Home as Found Part 14

"So I often tell my owners, but 'go ahead' is the order. When I was a youngster, a s.h.i.+p remained in port for a fair wind; but, now, she goes to work and makes one. The world seems to get young, as I get old."

"This is a _rum litterateur_," Gray whispered to Pindar.

"It is an obvious mystification," was the answer; "poor Mrs. Legend has picked up some straggling porpoise, and converted him, by a touch of her magical wand, into a Boanerges of literature. The thing is as clear as day, for the worthy fellow smells of tar and cigar smoke. I perceive that Mr. Effingham is laughing out of the corner of his eyes, and will step across the room, and get the truth, in a minute."

The rogue was as good as his word, and was soon back again, and contrived to let his friends understand the real state of the case. A knowledge of the captain's true character encouraged this trio in the benevolent purpose of aiding the honest old seaman in his wish to smoke, and Pith managed to give him a lighted paper, without becoming an open accessary to the plot.

"Will you take a cigar yourself, sir," said the captain, offering his box to Mr. Pindar.

"I thank you, Mr. Truck, I never smoke, but am a profound admirer of the flavour. Let me entreat you to begin as soon as possible."

Thus encouraged, Captain Truck drew two or three whiffs, when the rooms were immediately filled with the fragrance of a real Havana. At the first discovery, the whole literary pack went off on the scent.

As for Mr. Fun, he managed to profit by the agitation that followed, in order to escape to the three wags in the corner, who were enjoying the scene, with the gravity of so many dervishes.

"As I live," cried Lucius Junius Brutus, "there is the author of a-- a--a--actually smoking a cigar!--How excessively _piquant!_"

"Do my eyes deceive me, or is not that the writer of e--e--e-- fumigating us all!" whispered Miss Annual.

"Nay, this cannot certainly be right," put in Florio, with a dogmatical manner. "All the periodicals agree that smoking is ungenteel in England."

"You never were more mistaken, dear Florio," replied D.O.V.E. in a cooing tone. "The very last novel of society has a chapter in which the hero and heroine smoke in the declaration scene."

"Do they, indeed!--That alters the case. Really, one would not wish to get behind so great a nation, nor yet go much before it. Pray, Captain Kant, what do your friends in Canada say; is, or is not smoking permitted in good society there? the Canadians must, at least, be ahead of us."

"Not at all, sir," returned the editor in his softest tones; "it is revolutionary and jacobinical."

But the ladies prevailed, and, by a process that is rather peculiar to what may be called a "credulous" state of society, they carried the day. This process was simply to make one fiction authority for another. The fact that smoking was now carried so far in England, that the clergy actually used cigars in the pulpits, was affirmed on the authority of Mr. Truck himself, and, coupled with his present occupation, the point was deemed to be settled. Even Florio yielded, and his plastic mind soon saw a thousand beauties in the usage, that had hitherto escaped it. All the literati drew round the captain in a circle, to enjoy the spectacle, though the honest old mariner contrived to throw out such volumes of vapour as to keep them at a safe distance. His four demure-looking neighbours got behind the barrier of smoke, where they deemed themselves entrenched against the a.s.saults of sentimental petticoats, for a time, at least.

"Pray, Mr. Truck," inquired S.R.P., "is it commonly thought in the English literary circles, that Byron was a developement of Shakspeare, or Shakspeare a shadowing forth of Byron?"

"Both, marm," said the captain, with a coolness that would have done credit to Aristabulus, for he had been fairly badgered into impudence, profiting by the occasion to knock the ashes off his cigar; "all incline to the first opinion, and most to the last."

"What finesse!" murmured one. "How delicate!" whispered a second. "A dignified reserve!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed a third. "So Englis.h.!.+" exclaimed Florio.

"Do you think, Mr. Truck," asked D.O.V.E. "that the profane songs of Little have more pathos than the sacred songs of Moore; or that the sacred songs of Moore have more sentiment than the profane songs of Little?"

"A good deal of both, marm, and something to spare. I think there is little in one, and more in the other."

"Pray, sir," said J.R.P., "do you p.r.o.nounce the name of Byron's lady- love, Guy-kee-oh-_ly_, or, Gwy-ky-o-_lee_?"

"That depends on how the wind is. If on sh.o.r.e, I am apt to say 'oh- lee;' and if off sh.o.r.e, 'oh-lie.'"

"That's capital!" cried Florio, in an extasy of admiration. "What man in this country could have said as crack a thing as that?"

"Indeed it is very witty," added Miss Monthly--"what does it mean?"

"Mean! More than is seen or felt by common minds. Ah! the English are truly a great nation!--How delightfully he smokes!"

"I think he is much the most interesting man we have had out here,"

observed Miss Annual, "since the last bust of Scott!"

"Ask him, dear D.O.V.E.," whispered Julietta, who was timid, from the circ.u.mstance of never having published, "which he thinks the most ecstatic feeling, hope or despair?"

The question was put by the more experienced lady, according to request, though she first said, in a hurried tone, to her youthful sister--"you can have felt but little, child, or you would know that it is despair, as a matter of course."

The honest captain, however, did not treat the matter so lightly, for he improved the opportunity to light a fresh cigar, throwing the still smoking stump into Mrs. Legend's grate, through a lane of literati, as he afterwards boasted, as coolly as he could have thrown it overboard, under other circ.u.mstances. Luckily for his reputation for sentiment, he mistook "ecstatic," a word he had never heard before, for "erratic;" and recollecting sundry roving maniacs that he had seen, he answered promptly--

"Despair, out and out."

"I knew it," said one.

"It's in nature," added a second.

"All can feel its truth," rejoined a third.

"This point may now be set down as established," cried Florio, "and I hope no more will be said about it."

"This is encouragement to the searchers after truth," put in Captain Kant.

"Pray, Hon. and Rev. Mr. Truck," asked Lucius Junius Brutus, at the joint suggestion of Junius Brutus and Brutus, "does the Princess Victoria smoke?"

"If she did not, sir, where would be the use in being a princess. I suppose you know that all the tobacco seized in England, after a deduction to informers, goes to the crown."

"I object to this usage," remarked Captain Kant, "as irreligious, French, and tending to _sans-culotteism_. I am willing to admit of this distinguished instance as an exception; but on all other grounds, I shall maintain that it savours of infidelity to smoke. The Prussian government, much the best of our times, never smokes."

"This man thinks he has a monopoly of the puffing, himself," Pindar whispered into the captain's ear; "whiff away, my dear sir, and you'll soon throw him into the shade."

The captain winked, drew out his box, lighted another cigar, and, by way of reply to the envious remark, he put one in each corner of his mouth, and soon had both in full blast, a state in which he kept them for near a minute.

"This is the very picturesque of social enjoyment," exclaimed Florio, holding up both hands in a glow of rapture. "It is absolutely Homeric, in the way of usages! Ah! the English are a great nation!"

"I should like to know excessively if there was really such a person as Baron Mun-chaw-sen?" said Julietta, gathering courage from the success of her last question.

"There was, Miss," returned the captain, through his teeth, and nodding his head in the affirmative. "A regular traveller, that; and one who knew him well, swore to me that he hadn't related one half of what befel him."

"How very delightful to learn this from the highest quarter!"

exclaimed Miss Monthly.

"Is Gatty (Goethe) really dead?" inquired Longinus, "or, is the account we have had to that effect, merely a metaphysical apotheosis of his mighty soul?"

"Dead, marm--stone dead--dead as a door-nail," returned the captain, who saw a relief in killing as many as possible.

"You have been in France, Mr. Truck, beyond question?" observed Lucius Junius Brutus, in the way one puts a question.

"France!--I was in France before I was ten years old. I know every foot of the coast, from Havre de Grace to Ma.r.s.eilles."

"Will you then have the goodness to explain to us whether the soul of Chat-_to_-bri-_ong_ is more expanded than his reason, or his reason more expanded than his soul?"