It had been a great
day for me; I had just banked my five thousand catamountain
dollars; and as Jim had refused to lay a finger on the stock, risk
and profit were both wholly mine, and I was celebrating the
event with stout and crackers. I began by telling him that if it
caused him any pain or any anxiety about his affairs, he had but
to say the word, and he should hear no more of my proposal.
He was the truest and best friend I ever had or was ever like to
have; and it would be a strange thing if I refused him any
favour he was sure he wanted. At the same time I wished him
to be sure; for my life was wasting in my hands. I was like one
from home; all my true interests summoned me away. I must
remind him, besides, that he was now about to marry and
assume new interests, and that our extreme familiarity might be
even painful to his wife.--"O no, Loudon; I feel you are wrong
there," he interjected warmly; "she DOES appreciate your
nature."--So much the better, then, I continued; and went on to
point out that our separation need not be for long; that, in the
way affairs were going, he might join me in two years with a
fortune, small, indeed, for the States, but in France almost
conspicuous; that we might unite our resources, and have one
house in Paris for the winter and a second near Fontainebleau
for summer, where we could be as happy as the day was long,
and bring up little Pinkertons as practical artistic workmen, far
from the money-hunger of the West. "Let me go then," I
concluded; "not as a deserter, but as the vanguard, to lead the
march of the Pinkerton men."
So I argued and pleaded, not without emotion; my friend sitting
opposite, resting his chin upon his hand and (but for that single
interjection) silent. "I have been looking for this, Loudon," said
he, when I had done. "It does pain me, and that's the fact--I'm
so miserably selfish. And I believe it's a death blow to the
picnics; for it's idle to deny that you were the heart and soul of
them with your wand and your gallant bearing, and wit and
humour and chivalry, and throwing that kind of society
atmosphere about the thing. But for all that, you're right, and
you ought to go. You may count on forty dollars a week; and if
Depew City--one of nature's centres for this State--pan out the
least as I expect, it may be double. But it's forty dollars
anyway; and to think that two years ago you were almost
reduced to beggary!"
"I WAS reduced to it," said I.
"Well, the brutes gave you nothing, and I'm glad of it now!"
cried Jim. "It's the triumphant return I glory in! Think of the
master, and that cold-blooded Myner too! Yes, just let the
Depew City boom get on its legs, and you shall go; and two
years later, day for day, I'll shake hands with you in Paris, with
Mamie on my arm, God bless her!"
We talked in this vein far into the night. I was myself so
exultant in my new-found liberty, and Pinkerton so proud of my
triumph, so happy in my happiness, in so warm a glow about
the gallant little woman of his choice, and the very room so
filled with castles in the air and cottages at Fontainebleau, that
it was little wonder if sleep fled our eyelids, and three had
followed two upon the office clock before Pinkerton unfolded
the mechanism of his patent sofa.
Content of CHAPTER VII - IRONS IN THE FIRE [Robert Louis Stevenson's novel: The Wrecker]
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