Part 4 (1/2)
FIRST DISCOVERIES OF THE CLUB.
”He who fights and runs away, Will live--”
A. NONYMOUS.
Pursuant to the resolutions unanimously adopted on the evening before, the Elephant Club met to proceed, under the direction of some experienced hunter, to scrutinize their ponderous game. Being duly equipped with all the arms and ammunition required for an expedition of so perilous a nature, they sallied forth. They dragged no heavy, ponderous artillery, they wore no clanking swords, they rallied under no silken banner, and marched to no inspiriting music; but they tramped along, their only rallying-flag being a yellow handkerchief round the hat of Mr. Myndert Van Dam, who had thus protected his ”Cady” from any injury from a sudden shower; their only martial music was the shrill pipe of Mr. James George Boggs, who whistled ”Pop goes the Weasel,” and for arms each one had a hickory cane, and in the breast pocket of his overcoat, a single ”pocket-pistol,” loaded, but not dangerous. Mr.
Remington Dropper had a.s.sumed the leaders.h.i.+p, and was to conduct the party on their cruise.
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They had proceeded but a short distance when Mr. Boggs called out to the party to observe the motions of a queer-looking character, who was approaching at a distance of a half block. He was stepping on the edge of the sidewalk with his gaze fixed upon the gutter, and in apparent unconsciousness of the existence of anything but himself. He was lank, lean, and sallow. His clothes were quite dilapidated, his beard and hair long. A smile on his face seemed to indicate his entire satisfaction with himself. He was a marked character, and after a moment's sight at the individual, inquiries were made of Mr. Boggs as to who he was.
”That is more than I can say,” was Boggs's response. ”I have known him by sight for years, and he has always appeared the same. He belongs to a cla.s.s of beings in New York, a few specimens of which are familiar to those who frequent the princ.i.p.al thoroughfares, and are known by the ornithological appellation of ”gutter-snipes.” I have often talked with him, but he knows nothing of his own history; or, if he does, chooses not to reveal it. He is a monomaniac, but perfectly harmless, and calls himself Nicholas Quail. I have learned from other sources a few facts of his history. He sleeps anywhere and everywhere, and eats in the same localities. n.o.body ever harms him, all being familiar with his whims. As far as I can learn, he was formerly a raftsman. He has never in his life owned real estate enough to form the site for a hen-coop, nor timber sufficient to build it. His personal property could be crowded into a small pocket-handkerchief; but let him get four inches of whisky in him, and he fancies he has such boundless and illimitable wealth, that in comparison, the treasures of Aladdin, provided by the accommodating slave of the lamp, would be but small change. He walks about the streets viewing what he terms the improvements he is making; he gives all sorts of absurd directions to workmen as to how he desires the work to be done, much to their amus.e.m.e.nt. But here he is, now; if he is tight we'll have some sport.”
As the personage approached, Boggs accosted him, when the following dialogue took place.
”So Nicholas,” said Boggs, ”you've come back, have you? How is the financial department at present?”
Nick looked up and smiled.
”The fact is,” said he, ”I've just been buying all the grain in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana for $7 a bushel, and I am rather short for small change, but if you want a hundred thousand or so, just send a cart round to my office. Would you prefer having it in quarter eagles or twenty dollar pieces?”
”Well, Nick, I don't care to borrow at present, but a boy says you've been drunk. How is it?”
”What boy is it?”
”Your boy in your counting-room--the urchin who runs on errands for you, smokes your stubs, and pockets the small change.”
”Now, hadn't he ought to be ashamed of himself, the red-haired devil, for getting Old Nick into such a sc.r.a.pe by his drunken lies? Haven't I made him presents enough? It was only last week that I gave him a house in Thirty-second street, and a splendid mansion on the North River; and on the 4th of July he had fourteen thousand dollars, all in pennies, to buy fire-crackers and soda-water with; and yet he goes to you and lies, and says that I've been drunk. Don't you believe the lying cub; he's got a spite agin me, because last night I wouldn't give him the Erie Railroad to bet on poker; but I couldn't do it, General; I seen the cards was agin him; the other feller held four kings, and he hadn't nothin' in the world but three high-heeled jacks and a pair of fours.”
”I do believe you were drunk,” said Boggs, ”and if you ever get hauled up before the justice you will have to pay ten dollars, and if you have not that decimal amount handy, you had better entrust it to the boy's keeping, to have it ready in case of such an emergency.”
Nick felt in his pockets, and with a puzzled air remarked:
”I haven't got the money here, but I'll give you a check on the Na.s.sau Bank for a thousand, and you can give me the change; or I'll give you a deed of Stewart's, or a mortgage lien on the Astor House.”
”Shan't do it, shan't do it, Old Nick; and I'm afraid you'll have to go to Blackwell's Island, sure.”
”There's that infernal island again,” said Nick; ”if I'd ever thought it would come to this, I never'd have given that little piece of property to the city; but I'll buy it back next week, and use it hereafter for a cabbage garden; see if I don't.”
By this time the Elephants seemed to disposed to go, but Nick spied on the s.h.i.+rt-front of Mr. John Spout a diamond pin, which seemed to take his fancy. He offered in vain a block of stores in Pearl street, the Custom-House, the a.s.say-Office, the Metropolitan Hotel and three-quarters of the steamer Atlantic, and to throw into the bargain Staten Island and Brooklyn City; but it was no use, the party took their leave, and Nick was disconsolate.
Pa.s.sing up Broadway, their attention was attracted by one of those full-length ba.s.swood statues of impossible-looking men, holding an impracticable pistol in his hand, at an angle which never could be achieved by a live man with the usual allowance of bones, but which defiant figure was evidently intended to be suggestive of a shooting-gallery in the rear.
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Mr. John Spout, who was in a philosophic mood, remarked that it was a curious study to observe the various abortive efforts of aspiring carpenters to represent the human form divine, in the three-cornered wooden men, which stand for ”pistol-galleries;” and the inexplicable Turks, the unheard of Scotchmen, and the Indians of every possible and impossible tribe, which are supposed to hint ”tobacco and cigars.”
The ambitious carpenter first hews out a distorted caricature of a man, which he pa.s.ses over to the painters to be embellished. By the time the figure has survived the last operation, it might certainly be wors.h.i.+pped without transgressing any scriptural injunction, for it certainly looks like nothing in ”the heavens above, the earth below, or the waters under the earth.” It is, however, an easy matter to distinguish the Highlanders from the Turks, by the fact, that the calves of their legs are larger around than their waists, and they are dressed in petticoats and plaid stockings; the Turks and Indians, however, being of the same color, might easily be confounded, were it not for the inexplicable circ.u.mstance that the former are always squatting down, while the latter are invariably standing up; they are all, however, remarkable for the unstable material of which their countenances are manufactured; after one has been exposed to the boys and the weather for about a fortnight, his nose will disappear, his lips come up a minus quant.i.ty, the top of his head be knocked off, and a minute's scrutiny will generally disclose the presence of innumerable gimlet-holes in his eyes. The boys, in their desire to comprehend perfectly the internal economy of these human libels, not unfrequently carry their anatomical investigations to the extent of cutting off a leg or two, and amputating one or more arms, or cutting out three or four ribs with a buck-saw or a broad-axe. Indeed, there is one unfortunate wooden Indian, of some fossil and unknown tribe, on exhibition in front of a snuff-shop in the Bowery, who has not only lost both legs, one arm, and his stomach, but has actually endured the amputation of the head and neck, and bears a staff stuck in the hole where his spine ought to be, and upon a flag is inscribed the heartless sentence, ”Mrs. Miller's Fine Cut--for particulars inquire within.”
Mr. John Spout having concluded his explanatory remarks, the entire party went into the pistol-gallery before-mentioned, to have a crack at the iron man, with the pipe in his mouth.