The History and Records of the Elephant Club Part 12

A unanimous call was made for Wagstaff's notebook, which was immediately forthcoming.

The reading of Mr. Wagstaff's notes was prefaced by statements on the part of Dennis and Overdale which made the following facts apparent to the club. The previous evening the three went into a Greenwich street bar-room, on the invitation of Overdale to pay a visit to Delmonico's, to get a piece of pie and some cigars. Whilst partaking of the order, a singular person entered the room. His beauty was decidedly of the yard-stick character. He was long as a projected Iowa railroad, and as symmetrical as a fence-rail; his face was as expressionless as the head of Shakspeare which is seen on the drop-curtain of the Broadway Theatre, surrounded by a triple row of attenuated sausages. His square and angular shoulders made him resemble a high-shouldered pump, while his arms moved with as much ease and grace as the handle to the same. Long, black hair, parted in the middle, was soaped down until the oleaginous ends reposed upon the unctuous collar of his seedy coat. His s.h.i.+rt-collar, guiltless of starch, was unb.u.t.toned at the neck and laid far back over his vest, doubtless to display a neck which, had it been cut off, was long enough to tie.

He had seated himself, and had settled down into a misanthropic quiet, when a little stubby man, with one eye--the very ideal of a Was.h.i.+ngton market butcher--happened to enter. As soon as the first-mentioned subject saw him, he jumped up, rushed at the stubby man, and had hardly touched him, before a blow from the fist of the stubby man caused him to collapse on the floor. The stubby man followed up his success by pulling the nose of his fallen enemy, and threatening to give him a "tolerable shake-up, if he ever came round his shop agin'."

The conflict was brief, as it soon drew in quite a crowd, and amongst others a policeman. The tall man was pointed out as the aggressor, but the stubby man said "he didn't want to appear agin' the crack-brained cuss; that he guessed he (the said cuss) had got the worst of it."

But the a.s.sembled mult.i.tudes were not satisfied. They thought it was due to them that they should have an explanation, and as the tall individual seemed anxious, and the stubby individual didn't make any objections, a ring was formed to give the parties a chance to be heard.

The stubby man said that while the other was "exercisin' his jaw, he'd have some ham'neggs;" whilst he was eating, the tall individual told his story, which was one of blighted hopes, disappointed expectations, unrequited love, and unappreciated genius. Wagstaff's notes of his words read as follows:

"'My name is Julius Jenkins, and I have a cousin named Betsey Brown; I love my cousin Betsey; have always loved my cousin Betsey, from the time when as children we tore in loving partners.h.i.+p our mutual pantalets and petticoats (for these legs once wore pantalets, and their symmetry was hidden from admiration by petticoats), looking for blackberries in a cedar-swamp; from the time we sucked eggs together in the barn-yard and 'teetered' in happy sport upon the same board; from the time we built playhouses in the garden and made puppy-love behind the currant bushes; from those happy days of rural felicity until the present time, my cousin Betsey has been the ideal of my soul. We used to eat bread and milk out of the same bowl, dig angleworms with the same shovel, go fis.h.i.+ng in the same creek, steal apples from the same orchard, and crawl through the same hole in the fence when the man chased us. Through all my lonely life the memory of cousin Betsey has been my guardian angel. I have been exposed to dire temptations; once I was reduced to such extremity that I was about to earn my dinner by sawing wood, but my cousin Betsey seemed to rise before me and say, "Julius, don't degrade yourself;" and I didn't. I cast the saw to the earth, and begged my dinner from a colored washerwoman. I once accepted a situation as a clerk in a retail grocery. I stayed a week, but on every barrel of sugar, on every bar of soap, in every keg of lard, in each individual potato, in every bushel in all the cellar, I saw the reproachful face of my cousin Betsey; it rose before me from the oily depths of the b.u.t.ter-firkin, and from the cratery interior of the milk-can; the very peanuts rose up in judgment against me, and had on each separate end a speaking likeness of my cousin Betsey, which said, "Julius, don't degrade yourself;" I couldn't stand it; in the darkness of night I packed up my wardrobe (comprising one s.h.i.+rt of my own and two I borrowed from a neighboring clothes-line), helped myself to the small change, and vanished; I became a painter, I executed a portrait of my cousin Betsey; I asked a critical friend to see my masterpiece; he gazed a moment, and then asked me which was the tail end; the dolt! he thought I meant it for a pig; I wrote poetry to my cousin Betsey, but the printer returned it because I spelled Cupid with a K, and put the capitals at the wrong end of my words; the uninformed a.s.s; he did not understand the eccentricities of genius; I became an actor, and attempted Oth.e.l.lo; at the rise of the curtain I was saluted with a shower of onions from appreciative friends, and at its fall I was presented by the manager with a brush, to which he added his gratuitous advice that I should keep the paint on my face and go into the boot-blacking business; I turned composer, but could never get my "Bootjack Waltz" published, or my oratorio of "The Ancient Applewoman" before the public; at last my cousin Betsey came to live in the city, and I thought once more to possess her love, but I found a rival; a one-eyed butcher; I wrote letters to her; I know that they should have been tied with blue ribbon, but necessity dictated cotton twine; I sent her presents; not so valuable as I could have wished; my intention was good but my means were limited; I could have wished to offer gold and jewels, but I could never afford more than a string of smelts, or half a pint of huckleberries; I resolved to serenade my cousin Betsey; I procured a violin, strung with the daintiest filaments ever made from the bowels of the most delicate female feline infant; I repaired beneath her window and commenced my song, but the butcher came to the window, threw down a dime, and told me to go away; he took me for an organ-grinder; I indignantly stamped the money into the earth, but thought again, picked it up and purchased some brandy to nerve me for a desperate deed; I had resolved to see that butcher, to meet that butcher, to challenge that butcher, to fight that butcher, to conquer that butcher or to die; yesterday I went to that butcher's shop to execute my design, but he kicked me out. To day I came in here in despair; who should come in but the butcher; now was my chance; I rushed at him, but my personal strength was not equal to the task; he boxed my ears, pulled my nose, and I was cheated out of my revenge, simply because I wasn't able to lick him. Now I demand of this intelligent a.s.sembly, as a matter of right, the instant annihilation of the one-eyed butcher now present, the author of all my miseries, that my Betsey may be restored to me.'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Mr. Jenkins sank into a chair, exhausted by his effort.

"The butcher wiped his chops on a red silk handkerchief, and then proceeded to tell his story, which was as follows, as appears by Wagstaff's notes;

"'This here feller's allers botherin' my wife, 'cause he says she's his'n; yesterday he gits drunk, comes in my place, and wants to fight me. I told him to leave, and he wouldn't, so I hussled him out. I happened to come in here jus' now, and he comes at me. I doubles him up, and that's the hull story.'

"The laconic statement of the one-eyed stubby butcher satisfied the parties a.s.sembled that Mr. Jenkins's insane pursuit of another man's wife had justly brought upon him the indignation of the husband, and he was advised very generally, in the future, to cease all importunities of a similar character.

"Finding that his story excited no sympathy in his behalf, Mr. Jenkins left the place in disgust, and the three Elephantines soon after left in an omnibus."

Mr. Spout here arose, and said he liked the story in all of its parts, except the concluding joke, which he considered to be, not only unkind, but uncalled for. He should take the liberty of considering it expunged from the records.

Some member here dared to suggest that it was high time that the Higholdboy should do something else than criticise the contributions of his fellow-members.

Mr. Spout desired it to be understood that he should admit of no dictation from inferiors; that he should exercise his own discretion in deciding whether he would contribute to the amus.e.m.e.nt of others, or criticise them in their efforts to be jolly. Yet, without giving up any of this right, he would volunteer to lay before the club, on the present occasion, a matter which, to him, possessed some points of interest, and as he didn't care whether it interested the others or not, he should state facts for his own amus.e.m.e.nt. He intended to laugh at everything which he thought was funny, without any reference to the comfort of others.

"The circ.u.mstance which I am about to relate," said Mr. Spout, "is one in which a friend of mine was involved. My friend's name," he continued, "is Bartholomew Buxton. He is the owner of a book-store, and was led into that business on account of a thirst for reading. He is a man of about thirty-five years, and his whole life has been pa.s.sed in poring over books. I regard him as a man of very rare intelligence, though his intellect is not, perhaps, very fruitful of original thoughts. What is remarkable with him is his personal appearance. He is a little man, just large enough to be ent.i.tled to enter the army--that is to say, 'five-foot-four.' His body is very small, and his head very large, round, and full. His hair is of a sandy color, and of the scratch wig order of cut. His eyes are small, and one of them squints frightfully.

His complexion is quite pale. In the matter of dress, he wears usually a pair of pants of a checker-board-pattern-on-a-large-scale cloth, blue dress-coat, ornamented with large fancy bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and a vest--a double-breaster--of the brightest scarlet. But these eccentricities in apparel would hardly attract attention so long as the main feature of his dress is visible. That feature is his collar. It is a remarkable collar--a mighty rampart of linen, which encircles his head in a line with the centres of his ears, almost meeting in his face. Numerous reasons have been a.s.signed for Mr. Buxton's going to such lengths (or rather heights) in his indulgence in collar. One idea advanced is, that he is actuated by a desire to economize in the expenses of was.h.i.+ng, and to do this, has the garments made in such a way as to be convertible into collars at either end. Another suggestion is, that the collar is a matter of utility, designed by Mr. Buxton to economize physical strength, which, inasmuch as his head is very large and his body very small, must be overtaxed to hold his ponderous brain-box erect.

"Gentlemen, three days since I received a call from my friend Buxton. He appeared melancholy and dejected, which surprised me; but what surprised me more, in respect to his present appearance, was the manifest disarrangement of his collar. It did not stand up on one side with the majestic erectness which characterized it on the other. On the left it was hanging down flabbily; its self-sustaining power was departed.

"I saw, by his countenance, that something important to him had occurred, and the appearance of his collar only tended to confirm my suspicions. I accordingly asked him what was the trouble.

"'Trouble,' said he, 'enough of it. Sir,' he continued, 'last night I was locked up in a cell at the station-house, for exercising the privileges of a freeman--a native American citizen. I was arrested, and violently dragged off to that cell, where I remained last night, and this morning was tried before the magistrate, only, however, to be acquitted. What made it worse was, that I should be arrested with a n.i.g.g.e.r, and be tried with a n.i.g.g.e.r, and acquitted with a n.i.g.g.e.r. He was a huge n.i.g.g.e.r--a colossal n.i.g.g.e.r--a n.i.g.g.e.r fully six feet and four inches in height; his face betrayed no evidence of light--it was all shade; he was a n.i.g.g.e.r, above all others, so black, that he would make an excellent drum-major to a funeral procession, if custom sanctioned the employment of that non-commissioned official on such occasions.

Inasmuch, however, as custom doesn't do any such thing, the next best use to which the sable giant could be put, would be to make his face the figurehead of a Broadway mourning store; with the exception of his large size and remarkable black face, the n.i.g.g.e.r in question looked very much like other n.i.g.g.e.rs not in question. He was a n.i.g.g.e.r, in fact, who gave as his name the half-cla.s.sic and half-descriptive appellation of Cesar Freeman. I have always been a "woolly-head" until now, but may I be bursted if I don't go and join the Know Nothings to-morrow, and begin a crusade against all n.i.g.g.e.rs--particularly n.i.g.g.e.r-giants and n.i.g.g.e.r women.

"'How did this occur?' I inquired, anxiously.

"'I'll tell you,' said he. 'But before doing so however, I desire to state a fact. We have all our human weaknesses; indeed, it may be set down as a truism that human beings do have human weaknesses to a greater or less extent; I am a human being; I have my human weakness, and that weakness is my collars; it required years of experiment to bring my collars to their present perfection; nearly all of the quarrels I ever had have been with laundresses who have failed to do them up to my liking; if a man wishes to ruffle my temper he need only to ruffle my collar, and it is accomplished; tell me the Savings Bank, where I deposit my extra money, has collapsed in the region of the money-vault; tell me that I have got to attend a charity ball; give me the jumping toothache; place me in a Bowery stage with fourteen inside, and I in juxtaposition to a dirty woman with a squalling baby who has got the seven years' itch--all of these I can bear, but when it comes to interfere with my collars it is going a point too far. Now I come to the time when unforeseen circ.u.mstances brought me in violent collision with this n.i.g.g.e.r of African extraction; I was walking down the street, near where the belligerent demonstration took place, when I saw directly in front of me a long-tailed man in an amiable-appearing coat--no--an amiable-appearing coat in a long-tailed--no--I mean an amiable-appearing man in a long-tailed coat. For my life I could not conceive why that amiable individual's proclivities in matters of apparel should lead him to wear a garment of so ridiculous a cut. I had just come to the sage conclusion that it was because every donkey in the country chooses to have his hips appear high or low to suit the caprice of Broadway tailors, when at that moment the amiable person, together with his long-tailed coat, was driven from my mind. I became suddenly conscious that an important event had transpired. An elderly female n.i.g.g.e.r, in throwing water on a store-window which she was cleaning, did not confine her professional favors exclusively to the window for which she had been hired, but she disbursed copious supplies of Croton upon the pa.s.sers-by, for which she had not been hired. In fact, I am bold to a.s.sert, that several persons were favored with several gratuitous duckings by this colored female. I was one of those persons; a bountiful current of water interrupted the current of my thoughts; like a juvenile Niagara, it dashed against my collar in the left side, as you can see.

Now, my collar is impervious to perspiration, but it could not stand up under the soaking of a cataract; as my collar fell my choler rose; I looked around at the sable author of my troubles, and I saw on her face an exultant grin at what she had done. I felt as if I would like to have crammed a wet broom which she had in her hand down her throat, splint end downwards; for obvious reasons I did not do this; but I did speak to her in language expressive of my emphatic disapprobation of the unasked-for and informal baptism with which she had been pleased to favor me; I suppose my words must have frightened her; at any rate she fell off from a stool on which she was elevated; she gave a scream; this black Hercules came down the stairs; she informed him that I had insulted her; he looked at me with his teeth grinning as if he would like to have eaten me without gravy or condiment; he gave one diabolical grin, and then came at me. I am not pugnacious; a lamb-like inoffensiveness has ever been my prominent characteristic; I have a const.i.tutional repugnance to a fight, either with weapons natural or artificial; if loaded fire-arms are around I never feel so safe as when I see the b.u.t.t-ends pointed at my vital parts; though not a member of the Peace Society, yet that society has ever had in me an ardent sympathizer; peaceful though I be, yet, when the sleeping lion within me is aroused, I know no bounds to my rage, and I insist upon going about, seeking whom I may devour; I saw the belligerent att.i.tude of my enemy; he struck me; we grappled; an insatiable desire to taste the flesh of a colored man at that instant seized upon me; in a moment the digits of his right hand were between my teeth; I know that for a moment or two hostilities were active; I became conscious, too, that hostilities ceased; I soon learned the cause; the cause was the arrival of two policemen, who are always around when they shouldn't be, and never when they should. I was brought to the station-house.'

"'Well, what took place before the court?' I asked.

"'At seven this morning,' said Buxton, 'we were brought before the judge, and put in a pen; on one side of me was the aforesaid n.i.g.g.e.r, and on the other side a disgusting piece of feminine humanity; an importation from Ireland, who had just come off from a bender. Our names were finally called, the n.i.g.g.e.r's first, by all that's holy. Two officers who arrested us were the witnesses; they testified that on last evening, about dusk, they were engaged in conversation on the corner of a street which forms the boundary line between their respective beats, when they saw a crowd collected on the sidewalk, about a square above; they ran there, and they saw me and the n.i.g.g.e.r engaged in a fight; they said that the n.i.g.g.e.r was striking me violently with his left fist; his right hand was between my teeth, while I was kicking and striking the n.i.g.g.e.r very generally and promiscuously, and a n.i.g.g.e.r woman who was present was laying the blows on me with a broom whenever she could; at that moment they arrested me and the n.i.g.g.e.r; it required all their strength to secure us, such was the violence of our efforts to get away; hence they were unable to take the woman into custody.

"'The judge showed the cussed bad taste to ask the n.i.g.g.e.r to make his statement first. The n.i.g.g.e.r said that I had insulted his wife, and had made improper proposals to her; that made me wrathy; I told him that he was guilty of uttering a falsehood before the court; emphatically p.r.o.nounced his a.s.sertion relative to my making an insulting proposal to that feminine lump of animated charcoal, with whom he very properly cohabited, to be an unequivocal lie; I am no controversalist, and still less would I descend from my exalted height to engage in a controversy with that herculean African, especially after enduring the perspiration, which, despite my frantic efforts to the contrary, I was compelled to suffer during a hot night, in a cell where any respectable thermometer, if it could be induced to go into the cell once, if it was anything at all, would be a hundred at least; yes, sir,' he continued, 'and should you ever have a morbid desire to enter into controversy, recline your heated form of a hot night in the cell which I occupied, and by morning you will insist upon retiring into some secluded spot, from which secluded spot you can look dispa.s.sionately and unmoved upon the moral strifes of the world.

"'Well, the up-shot of the matter was that both of us were discharged.'

"I gave Mr. Buxton what consolation I could, after which he took his departure to put on a new collar."

When Mr. Spout had concluded his narration, he proceeded to awaken such of the members of the club as were still present, telling them that it was time to go home. But he did not succeed in fully arousing them to an appreciation of the lateness of the hour, until he had put ice into their boot-legs and s.h.i.+rt-bosoms.

THE CLUB IN AN UPROAR.

Now doth the little busy bee Improve each s.h.i.+ning hour And gather honey all the day From every opening--

[Ill.u.s.tration]

TOWARDS nine o'clock one evening, the members of the club had casually convened in the club-room, although no notice had been given that they were to a.s.semble on that occasion. The only absentee was Johnny Cake, but this created no surprise, as the wonder was, not why any member was absent, but why so many were present.

An hour was pa.s.sed in discussing the current events of the day, when some member suggested, that if anybody had anything to offer, either amusing or instructive, an excellent opportunity was now afforded.

It so happened that Mr. Remington Dropper had in his pocket a quant.i.ty of foolscap, on which he had written a statement of certain experience, with which he had been favored on the previous day.

A general wish was expressed that Mr. Dropper might make himself useful in the exigency. He consented, and after the members had lighted their pipes, the barkeeper had been signalized for eight whisky-punches, and the Higholdboy had seated himself in his chair, the meeting was declared to be duly organized.

Mr. Dropper commenced:

"Yesterday," said he, "I had the pleasure of seeing our favorite quadruped as he appeared on Broadway, from an omnibus, whilst on a voyage from the South Ferry to Union Square. At half-past two o'clock I went over the ferry to Hamilton Avenue, Brooklyn. Having transacted my business, set out on my return, jumped aboard the ferry-boat and was soon on the New York side; stepped outside the gate, when I was beset by two dozen different omnibus agents, and as many different drivers. 'Here y'ar, right up Broadway.' 'Wide awake, 'ere Bower' un' Gran' street.'

'Right up Broadway, Sixth Avenue.' 'Here's Broad'ay, Bleeck' street, un'

Eigh thavenue.' 'Here y'ar Bowery un' Ouston street.'

"'I want to go to Greenwich Avenue,' said a timid old gentleman.

"'Here y'ar,' said the agent, as he took the old gentleman by the seat of his pantaloons, and threw him head first into an East Broadway stage.

"The old gentleman, as soon as he could recover from his astonishment, looked out of the window at the agent.

"'Sir,' said he, 'does this stage carry me to Greenwich Avenue?'

"'Certing,' was the prompt reply, 'you'll get there, never fear. Here's Eas' Broadway un' Dry Dock.'

"'Where do you want to go madam?' asked the Ninth Avenue stage-agent of a lady accompanied by a little boy.

"'To the Crystal Palace,' said the lady.

"'Here y'ar then,' said he, as he placed her in the stage which probably stopped fully three quarters of a mile from the place.