The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Volume Iii Part 28

"No sooner said than done. In a second he was at the corner of his own street, and, with the rod in his hand, started upon a distracted run for his own lonely house. Not looking where he ran, he went helter-skelter against a fine, fleshy old English gentleman with a plum nose and a gouty great-toe, who had hobbled out for a mouthful of night-air. Bang against this fine, fleshy old English gentleman went he, and down came one of his heels on the gouty great-toe.

"There was a tremendous roar, as from the great Bull of Bashan; the countenance of the fine, fleshy old English gentleman became livid, and, in the deep anguish of his soul, he saluted the disturber of his peace with a tremendous--KICK!

"The black rod vanished in a moment from the hand of Mr. R.

Fennarf, and his very soul jumped for joy.

"'Merry Christmas!' he shouted, violently shaking the hand of the now bewildered old gentleman with the plum nose.

"Then, on he darted toward his house. It was lighted up in every window. There was music in the house, too, and dancing. In he flew, with a delightful presentiment of what was going on. Sure enough, his daughter Alexandra had come home, with her husband the potboy, and a score of friends, and all hands were hard at a cotillon.

"'Father, forgive us!' screamed Alexandra.

"'Your pariental blessing,' suggested the potboy with much feeling.

"'Support them for life,' murmured the friends.

"'My children,' said Mr. R. Fennarf, rubbing his back, 'you must forgive _me_. Henceforth we live together, and celebrate every coming Christmas-eve by meeting all our friends again, as now. I am a new man from this time forth; for on this very night I have learned a great and useful lesson.'

"Then all was jollity again, and the potboy, notwithstanding the shortness of his legs, danced like a veritable Christy minstrel.

"Meantime, a certain retired hackney-coachman in the company, who had attentively noted the reconciliation of father and daughter, called the former into a corner of the room, and said very gravely to him:

"'You said you had learned a lesson to-night?'

"'Yes.'

"'What is it?' asked the hackney-coachman.

"'It is,' said Mr. R. Fennarf, with solemnity, 'that no man need go out of his own country to be kicked!'"

As Captain Bob Shorty finished reading, he looked about him for the first time, and lo! all the Mackerel chieftains were slumbering, with their chins upon their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

And now, my boy, as the New Year rolls in, let me tender you the compliments of the season, and sign myself,

Yours for festivity,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER CIV.

EXPLAINING, IN A LUCID AND PERFECTLY SATISFACTORY MANNER, THE POWERFUL INACTIVITY OF THAT PORTION OF THE VENERATED MACKEREL BRIGADE RESIDING BEFORE THE ANCIENT CITY OF PARIS, AND PRESENTING CERTAIN GENIAL DETAILS OF A RECENT FESTIVE CONGLOMERATION.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C., March 6th, 1865.

Methinks, my boy, that I see you sagely a.s.suming a pair of ma.s.sive ears, a pair of silver spectacles, and a blue cotton umbrella, for the purpose of accurately personating the celebrated Public Sentiment, and, in that gifted character, peremptorily requiring me to explain the present use of the venerable Mackerel Brigade!

Mastering for a moment the n.o.ble rage of the unimperilled patriot at a request so vulgarly practical, I sternly refer you to the latest able articles in all our exciting and learned morning journals; wherein you will be taught that such portion of the aged Mackerel organization as has of late years invested Paris is in reality the gorgeous Pivot around which revolve all the other bra.s.s b.u.t.tons of ultimate national triumph. And is not each editor of these excellent and sanguine morning journals well qualified by his military genius to represent a General Ism, oh?

But perhaps, my boy, you fail to find ocular demonstration in that illumination. It is barely possible that you refuse to acknowledge optical conviction in a lucidity of that description. It may be that your cornea lacks ability to transmit a specific image in that polarization of prismatics. It strikes me as not improbable that you--can't see it in that light.

Then come with me to the Mackerel camp before Paris, and mark where the antique Brigade is sitting-up with the expiring Confederacy. Observe how each morning's sun is reflected from the gleaming spectacles of the venerable military organization; while occasional rains make those same innumerable gla.s.ses resemble fairy lakes with dead fish in them. Note with what a respectable air of a reliable family physician each patriarchal warrior exhumes, from somewhere down his leg, the ma.s.sive gold watch which he has been induced to buy for $10 of one of those national benefactors in jewelry who advertise affectionately in our more parental weekly journals of romance--and remarks, oracularly:

"It being exactly three o'clock by this here nineteen-carat repeater, that air Confederacy has got just one hour less to live."

The fact, my boy, that this timely observation would apply with about equal accuracy to the whole human family, need not deter your insidious self from answering in the affirmative, when I ask you, calmly, if it does not seem that a military organization of such intellect, _must_ be engaged in some unspeakably profound scheme of victory, even though to the uneducated eye it may present somewhat the aspect of a muddy old gentleman with his head against a stone-wall?

And this business of showing the possible ident.i.ty of apparent dead-pause with actual velocity, reminds me of a chap I once knew in the Sixth Ward. He was a cast-iron chap, my boy, whose most powerful conception of enterprise in trade was vividly a.s.sociated with the duty of being forever in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves; and he kept a hardware shop at which the economical women of America could get such bargains in flat-irons and door-plates, as were a temptation to marry none but the most impoverished young men.

Many customers had this very practical hardware chap, and one of them was an aged file in a broad-brimmed hat, blue spectacles, and a silk umbrella, who had about him that air of Philadelphia which at once suggests an equal admixture of chronic slumber and profundity. Being a widower and a happy man, it was the daily custom of this aged file to spend several hours of intellectual refreshment in the hardware shop, smiling benignantly upon the ancient maidens who came thither to buy curling-tongs, and enlivening the soul of the cast-iron chap with fine, laborious treatises on the general idiocy of popular perception.

"I tell you, my child," this aged file would remark, polis.h.i.+ng his spectacles with a red silk handkerchief,--"I tell you, the popular perception wants nicety; wants delicacy; wants capacity to distinguish between the noisy, bustling style of operation by which it loves to be deceived,--_Populus vult decipi_,--and the silent, almost imperceptible agencies through which all really great results are accomplished."

Having heard this chaste sentiment repeated daily for about three years, my boy, the very practical hardware chap began to find his nature growing embittered, and resolved to do something desperate. So, one morning, after listening quietly to the essay of the aged file, and refusing to tell a small boot-blacking child of six years old the lowest price for one of Jones's Patent steam-ploughs, this cast-iron chap suddenly removed his hands from around an object on the counter, which he had, apparently, been attempting to conceal, and revealed to view a boy's lignum-vitae peg-top, which stood seemingly exactly balanced on its steel tip.

"Who would think now," said he, reflectively, "that it could be turning all the time?"

The aged file advanced his blue spectacles to the very verge of the top, and says he:

"Well, now, it's wonderful, an't it? Any one would think, to look at that simple toy, that it stood perfectly still; and yet its velocity of movement must be prodigious. Go into yonder street," exclaimed the aged file, dropping his umbrella in the excitement of the moment,--"go into yonder street and bring in any man you please, and that man could swear that this top is not spinning at all. And why? Simply because the velocity of this top, being several millions of revolutions per minute, is greater than his ignorant eye can comprehend. Upon my soul!"

e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the aged file, bending once more to the top, with great enthusiasm, "upon my soul! it's wonderful."

Over the counter came the hardware chap, with one bound, and says he:

"Why, you durned old fool, _the top an't moving at all_!"

And sure enough, the very practical cast-iron chap had just stuck the top up with his hand, in order to bring the popular perception theory of the aged file to grief.

Ordinary persons, my boy, observing the Mackerel Brigade any time these three years, might think it was not moving at all; but we know its General to be the Top of the heap, and we know that he is making revolutions--in the whole art of war.

Let, then, the venerable and strategical Mackerel Brigade strike off impressions of itself in the mud before Paris; while the conic section, under Colonel Wobert Wobinson, walks calmly through the depths of storied Accomac; while Captain Samyule Sa-mith and the Anatomical Cavalry prosecute Confederate railroad researches, and Rear Admiral Head's iron-plated squadron keeps watch and fishes for ba.s.s near the captured Fort Piano, on Duck Lake. For the present, be mine the pleasanter duty of imperfectly reporting that stately Ball at the Patent Office, which clinched the re-inauguration of our Honest Abe, and was attended by none of the old aristocracy of the capital, save those who had received invitations.

The old aristocracy of the capital, my boy, having been accustomed only to a.s.sociation with the ministers from combined Europe, and the chivalry who had, now and then, a nice wife or daughter to sell, could not be expected to countenance a plebeian carnival for which they had not received invitations. They could not be expected so soon to forget those elegant family entertainments of the olden time, when the hospitable board, with its green covering, groaned under the weight of gold and silver; when, instead of salads and pates in crockery platters, the plates were of delicately enamelled pasteboard, containing from one to ten diamonds each, or, perhaps, a king or queen served up cold with mint sauce.

The Old Aristocracy! lineal descendants of the British cavaliers! I should weep, my boy, over their possible extinction forever, were it not that the a.s.siduity of the London Prisoners' Aid Society, in sending ticket-of-leave men to New York, promises to keep the species going.

Behold me, at the proper hour, suspended between the shoulders of three or four fat citizens of America in the entrance-hall, and being thus borne into the festive scene like a being too delicate to walk. This, too, at the expense of only the linen "duster" which I had donned to preserve my broadcloth from the dust in the dancing room, and which I had the satisfaction of seeing distributed in ribbons around the necks and bodies of a score of my neighbors, like so many charms to keep off enchantments. The crowd, the management, and the number of guests with umbrellas and top-boots, were all the subjects of ill-disguised sneers among the old aristocracy of the capital who had not received invitations.

And now I emerge into fountains of satin and mechlin cascades, with numerous citizens of America up to their waists in the surf, and looking about as comfortable as though bathing at Newport in full dress. Yonder stands our Honest Abe, in sombre costume, like a funeral procession standing on end to let something pa.s.s under it.

Leaning thoughtfully against the wall, my boy, I was gazing meditatively upon this scene, and thinking how many of these fair beings would be destroyed by railroad accidents on the way to their homes in other cities--I was thinking of this, my boy, when I heard a voice saying:

"How powerful is human instink! let a fire-bell ring, and at least half of these manly beings would make a bust for the street to join their native fire departmink. Let the hall-bell ring, and nearly all these fair petticoats would involuntarily rush to 'tend the door. Such is human instink."

Like one in a dream, I turned me where I stood and beheld the form of Captain Villiam Brown, his left hand upon his hip and his right caressing the neck of a small case-bottle in his bosom. I eyed him pleasantly a moment, and, said I: