Chapter XXXI

TOM VERSUS FAN; OR, A LITTLE TALK ABOUT LITTLE THINGS.

In the sketch thus entitled, we are once more presented with a life picture, a veritable transcript of the writer's own mind. It will be seen that Fanny is _au fait_ in the mysteries of coquetry; understands the use of long dresses, and "gaiter-boots" to perfection. Just listen:--

"'Well, Fan; any room for _me_ here?' said Tom Grey, as he seated himself in a large arm-chair in his sister's boudoir.

"'Possession is nine points of the law, Tom; it's no use answering in the negative _now_.'

"'I'm in a very distracted state of mind, sis, and I've come to make a clean breast of it to you.'

"'Mercy on us! if you are going to confess your sins, I shall beat a retreat; the catalogue is longer than my patience.'

"'Listen; you know yesterday was one of my days for walking?'

"'Boisterous wind, hey?'

"'Yes; and a man _must_ use his eyes when the gods favor him. Just before me, in Washington-street, I saw _such_ a pair of feet! Now you know pretty feet are my passion, and 'Cinderella's' were not a circumstance to these. So I travelled on behind them, in a state of mute ecstacy, and they might have led me to the Dead Sea, and I shouldn't have stopped to ask any questions!'

"'Did you see her face?'

"'_Face?_--I didn't think of such a thing. _I_ shouldn't have cared if she hadn't any face. Of course it was pretty; nature wouldn't have perfected those continuations to that degree and left--but no matter, they were 'the _greatest_' feet for _little feet_, I ever saw. All of a sudden my goddess vanished into a shoe-store, and I stood gaping in at the window and wishing I was the clerk. Presently, the young man handed her a pair of boots, and going round the counter, down he goes on one knee, and, by the blessed saints! if _he didn't take that dear little foot in his lap and try on those boots_! The rascal was twice as long about it as he need be, too, for after it was all laced on, he kept 'smoothing out the wrinkles,' as _he_ said, 'on the instep.' St. Crispin! _wasn't_ I furious!'

"'Well--didn't you see her face, all this time?'

"'No, I tell you; she had one of those curs--I beg pardon--_curious_ veils that you women are so fond of playing _beau peep_ with! But her shawl fell off, and you'd better believe there was a figure under it even _those feet_ might be proud to carry.'

"'Well--let's have the denouement.'

"'She got into an omnibus--didn't I wish I was the mat in the bottom of it? No room for another soul, outside or in, or I should have followed her. Wish I might wake up and find myself _married to those feet_, some morning!'

"'Fan--these long skirts are very effective weapons in the hands of a pretty woman. They are provocative of curiosity. Now Bloomers--ugh! (a man is disenchanted at once;) but a nice, plump, little, cunning foot, creeping in and out, _mice-like_, from under those graceful folds--depend upon it, no woman who knows anything, will ever shorten her skirts. A coquette does as much execution with them as a Spanish dame with her fan and mantilla.'

"'Many a woman, when she thinks it worth her while, 'gets up' an imaginary quagmire, and, presto! _there's_ a pair of feet for you! and then down goes the long skirt again, and a man's senses with it. Jupiter! _don't_ they understand it?'

"'Tom, if you was worth the trouble, I'd box your ears! Look out the window there, I _suppose_ that's a man; a _cane and a coat-tail walking behind a moustache_! Well, here's the thermometer up to boiling point, and his coat is buttoned up tight to his jugular, _to show his chest_ to the best possible advantage. I don't believe if he was stifling, he'd let his throat out of prison. Oh, _vanity!_ thy name is _man_! I sat here at the window, laughing till I had fits, to see that fellow _prink_, the other morning, and make himself beautiful. The _attitudes_, he practised! the different styles of _hair_ he 'got _up_,' and brushed _down!_ the neck-ties he tried on! the way his _bosom-pin_ wouldn't _locate_ to his satisfaction! were all excruciating to my risibles.'

"'Well, Fan, you've no mercy, so I might as well say--I suppose, as to the comparative vanity of men and women,--it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other; but to change the subject. Do you know I was thinking, to-day, that _dentistry_ might be made a very fascinating occupation if one could but choose one's customers?'

"'As how?' said Fan.

"'Why _I_ should proceed after _this_ fashion. When a pretty woman came to me, I should plant her down in the crucifying chair; open sundry mysterious-looking drawers, spread out a formidable array of instruments under her little nose, take up all the files, and saws, and scrapers, one by one, and hold them up to the light to see if they were ready primed. Then I'd step round behind her chair (getting napkin, basin, and footstool fixed to my satisfaction.) The effect I calculated on being produced, the little blue-eyed victim would turn pale and look deliciously imploring into my face--then I'd use a little 'moral suasion,' as the ministers say--and quiet her nerves. Then follows an examination of her mouth, (I should make a long job of that!) Very likely the light would not be right, and I should have to move her head a little nearer to my shoulder, then it is more than probable her long curls would get twisted round the buttons of my coat; _there'd_ be a web for two to unweave! Then we'd commence _again_; the file in my hand makes an unlucky move against some sensitive tooth,--by that time it is to be hoped she'd be ready to faint, and need something held to her lips! Oh, Fan, my mind is in a state of vibration between _dentistry_ and the _shoe business_!'

"'What do you think of the _clerical_ profession?' said Fan, laughing. '_That_ would give you an opportunity to ask them plump, without any circumlocution or _circumbendibus_, the state of their hearts? You'd be of the Methodist persuasion, of course, and patronize 'Love Feasts.'

"'Not a bit of it. If I went into _that_ line of business, I'd be a Roman Catholic priest, and get up a confession box, and the first exercise of my authority after that would be to get _you_ into a nunnery _somewhere_. I never saw a 'Fanny' yet that wasn't as mischievous as Satan.'

"'The _name_ is infectious, my dear; can't you get it _changed_ for me? Speaking of that, Tom, you know that 'miserable young man' that talked so freely of 'prussic acid and daggers' once on a time? May I die an old maid if he isn't the owner of a pretty little wife and two or three children--he is as fat as a porpoise, merry as a cricket, gay as a lark--don't he sing out to me 'how d'ye do Fan?' in the most _heart-whole_ fashion, as if he never said anything _more_ than that to me all the days of his life! Oh, Tom! _men have died_--and _worms have eaten 'em_--but--_not for love_!'

"'Do _women_ ever die for love?'

"'Heaven forbid! I _did_ see a man the other day, though, oh Tom!!--never mind; he's gone--with your '_little feet_;' vanished into that grave of our mutual hopes--an omnibus! my heart went with him--_such_ a figure as he had! Saints and angels! wouldn't I like to see him again? I've had an overpowering sensation of _goneness_ ever since! and speaking of _goneness_, won't you _walk out_, before you light that horrid cigar.'"