Chapter III: Part 3

Brown gave his confederate the _cue_, stepped out, promising to "be in in a minute," and then, getting into a carriage, he drove back to the city, almost tickled to death with the idea of how nicely the whigs would be "dished" when they all met at the City Hall, and came up minus _two!_

Smith, Brown's loco friend, did his best to keep the thing up, by calling in the New Jersey thunder and lightning--vulgarly known as Champagne--and even walked into the aforesaid t. and l. so deeply himself, that a man with half an eye might see Smith would be as blind as an owl in the course of the evening. But Smith was bound to do the thing up brown, and thought no sacrifice too great or too expensive to preserve the loaves and fishes of his party. All of a sudden, however, night was drawing on a pace, the whigs began to smell a _mice_. The absence of Brown, and the excessive politeness and liberality of Smith, in hurrying up the bottles, settled it in the minds of the whigs, that something was going on dangerous to the whig cause, and that they had better look out--_and so they did_.

"Jones," says one of the whigs, _sotto voce_, to the other, "Brown has cleared; it is evident he and Smith calculate to corner us here, prevent your presence in 'the Tea Room' to-night, and thus defeat your vote."

"The deuce! You don't think that, Hall, do you?"

"Faith, I do; but we won't be caught napping. Waiter, bring in a bottle of brandy."

"Brandy?" said Smith, in astonishment. "Why, you ain't going to dive right into it, in that way, are you?"

"Why not?" says Hall. "Brandy's the best thing in the world to settle your nerves after getting half fuddled on Champagne, my boy; just you try it--take a good stiff horn. Brown, you see, has _cut_, we must follow; so let's straighten up and get ready for a start. Here's to 'the loaves and fishes.'" Jones and Hall took their horns of Cogniac, which does really make some men sober as judges after they are very drunk on real or spurious Champagne.

"Well," says Smith, "it's my opinion we'll all be very _tight_ going in this way, brandy on Champagne; but here goes to the fishes and loaves--the loaves and fishes, I mean."

The brandy had a rather contrary effect from what it does usually; it did _settle_ Smith--in five minutes he was so very "boozy" that his chin bore down upon his breast, he became as "limber as a rag," and snored like a pair of bagpipes.

"Now, Jones," says Hall, "let's be off. Landlord, get us a gig, wagon, carriage, cart, any thing, and let's be off; we must be in town immediately."

"Sorry, gentlemen, but can't oblige you--haven't a vehicle on the premises!"

"Why, confound it, you don't pretend to say you can't send us into town to-night, do you?" says Jones, waxing uneasy.

"Haven't you a horse, jackass, mule or a wheelbarrow--any thing, so we can be carted in, right off, too?" says Hall.

"Can't help it, gentlemen."

"What time do the _cars_ come along?" eagerly inquires Jones.

"About nine o'clock," coolly replies the host.

"Nine fools!" shouted the discomfited alderman. "But this won't do; come, Jones, no help for it--can't fool us in that way--eight miles to the City Hall--two hours to do it in; off coat and _let's foot it!_"

* * * * *

The City Hall clock had just struck 7 P. M., the Tea Room was lighted up, the assembled wisdom of the municipal government had their toadies, and reporters and lookers-on were there; the room was quite full. Brown was there, in the best of spirits, and the locos all fairly snorted with glee at the scientific manner in which Brown had "done" Jones and Hall out of their votes! The business of the evening was climaxing: the whigs missing two of their number, were in quite a spasm of doubt and fear. The chairman called the meeting to order. The roll was called: seven "good and true" locos answered the call. Six whigs had answered: the seventh was being called: the locos were grinning, and twisting their fingers at the apex of their noses!

"Alderman Jones! Alderman Jones!" bawled the roll-caller.

"Here!" roared the missing individual, bursting into the room.

"Alderman Hall!" continued the roll.

"Here!" responded that notable worthy, rushing in, entirely blowed out.

"Beat, by thunder!" roared the locos, in grand chorus; and in the modern classics of the Bowery, "they wasn't any thing else." The whigs not only had the cut but the entire _deal_ in the appointments that time, and Alderman Brown had a _bill_ at Harlem, a little more serious to foot than the racing of the aldermen to get a chance to vote.

Getting Square.

It seems to be just as natural for a subordinate in a "grocery" to levy upon the _till_, for material aid to his own pocket, as for the sparks to fly upwards or water run down hill. Innumerable stories are told of the peculations of these "light-fingered gentry," but one of the best of the boodle is a story we are now about to dress up and trot out, for your diversion.

A tavern-keeper in this city, some years ago, advertised for a bar-keeper, "a young man from the country preferred!" Among the several applicants who exhibited themselves "for the vacancy," was a decent, harmless-looking youth whose general _contour_ at once struck the tavern-keeper with most favorable impressions.

"So you wish to try your hand tending bar?"

"Yes, sir," said he.

"Have you ever tended bar?"

"No, sir; but I do not doubt my ability to learn."

"Yes, yes, you can learn fast enough," says the tavern-keeper. "In fact, I'm glad you are green at the business, you will suit me the better; the last fellow I had come to me recommended as one of the best bar-keepers in New Orleans; he was posted up in all the fancy drinks and fancy names, he wore fancy clothes and had a fancy dog, and I fancied pretty soon that the rascal had taken a fancy to my small change, so I discharged him in double quick time."

"Served him right, sir," said the new applicant.

"Of course I did. Well now, sir, I'll engage you; you can get the 'run' of things in a few weeks. I will give you twenty-five dollars a month, first month, and thirty dollars a month for the balance of the year."

"I'll accept it, sir," says the youth.

"Do you think it's enough?"

"O, yes, indeed, sir!"

"Well," says Boniface. "Now mark me, young man, I will pay you, punctually, but you mustn't pay yourself extra wages!"

"Pay myself?" says the unsophisticated youth.

"Musn't take 'the run' of the till!"

"Run of the till?"

"No knocking down, sir!"

"O, bless you!" quoth the verdant youth, "I am as good-natured as a lamb; I never knocked any body down in all my life."

"Ha! ha!" ejaculated the landlord; "he _is_ green, so I won't teach him what he don't know. What's your name?"

"Absalom Hart, sir."

"Good Christian-like name, and I've no doubt we shall agree together, for a long time; so go to work."

Absalom "pitched in," a whole year passed, Absalom and the landlord got along slick as a whistle. Another year, two, three, four; never was there a more attentive, diligent and industrious bar-keeper behind a marble slab, or armed with a toddy stick. He was the _ne plus ultra_ of bar-keepers, a perfect paragon of toddy mixers. But one day, somehow or other, the landlord found himself in custody of the sheriff, bag and baggage. Business had not fallen off, every thing seemed properly managed, but, somehow or other, the landlord broke, failed, caved in, and the sheriff sold him out.

Who bought the concern? Absalom Hart--nobody else. Some of the people were astonished.

"Well, who would have thought it?"

"Hurrah for Absalom!"

"By George, that was quick work!" were the remarks of the outsiders, when the fact of the sale and purchase became known. The landlord felt quite humbled, he was out of house and home, but he had a friend, surely.

"Mr. Hart, things work queer in this world, sometimes."

"Think so?" quietly responded the new landlord.

"I do, indeed; yesterday I was up, and to-day I am down."

"Very true, sir."

"Yesterday you were down, to-day you are up."

"Very true; time works wonders, Mr. Smith."

"It does indeed, sir. Now, Mr. Hart, I am out of employment--got my family to support; I always trusted I treated you like a man, didn't I?"

"A--ye-e-s, you did, I believe."

"Now, I want you to employ me; I have a number of friends who of course will patronize our house while I am in it, and you can afford me a fair sort of a living to help you."

"Well, Mr. Smith," said Mr. Hart, "I suppose I shall have to hire somebody, and as I don't believe in taking a raw hand from the country, I will take one who understands all about it. I'll engage you; so go to work."

"Thank you, Mr. Hart." And so the master became the man, and the man the master.

"Poor Smith, he's down!" cries one old habitue of the 'General Washington' bar-room. "I carkelated he'd gin out afore long, if he let other people 'tend to his business instead of himself."

"I didn't like that fellow Absalom, no how," says another old head; "he's 'bout skin'd Smith."

"Well, Smith kin be savin', he's larnt something," says a third, "and oughter try to get on to his pegs again."

But when Absalom gave his "free blow," these fellows all "went in," partook of the landlord's hospitality, and hoped--of course they did--that he might live several thousand years, and make a fortune!

Time slid on--Smith was attentive, no bar-keeper more assiduous and devoted to the toddy affairs of the house, than Jerry Smith, the pseudo-bar-keeper of Absalom Hart. Absalom being landlord of a popular drinking establishment, was surrounded by politicians, horse jockies, and various otherwise complexioned, fancy living personages. Ergo, Absalom began to lay off and enjoy himself; he had his horses, dogs, and other pastimes; got married, and cut it very "fat." One day he got involved for a friend, got into unnecessary expenses, was sued for complicated debts, and so entangled with adverse circumstances, that at the end of his third year as landlord, the sheriff came in, and the "General Washington" again came under the hammer.

Now, who will become purchaser? Every body wondered who would become the next customer.

"I will, by George!" says Smith. And Smith did; he had worked long and _faith_fully, and he had saved something. Smith bought out the whole concern, and once more he was landlord of the "General Washington."

Absalom was cut down, like a hollyhock in November--he was dead broke, and felt, in his present situation, flat, stale, and unprofitable enough.

"Mr. Smith," said Absalom, the day after the collapse, "I am once more on my oars."

"Yes, Ab, so it seems; it's a queer world, sometimes we are up, and sometimes we are down. Time, Ab, works wonders, as you once very forcibly remarked."

"It does, indeed, sir."

"We have only to keep up our spirits, Ab, go ahead; the world is large, if it is full of changes."

"True, sir, very true. I was about to remark, Mr. Smith--"

"Well, Ab."

"That we have known one another--"

"Pretty well, I think!"

"A long time, sir--"

"Yes, Ab."

"And when I was up and you down--"

"Yes, go on."

"I gave you a chance to keep your head above water."

"True enough, Ab, my boy."

"Now, sir, I want you to give me charge of the bar again, and I'll off coat and go to work like a Trojan."

"Ab Hart," said Smith, "when you came to me, you was so green you could hardly tell a crossed quarter from a bogus pistareen--the 'run of the till' you learnt in a week, while in less than a month you was the best hand at 'knocking down' I ever met! There's fifty dollars, you and I are square; we will keep so--go!"

Poor Absalom was beat at his own game, and soon left for parts unknown.

People Do Differ!

Fifty years ago, Uncle Sam was almost a stranger on the maps; he hadn't a friend in the world, apparently, while he had more enemies than he could shake a stick at. Every body snubbed him, and every body wanted to lick him. But Sam has now grown to be a crowder; his spunk, too, goes up with his resources, and he don't wait for any body to "knock the chip off his hat," but goes right smack up to a crowd of fighting bullies, and rolling up his sleeves, he coolly "wants to know" if any body had any thing to say about him, in that crowd! Uncle Sam is no longer "a baby," his _physique_ has grown to be quite enormous, and we rather expect the old fellow will have to have a pitched battle with some body soon, _or he'll spile!_

Bill Whiffletree's Dental Experience.

Have you ever had the tooth-ache? If not, then blessed is your ignorance, for it is indeed bliss to know nothing about the tooth-ache, as you know nothing, absolutely nothing about pain--the acute, double-distilled, rectified agony that lurks about the roots or fangs of a treacherous tooth. But ask a sufferer how it feels, what it is like, how it operates, and you may learn something theoretically which you may pray heaven that you may not know practically.

But there's poor William Whiffletree--he's been through the mill, fought, bled, and died (slightly) with the refined, essential oil of the agony caused by a raging tooth. Every time we read _Othello_, we are half inclined to think that _more_ than half of Iago's devilishness came from that "raging tooth," which would not let him sleep, but tortured and tormented "mine ancient" so that he became embittered against all the world, and blackamoors in particular.

William Whiffletree's case is a very strong illustration of what tooth-ache is, and what it causes people to do; and affords a pretty fair idea of the manner in which the tooth and sufferer are medicinally and morally treated by the _materia medica_, and friends at large.

William Whiffletree--or "Bill," as most people called him--was a sturdy young fellow of two-and-twenty, of "poor but respectable parents," and 'tended the dry-goods store of one Ethan Rakestraw, in the village of Rockbottom, State of New York.

One unfortunate day, for poor Bill, there came to Rockbottom a galvanized-looking individual, rejoicing in the euphonium of Dr. Hannibal Orestes Wangbanger. As a surgeon, he had--according to the album-full of _certificates_--operated in all the scientific branches of amputation, from the scalp-lock to the heel-tap, upon Emperors, Kings, Queens, and common folks; but upon his science in the dental way, he spread and grew luminous! In short, Dr. Wangbanger had not been long in Rockbottom before his "gift of gab," and unadulterated propensity to elongate the blanket, set every body, including poor Bill Whiffletree, in a furor to have their teeth cut, filed, scraped, rasped, reset, dug out, and burnished up!

Now Bill, being, as we aforestated, a muscularly-developed youth, got up in the most sturdy New Hampshire style, _his_ teeth _were_ teeth, in every way calculated to perform long and strong; but Bill was fast imbibing counter-jumper notions, dabbling in stiff dickeys, greased soap-locks, and other fancy "flab-dabs," supposed to be essential in cutting a swarth among ye fair sex.

So that when Dr. Wangbanger once had an audience with Mr. William Whiffletree in regard to one of Mr. Whiffletree's molars which Bill thought had a "speck" on it, he soon convinced the victim that the said molar not only was specked, but out of the dead plumb of its nearest neighbor at least the 84th part of an inch!

"O, shocking!" says the remorseless _hum_; "it is well I saw it in time, Mr. Whiffletree. Why, in the course of a few weeks, that tooth, sir, would have exfoliated, calcareous supperation would have ensued, the gum would have ossified, while the nerve of the tooth becoming apostrophized, the roots would have concatenated in their hiatuses, and the jaw-bone, no longer acting upon their fossil exoduses, would necessarily have led to the entire suspension of the capillary organs of your stomach and brain, and--_death would supervene in two hours!_"

Poor Bill! he scarcely knew what fainting was, but a queer sensation settled in his "ossis frontis," while his ossis legso almost bent double under him, at the awful prospect of things before him! He took a long breath, however, and in a voice tremulous with emotion, inquired--

"Good Lord, Doctor! what's to be done for a feller?"

"Plug and file," calmly said the Doctor.

"Plug and file what?"

"The second molar," said the Doctor; though the treacherous monster _meant_ Bill's wallet, of course!

"What'll it cost, Doctor?" says Bill.

"Done in my very best manner, upon the new and splendid system invented by myself, sir, and practiced upon all the crowned heads of Europe, London, and Washington City, it will cost you three dollars."

"Does it hurt much, Doctor?" was Bill's cautious inquiry.

"Very little, indeed; it's sometimes rather agreeable, sir, than otherwise," said the Doctor.

"Then go at it, Doctor! Here's the _dosh_," and forking over three dollars, down sits William Whiffletree in a high-backed chair, and the Doctor's assistant--a sturdy young Irishman--clamping Bill's head to the back of the chair, to keep it steady, as the Doctor remarked, the latter began to "bore and file."

"O! ah! ho-ho-hold on, _hold on!_" cries Bill, at the first _gouge_ the Doctor gave the huge tooth.

"O! be me soul! be aizy, zur," says the Irishman, "it's mesilf as untherstands it--_I'll howld on till yees!_"

"O--O-h-h-h!" roars Bill, as the Doctor proceeds.

"Be quiet, sir; the pain won't signify!" says the Doctor.

"Go-goo-good Lord-d-d! Ho-ho-hol-hold on!"

"O, yeez needn't be afeared of that--I'm howldin' yeez tight as a divil!" cries Paddy, and sure enough he _was_ holding, for in vain Bill screwed and twisted and squirmed around; Pat held him like a cider-press.

"Let me--me--O--O--O! Everlasting creation! let me go-o-o--stop, _hold on-n-n!_" as the Doctor bored, screwed, and plugged away at the tooth.

"All done, sir; let the patient up, Michael," says the Doctor, with a confident twirl of his perfumed handkerchief. "There, sir--there was science, art, elegance, and dispatch! Now, sir, your tooth is safe--your life is safe--_you're a sound man!_"

"Sound?" echoes poor Bill, "sound? Why, you've broken my jaw into flinders; you've set all my teeth on edge; and I've no more feelin'--gall darn ye!--in my jaws, than if they were iron steel-traps! You've got the wuth of your money out of my mouth, and I'm off!"

That night was one of anxiety and misery to William Whiffletree. The disturbed _molar_ growled and twitched like mad; and, by daylight, poor Bill's cheek was swollen up equal to a printer's buff-ball, his mouth puckered, and his right eye half "bunged up."

"Why, William," says Ethan Rakestraw, as Bill went into the store, "what in grace ails thy face? Thee looks like an owl in an ivy-bush!"

"Been plugged and filed," says Bill, looking cross as a meat-axe at his snickering Orthodox boss.

"Plugged and _fined_? Thee hain't been fighting, William?"

"Fined? No, I ain't been _fined_ or fighting, Mr. Rakestraw, but I bet I do fight that feller who gave me the tooth-ache!--O! O!" moaned poor Bill, as he clamped his swollen jaw with his hand, and went around waving his head like a plaster-of-paris mandarin.

"O! thee's been to the dentist, eh? Got the tooth-ache? Go thee to my wife; she'll cure thee in one minute, William; a little laudanum and cotton will soon ease thy pain."

Mrs. Rakestraw applied the laudanum to Bill's molar, but as it did no kind of good, old grandmother proposed a poultice; and soon poor Bill's head and cheek were done up in mush, while he groaned and grunted and started for the store, every body gaping at his swollen countenance as though he was a rare curiosity.

"Halloo, Bill!" says old Firelock, the gunsmith, as Bill was going by his shop; "got a bag in your calabash, or got the tooth-ache?"

Bill looked daggers at old Firelock, and by a nod of his head intimated the cause of his distress.

"O, that all? Come in; I'll stop it in a minute and a half; sit down, I'll fix it--I've cured hundreds," says Firelock.

"What are you--O-h-h, dear! what are you going to do?" says Bill, eyeing the wire, and lamp in which Firelock was heating the wire.

"Burn out the marrow of the tooth--'twill never trouble you again--I've cured hundreds that way! Don't be afeared--you won't feel it but a moment. Sit still, keep cool!" says Firelock.

"Cool?" with a hot wire in his tooth! But Bill, being already intensely crucified, and assured of Firelock's skill, took his head out of the mush-plaster, opened his jaws, and Firelock, admonishing him to "keep cool," crowded the hot, sizzling wire on to the tin foil jammed into the hollow by Wangbanger, and gave it a twist clear through the melted tin to the exposed nerve. Bill jumped, bit off the wire, burnt his tongue, and knocked Firelock nearly through the partition of his shop; and so frightened Monsieur Savon, the little barber next door, that he rushed out into the street, crying--

"Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Ze zundair strike my shop!"

Bill was stone dead--Firelock crippled. The apothecary over the way came in, picked up poor Bill, applied some camphor to his nose, and brought him back to life, and--the pangs of tooth-ache!

"Kreasote!" says Squills, the 'pothecary. "I'll ease your pain, Mr. Whiffletree, in a second!"

Poor Bill gave up--the kreasote added a fresh invoice to his misery--burnt his already lacerated and roasted tongue--and he yelled right out.

"Death and glory! O-h-h-h-h, murder! You've pizened me!"

"Put a hot brick to that young man's face," said a stranger; "'twill take out the pain and swelling in three minutes!"

Bill revived; he seemed pleased at the stranger's suggestion; the Brick was applied; but Bill's cheek being now half raw with the various messes, it made him yell when the brick touched him!

He cleared for home, went to bed, and the excessive pain, finally, with laudanum, kreasote, fire, and hot bricks, put him to sleep.

He awoke at midnight, in a frightful state of misery; walked the floor until daylight; was tempted two or three times to jump out the window or crawl up the chimney!

Until noon next day he suffered, trying in vain, every ten minutes, some "known cure," oils, acids, steam, poultices, and the ten thousand applications usually tried to cure a raging tooth.

Desperation made Bill revengeful. He got a club and went after Dr. Wangbanger, who had set all the village in a rage of tooth-ache. Ten or a dozen of his victims were at his door, awaiting ferociously their turns to be revenged.

But the bird had flown; the _teuth-doctor_ had sloped; yet a good Samaritan came to poor Bill, and whispering in his ear, Bill started for Monsieur Savon's barber-shop, took a seat, shut his eyes, and said his prayers. The little Frenchman took a keen knife and pair of pincers, and Bill giving one awful yell, the tooth was out, and his pains and perils at an end!

A-a-a-in't they Thick?

During the "great excitement" in Boston, relative to the fugitive slave "fizzle," a good-natured country gentleman, by the name of Abner Phipps; an humble artisan in the fashioning of buckets, wash-tubs and wooden-ware generally, from one of the remote towns of the good old Bay State, paid his annual visit to the metropolis of Yankee land. In the multifarious operations of his shop and business, Abner had but little time, and as little inclination, to keep the run of _latest news_, as set forth glaringly, every day, under the caption of _Telegraphic Dispatches_, in the papers; hence, it requires but a slight extension of the imagination to apprise you, "dear reader," that our friend Phipps was but meagerly "posted up" in what was going on in this great country, half of his time. I must do friend Phipps the favor to say, that he was not ignorant of the fact that "Old Hickory" fout well down to New Orleans, and that "Old Zack" flaxed the Mexicans clean out of their boots in Mexico; likewise that Millerism was a humbug, and money was pretty generally considered a cash article all over the universal world.

But what did Phipps know or care about the Fugitive Slave bill? Not a red cent's worth, no more than he did of the equitation of the earth, the Wilmot proviso, or Barnum's woolly horse--not a _red_. He came to Boston annually to see how things were a workin'; pleasure, not business. The very first morning of his arrival in town, the hue and cry of "slave hunters," was raised--Shadrack, the fugitive, was arrested at his vocation--table servant at Taft's eating establishment, Corn Hill, where Abner Phipps accidentally had stuck his boots under the mahogany, for the purpose of recuperating his somewhat exhausted inner-man. Abner saw the arrest, he was quietly discussing his _tapioca_, and if thinking at all, was merely calculating what the profits were, upon a two-and-sixpence dinner, at a Boston _restaurateur_. He saw there was a muss between the black waiter and two red-nosed white men, but as he did not know what it was all about, he didn't care; it was none of his business; and being a part of his religion, not to meddle with that that did not concern him, he continued his _tapioca_ to the bottom of his plate, then forked over the equivalent and stepped out.

As Phipps turned into Court square, it occurred, slightly, that the niggers had got to be rather thick in Boston, to what they used to be; and bending his footsteps down Brattle street, once or twice it occurred to him that the niggers _had_ got to be thick--darn'd thick, for they passed and repassed him--walked before him and behind him, and in fact all around him.

"Yes," says Phipps, "the niggers are thick, thundering thick--never saw 'em so thick in my life. _Ain't they thick?_" he soliloquized, and as he continued his stroll in the purlieus of "slightly soiled" garments, vulgarly known as second-hand shops, mostly proprietorized by very dignified and respectable _col'ud pussons_, it again struck Phipps quite forcibly that the niggers were _a_ getting thick.

"Godfree! but ain't they thick! I hope to be stabbed with a gridiron," said Phipps, "if there ain't more _niggers_--look at 'em--more niggers than would patch and grade the infernal regions eleven miles! Guess I've enough niggers for a spell," continued Phipps, "so I'll just pop in here, and see how this feller sells his notions." And so Abner, having reached Dock square, saunters into a gun, pistol, bowie, jack-knife, dog-collar, shot-bag, and notion-shop in general. Unlucky step.

The stiff-dickied, frizzle-headed, polished and perfumed shop-keeper was on hand, and particularly predisposed to sell the stranger something. Just then a nigger passed the door, and looked in very sharply at Phipps, and presently two more passed, then a fourth and fifth, all _looking_ more or less pointedly at the manufacturer of wooden doin's, and white-pine fixin's.

"That's a neat _collar_," says the shop-keeper, as Phipps, sort of miscellaneously, placed his hand upon a brass-band, red-lined dog-collar.

"Collar! don't call that a _collar_, do you?"

"I do, sir, a beautiful collar, sir."

"What for, _solgers_?" asks Phipps.

"Soldiers, no, dogs," says the shop-keeper, puckering his mouth as though he had _sampled_ a lemon.

"_O!_" says Phipps, suddenly realizing the fact. "I ain't got no dogs; bad stock; don't pay; tax 'em up where I live; wouldn't pay tax for forty dogs." More niggers passed, repassed, and looked in at Phipps and the storekeeper.

"I say, ain't the niggers got to be thick--infernal thick, in your town lately?"

"Well, I don't know that they are," replied the shop-keeper; "getting rather scarce, I think, since the Fugitive bill has been put in force over the country, sir, but it does appear to me," said the shop-keeper, twiging sundry and suspicious-looking col'ud gem'en passing by his store, gaping in rather wistfully at the door, and peeping through the sash of the windows--"it does appear to me, that a good many colored persons are about this morning; yes, there is, why there goes more, more yet; bless me, there's another, two, three, four, why a dozen has just passed; they seem to look in here rather curiously, I wonder--only look; what has stirred them up, I want to know!" the fluctuation of the _Congo_ market completely attracted the handsome man's attention; his surprise finally assumed the most tangible shape and complexion of fear, for the niggers, one and all, looked savage as meat-axes, and began to get too numerous to mention.

"Well, guess I'll be goin'," says Phipps, after fumbling over some of the shooting-irons, jack-knives, etc.; reaching the street, he was more fully impressed with the fixed fact, that the niggers were all sorts of thick. They fairly crowded him; one buck darkey rubbed slap up against Phipps, as he moved out of the store. "Look here, Mister," says Phipps, "ain't all this street big enough for you without a crowdin' me?"

The nigger stopped, looked arsenic and chain lightning at Phipps, and then moved off, saying in a sort of undertone--

"Gorra, I guess you'll be crowded a wus'n dat afore dis day is ober."

"Will, eh?" responded Abner Phipps, slightly mystified as to the why and wherefore, that _he_ should, in particular, be "crowded," especially by an Ethiopic gentleman.

"I guess I _won't_ then," resumed Phipps; "if any body ventures to crowd me, just a purpose, I guess I'll be darn'd apt, and mighty quick to squash in their heads, or whoop'm on the spot."

"What dat? got pistils in your pocket, eh?" says one of the two big buck niggers, shying up alongside of the now velocipeding up-country artisan. Phipps looked back, the negroes were following him. "Pistils? who's talkin' about pistils, mister?" he ventured to ask.

"Dat's him, watch'm."

"Why, we see'd you goin' in dar, dat pistol shop; want to lay in a stock of dirks and pistils, eh?" says the negro.

"You--you got any hand-cuffs in you' pocket?" inquired another.

"What dat? got de hand-cuffs in he pocket?"

"Pistils and bowie knibes!" says a third.

"Dat's him! watch'm!"

"Knock'm down, put dat white hat ober his eyes! Hoo-r-r!"

The negroes now fairly beset our victimized friend Phipps; he stopped, buttoned his coat, the negroes augmented; glared at him like demons; he fixed his hat firmly upon his head; the negroes began to grin and move upon him; he spat upon his hands; the negroes began to yell, and to close in upon him; with one grand effort, one mighty gathering of all the human faculties called into action by fear and desperation, Phipps bounded like a Louisiana bull at a gate post; he knocked down two, _square_; kicked over four, and rushing through the now very considerable and formidable array of ebony, he _broke_ equal to a wild turkey through a corn bottom, or a sharp knife through a pound of milky butter; and it is very questionable whether Phipps ever stopped running until his boots _busted_, or he reached his bucket factory on Taunton river. His negro deputation _waited on him_ with a rush clear outside of town, where the speed and bottom of Abner distanced the entire committee. The key to this joke is: Phipps was dogged from Tafts'--by the "vigilant committee," as an informer, or slave-hunter at least, and hence the delicate attentions of the col'ud pop'lation paid him. I have no doubt, that if Abner Phipps be asked, how things look around Boston, he would observe with some energy,

"Niggers--niggers are thick--Godfree! _a-a-a-in't they thick!_"

A Desperate Race.

Some years ago, I was one of a convivial party, that met in the principal hotel in the town of Columbus, Ohio, the seat of government of the Buckeye State.

It was a winter evening when all without was bleak and stormy, and all within were blythe and gay; when song and story made the circuit of the festive board, filling up the chasms of life with mirth and laughter.

We had met for the express purpose of making a night of it, and the pious intention was duly and most religiously carried out. The Legislature was in session in that town, and not a few of the worthy legislators were present upon this occasion.

One of these worthies I will name, as he not only took a big swath in the evening's entertainment, but he was a man _more_ generally known than our worthy President, James K. Polk. That man was the famous Captain Riley! whose "narrative" of suffering and adventures is pretty generally known, all over the civilized world. Captain Riley was a fine, fat, good-humored joker, who at the period of my story was the representative of the Dayton district, and lived near that little city when at home. Well, Captain Riley had amused the company with many of his far-famed and singular adventures, which being mostly told before and read by millions of people, that have ever seen his book, I will not attempt to repeat them.

Many were the stories and adventures told by the company, when it came to the turn of a well known gentleman who represented the Cincinnati district. As Mr. ---- is yet among the living, and perhaps not disposed to be the subject of joke or story, I do not feel at liberty to give his name. Mr. ---- was a slow believer of other men's adventures, and at the same time much disposed to magnify himself into a marvellous hero whenever the opportunity offered. As Captain Riley wound up one of his truthful, though really marvellous adventures, Mr. ---- coolly remarked, that the captain's story was all very _well_, but it did not begin to compare with an adventure that he had "once upon a time" on the Ohio, below the present city of Cincinnati.

"Let's have it!" "Let's have it!" resounded from all hands.

"Well, gentlemen," said the Senator, clearing his voice for action and knocking the ashes from his cigar against the arm of his chair. "Gentlemen, I am not in the habit of spinning yarns of marvellous or fictitious matters; and therefore it is scarcely necessary to affirm upon the responsibility of my reputation, gentlemen, that what I am about to tell you, I most solemnly proclaim to be truth, and--"

"Oh! never mind that, go on, Mr. ----," chimed the party.

"Well, gentlemen, in 18-- I came down the Ohio river, and settled at Losanti, now called Cincinnati. It was, at that time, but a little settlement of some twenty or thirty log and frame cabins, and where now stands the Broadway Hotel and blocks of stores and dwelling houses, was the cottage and corn patch of old Mr. ----, a tailor, who, by the by, bought that land for the making of a coat for one of the settlers. Well, I put up my cabin, with the aid of my neighbors, and put in a patch of corn and potatoes, about where the Fly Market now stands, and set about improving my lot, house, &c.

"Occasionally, I took up my rifle, and started off with my dog down the river, to look up a little deer, or _bar_ meat, then very plenty along the river. The blasted red skins were lurking about, and hovering around the settlement, and every once in a while picked off some of our neighbors, or stole our cattle or horses. I hated the red demons, and made no bones of peppering the blasted sarpents whenever I got a sight at them. In fact, the red rascals had a dread of me, and had laid a great many traps to get my scalp, but I wasn't to be catch'd napping. No, no, gentlemen, I was too well up to 'em for that.

"Well, I started off one morning, pretty early, to take a hunt, and travelled a long way down the river, over the bottoms and hills, but couldn't find no _bar_ nor deer. About four o'clock in the afternoon, I made tracks for the settlement again. By and by, I sees a buck just ahead of me, walking leisurely down the river. I slipped up, with my faithful old dog close in my rear, to within clever shooting distance, and just as the buck stuck his nose in the drink, I drew a _bead_ upon his top-knot and over he tumbled, and splurged and bounded awhile, when I came up and relieved him by cutting his wizen--"

"Well, but what had that to do with an _adventure_?" said Riley.

"Hold on a bit, if you please, gentlemen--by Jove it had a great deal to do with it. For while I was busy skinning the hind quarters of the buck, and stowing away the kidney-fat in my hunting shirt, I heard a noise like the breaking of brush under a moccasin up 'the bottom.' My dog heard it and started up to reconnoitre, and I lost no time in reloading my rifle. I had hardly got my priming out before my dog raised a howl and broke through the brush towards me with his tail down, as he was not used to doing unless there were wolves, painters (panthers) or Injins about.

"I picked up my knife, and took up my line of march in a skulking trot up the river. The frequent gullies, on the lower bank, made it tedious travelling there, so I scrabbled up to the upper bank, which was pretty well covered with buckeye and sycamore and very little under-brush. One peep below discovered to me three as big and strapping red rascals, gentlemen, as you ever clapt your eyes on! Yes, there they came, not above six hundred yards in my rear. Shouting and yelling like hounds, and coming after me like all possessed."

"Well," said an old woodsman sitting at the table, "you took a tree of course?"

"Did I? No, gentlemen! I took no tree just then, but I took to my heels like sixty, and it was just as much as my old dog could do to keep up with me. I run until the whoops of my red skins grew fainter and fainter behind me; and clean out of wind, I ventured to look behind me, and there came one single red whelp, puffing and blowing, not three hundred yards in my rear. He had got on to a piece of bottom where the trees were small and scarce--now, thinks I, old fellow, I'll have you. So I trotted off at a pace sufficient to let my follower gain on me, and when he had got just about near enough, I wheeled and fired, and down I brought him, dead as a door nail, at a hundred and twenty yards!"

"Then you skelp'd (scalped) him immediately?" said the backwoodsman.

"Very clear of it, gentlemen, for by the time I got my rifle loaded, here came the other two red skins, shouting and whooping close on me, and away I broke again like a quarter horse. I was now about five miles from the settlement, and it was getting towards sunset; I ran till my wind began to be pretty short, when I took a look back and there they came snorting like mad buffaloes, one about two or three hundred yards ahead of the other, so I acted possum again until the foremost Injin got pretty well up, and I wheeled and fired at the very moment he was 'drawing a _bead_' on me; he fell head over stomach into the dirt, and up came the last one!"

"So you laid for him and--" gasped several.

"No," continued the "member," "I didn't lay for him, I hadn't time to load, so I layed _legs_ to ground, and started again. I heard every bound he made after me. I ran and ran, until the fire flew out of my eyes, and the old dog's tongue hung out of his mouth a quarter of a yard long!"

"Phe-e-e-e-w!" whistled somebody.

"Fact! gentlemen. Well, what I was to do I didn't know--rifle empty, no big trees about, and a murdering red Indian not three hundred yards in my rear; and, what was worse, just then it occurred to me that I was not a great ways from a big creek, (now called Mill Creek,) and there I should be pinned at last.

"Just at this juncture I struck my toe against a root, and down I tumbled, and my old dog over me. Before I could scrabble up--"

"The Indian fired!" gasped the old woodsman.

"He did, gentlemen, and I felt the ball strike me under the shoulder; but that didn't seem to put any embargo upon my locomotion, for as soon as I got up I took off again, quite freshened by my fall! I heard the red skin close behind me coming booming on, and every minute I expected to have his tomahawk dashed into my head or shoulders.

"Something kind of cool began to trickle down my legs into my boots--"

"Blood, eh? for the shot the varmint gin you," said the old woodsman, in a great state of excitement.

"I thought so," said the Senator, "but what do you think it was?"

Not being blood, we were all puzzled to know what the blazes it could be. When Riley observed--

"I suppose you had--"

"Melted the deer fat which I had stuck in the breast of my hunting shirt, and the grease was running down my legs until my feet got so greasy that my heavy boots flew off, and one hitting the dog, nearly knocked his brains out."

We all grinned, which the "member" noticing, observed--

"I hope, gentlemen, no man here will presume to think I'm exaggerating?"

"O, certainly not! Go on, Mr. ----," we all chimed in.

"Well, the ground under my feet was soft, and being relieved of my heavy boots, I put off with double quick time, and seeing the creek about half a mile off, I ventured to look over my shoulder to see what kind of a chance there was to hold up and load. The red skin was coming jogging along pretty well blowed out, about five hundred yards in the rear. Thinks I, here goes to load any how. So at it I went--in went the powder, and putting on my patch, down went the ball about half-way, and off snapped my ramrod!"

"Thunder and lightning!" shouted the old woodsman, who was worked up to the top-notch in the "member's" story.

"Good gracious! wasn't I in a pickle! There was the red whelp within two hundred yards of me, pacing along and _loading up his rifle as he came!_ I jerked out the broken ramrod, dashed it away and started on, priming up as I cantered off, determined to turn and give the red skin a blast any how, as soon as I reached the creek.

"I was now within a hundred yards of the creek, could see the smoke from the settlement chimneys; a few more jumps and I was by the creek. The Indian was close upon me--he gave a whoop, and I raised my rifle; on he came, knowing that I had broken my ramrod and my load not down; another whoop! whoop! and he was within fifty yards of me! I pulled trigger, and--"

"And killed _him_?" chuckled Riley.

"No, _sir!_ I missed fire!"

"And the red skin--" shouted the old woodsman in a phrenzy of excitement--

"_Fired and killed me!_"

The screams and shouts that followed this finale brought landlord Noble, servants and hostlers, running up stairs to see if the house was on fire!

Dodging the Responsibility.

"Sir!" said Fieryfaces, the lawyer, to an _unwilling witness_, "Sir! do you say, upon your oath, that Blinkins is a dishonest _man_?"

"I didn't say he was ever accused of being an honest man, did I?" replied Pipkins.

"Does the court understand you to say, Mr. Pipkins, that the plaintiff's reputation is bad?" inquired the judge, merely putting the question to keep his eyes open.

"I didn't say it was good, I reckon."

"Sir!" said Fieryfaces, "Sir-r! upon your oath--mind, upon your oath, upon your oath, you say that Blinkins is a rogue, a villain and a thief!"

"_You_ say so," was Pip's reply.

"Haven't _you_ said so?"

"Why, you've said it," said Pipkins, "what's the use of my repeating it?"

"Sir-r!" thundered Fieryfaces, the Demosthenean thunderer of Thumbtown, "Sir-r! I charge you, upon your sworn oath, do you or do you not say--Blinkins stole things?"

"No, _sir_," was the cautious reply of Pipkins. "I never said Blinkins stole things, but I _do_ say--_he's got a way of finding things that nobody lost!_"

"Sir-r," said Fieryfaces, "you can retire," and the court adjourned.

A Night Adventure in Prairie Land.

"I'll take a circuit around, and come out about the lower end of your _mot_,"* said I to my companion. "You remain here; lie down flat, and I'll warrant the old doe and her fawns will be found retracing their steps."

[*] _Mot_ is the name given small clumps of trees or woods, found
scattered over the prairie land of Texas.

We had started from camp about sunrise, to hunt, three of us; one, an old hunter, who, after marking out our course, giving us the lay of the land, and various admonitions as to the danger of getting too far from camp, looking out for "Injin signs," &c., "Old Traps," as we called him, took a tour southward, and left us. Myself and companion were each armed with rifles; his a blunt "Yeager," by the way, and mine an Ohio piece, carrying about one hundred and twenty balls to the pound, consequently very light, and not a very sure thing for a distance over one hundred yards. It was in the fall of the year, delightful weather: our wardrobe consisted of Kentucky jean trousers, boots, straw hats, two shirts, and jean hunting shirts--all thin, to be sure, but warm and comfortable enough for a day's hunt. We trudged about until noon, firing but once, and then at an alligator in a _bayou_, whose coat of mail laughed to scorn our puny bullets, and, barely flirting his horny tail in contempt, he slid from his perch back into the greasy and turbid stream. Seating ourselves upon a dead cotton-wood, we made a slight repast upon some cold _pone_, which, moistened with a drop of "Mon'galy," proved, I must needs confess, upon such occasions, viands as palatable as a Tremont dinner to a city gourmand. While thus quietly disposed, all of a sudden we heard a racket in our rear, which, though it startled us at first, soon apprised us that game was at hand. Dropping low, we soon saw, a few yards above us, the large antlers of a buck. He darted down the slight bluffs, followed by a doe and two well-grown fawns.

As they gained the water, and but barely stuck their noses into the drink, we both let drive at them: but, in my rising upon my knee to fire at the buck, he got wind of the courtesies I was about to tender him, and absolutely dodged my ball. I was too close to miss him; but, as he "juked"--to use an old-fashioned western word--down his head the moment he saw fire, the bullet merely made the fur fly down his neck, and, with a back bound or double somerset, he scooted quicker than uncorked thunder.

Our eyes met--we both grinned.

"Well, by King," says my friend Mat, "that's shooting!"

"Both missed?" says I.

"Better break for camp, straight: if we should meet a greaser or Camanche here, they'd take our scalps, and beat us about the jaws with 'em!"

It was thought to bear the complexion of a joke, and we both laughed quite jocosely at it.

"Now," says I, "old Sweetener," loading up my rifle, "you and I can't give it up so, no how." Tripping up a cup of the alligator fluid, we washed down our crumbs, and started. We followed the deer about two miles up the _bayou_; the land was low prairie bottom, ugly for walking, and our track was slow and tedious. But, approaching a suspicious place carefully and cautiously, we had another fair view of the doe and fawns, feeding and watching on the side of a broad prairie. The distance between us was quite extensive; we could not well approach within shooting distance without alarming them. The only alternative was for my friend Mat to deposit himself among the brush and stuff, and let me circumvent the critters; one of us would surely get a whack at them. I started; a slow, tedious scratch and crawl of nearly a mile got me to the windward of the deer. As I edged down along the high grass and chapperel, about a branch of the _bayou_, the old doe began to raise her head occasionally, and scent the air: this, as I got still nearer, she repeated more frequently, until, at length, she took the hint, and made a break down towards my friend Mat, who, sharp upon the trigger, just as the three deer got within fifty yards, raised and fired. 'Bout went the deer, making a dash for my quarters; but before getting any ways near me, down toppled one of the young 'uns. Mat had fixed its flint; but my blood was up--I was not to be fooled out of my shot in that way; and perceiving my only chance, at best, was to be a long shot, off hand, as the doe and her remaining fawn dashed by, at over eighty yards, I let her have the best I had; the bullet struck--the old doe jumped, by way of an extra, about five by thirty feet, and didn't even stop to ask permission at that. A sportsman undergoes no little excitement in peppering a few paltry pigeons, a duck or a squirrel, but when an amateur hunter gets his Ebenezer set on a real deer, bear, or flock of wild turkeys, you may safely premise it would take some capital to buy him off.

I forgot all about time and space, Mat, "Old Traps," greasers and Injins--my whole capital was invested in the old _doe_, and I was after _her_. She was badly wounded; I thought she'd "gin eout" pretty soon, and I followed clear across the prairie. Time flew, and finally, feeling considerably fagged, and getting no further view of my deer, and being no longer able to trace the red drops she sprinkled along, I sat down, wiped the salt water from my parboiled countenance, and began to---- think I'd gone far enough for old venison. In fact, I'd gone a little too far, for the sun was setting down to his home in the Pacific, the black shades of night began to gather around the timber, and I hurried out into the prairie, to get an observation. But it was no go. I had entirely reversed the order of things, in my mind; I had lost my bearings. The evening was cloudy, with a first rate prospect of a wet night, and neither moon nor stars were to be seen.

Taking, at a hazard, the supposed back track, across the broad prairie, upon which flourished a stiff, tall grass, I plodded along, quite chilly, and my thin garments, wet from perspiration, were cold as cakes of ice to my flesh. I began to feel mad, swore some, hoped I was on the right track back to Mat and his deer, but felt satisfied there was some doubt about that. Mat had the flint and steel for raising a fire, and the _meat_ and what bread was left at our last repast. Night came right down in the midst of my cares and tribulations. A slight drizzling rain began to fall. The stillness of a prairie is a damper to the best of spirits--the entire suspension of all noises and sounds, not even the tick of an insect to break the black, dull, dark monotony, is a wet blanket to cheerfulness. I really think the stillness of a large prairie is one of the most painful sensations of loneliness, a man ever encountered. The sombre and dreary monotony of a dungeon, is scarcely a comparison; in fact, language fails to describe the essentially double-distilled monotony of these great American grass-patches--you can't call them deserts, for at times they represent interminable flower-gardens, of the most elegant and voluptuous description.