Bohemian Days: Three American Tales. George Alfred Townsend
confidence shall have been forfeited, what must result to Pisgah?
He is striving to anticipate the answer with this experiment at roulette; for he has a "system" whereby it is possible to break any gambling bank—Spa, Baden, Wisbaden or Homburg. The others have systems also, from Auburn Risque to Simp, the only son of the richest widow in Louisiana, who disbursed of old in Paris ten thousand dollars annually.
His house at Passy was a palace in miniature, and his favorite a tragedy queen. She played at the Folies Dramatiques, and drove three horses of afternoons upon the Champs Elysées. She had other engagements, of course, when Mr. Lincoln's "paper blockade" stopped Master Simp's remittances, and he passed her yesterday upon the Rue Rivoli, with the Russian ambassador's footman at her back, but she only touched him with her silks.
Simp studied a profession, and was a volunteer counsel in the memorable case of Jeems Pinckney against Jeems Rutledge. His speech, on that occasion, occupied in delivery just three minutes, and set the courtroom in a roar. He paid the village editor ten dollars to compose it, and the same sum to publish it.
"If you could learn it for me," said Simp, anxiously, "I would give you twenty dollars."
This, his first and last public appearance, was conditional to the receipt from his mother, of six thousand acres of land and eighty negroes. It might have been a close calculation for a mathematician to know how many black sweat-drops, how many strokes of the rawhide, went into the celebrated dinner at the Maison Dorée, wherein Master Simp and only his lady had thirty-four courses, and eleven qualities of wine, and a bill of eight hundred francs.
In that prosperous era, his inalienable comrade had been Mr. Andy Plade, who now stood beside him, intensely absorbed.
Of late Mr. Plade's affection had been transferred to Hugenot, the only possessor of an entire franc in the chamber. Hugenot was a short-set individual, in pumps and an eye-glass, who had been but a few days in the city. He was decidedly a man of sentiment. He called the Confederacy "ow-ah cause," and claimed to have signed the call for the first secession meeting in the South.
He asserted frankly that he was of French extraction, but only hinted that he was of noble blood. He had been a hatter, but carefully ignored the fact; and, having run the blockade with profitable cargoes fourteen times, had settled down to be a respectable trader between Havre and Nassau. Mr. Plade shared much of the sentiment and some of the money of this illustrious personage.
There were rumors abroad that Plade himself had great, but embarrassed, fortunes.
He was one of the hundred thousand chevaliers who hail the advent of war as something which will hide their nothingness.
"I knew it," said Auburn Risque, at length, pinching the ball between his hard palms as if it were the creature of his will. "My system is good; yours do not validate themselves. You are novices at gambling; I am an old blackleg." It was as he had said; the method of betting which he proposed had seemed to be successful. He staked upon colors; never upon numbers; and alternated from white to black after a fixed, undeviating routine.
Less by experiment than by faith, the others gave up their own theories to adopt his own. They resolved to collect every available sou, and, confiding it to the keeping of Mr. Risque, send him to Germany, that he might beggar the bankers, and so restore the Southern Colony to its wonted prosperity.
Hugenot delivered a short address, wishing "the cause" good luck, but declining to subscribe anything. He did not doubt the safety of "the system" of course, but had an hereditary antipathy to gaming. The precepts of all his ancestry were against it.
Poor Lees followed in a broken way, indicating sundry books, a guitar, two pairs of old boots, and a canary bird, as the relics of his fortune. These, Andy Plade, who possessed nothing, but thought he might borrow a trifle, volunteered to dispose of, and Freckle, a Missourian, who was tolerated in the colony only because he could be plucked, asserted enthusiastically, and amid great sensation, that he yet had three hundred francs at the banker's, his entire capital, all of which he meant to devote to the most reliable project in the world.
At this episode, Pisgah, whose misfortunes had quite shattered his nerves, proposed to drink at Freckle's expense to the success of the system, and Hugenot was prevailed upon to advance twenty-one sous, while Simp took the order to the adjacent marchand du vin.
When they had all filled, Hugenot, looking upon himself in the light of a benefactor, considered it necessary to do something.
"Boys," he said, wiping his eves with the lining of a kid glove, "will you esteem it unnatural, that a Suth Kurlinian, who sat—at an early age, it is true—at the feet of the great Kulhoon, should lift up his voice and weep in this day of ou-ah calamity?"
(Sensation, aggrieved by the sobs of Freckle, who, unused to spirits and greatly affected—chokes.)
"When I cast my eye about this lofty chambah" (here Lees, who hasn't been out of it for a year, hides himself beneath the bed-clothes); "when I see these noble spih-its dwelling obscu' and penniless; when I remembah that two short years ago, they waih of independent fohtunes—one with his sugah, anotha with his cotton, a third with his tobacco, in short, all the blessings of heaven bestowed upon a free people—niggars, plantations, pleasures!—I can but lay my pooah hand upon the manes of my ancestry, and ask in the name of ou-ah cause, is there justice above or retribution upon the earth!"
A profound silence ensued, broken only by Mr. Plade, who called Hugenot a man of sentiment, and slapped his back; while Freckle fell upon Pisgah's bosom, and wished that his stomach was as full as his heart.
Mr. Simp, who had been endeavoring to recollect some passages of his address, in the case of the Jeemses, for that address had an universal application, and might mean as much now as on the original occasion, brought down one of those decayed boots which the marchand des habits had thrice refused to buy, and said, stoutly:
"'By Gad! think of it, hyuh am I, a beggah, by Gad, without shoes to my feet, suh! The wuth of one nigga would keep me now for a yeah. At home, by Gad, I could afford to spend the wuth of a staving field hand every twenty-fouah houahs. I'll sweah!" cried Simp in conclusion, "I call this hard."
"I suppose the Yankees have confiscated my stocks in the Havre steamers," muttered Andy Plade. "I consider they have done me out of twenty thousand dollars."
"Brotha writes to me, last lettah," continued Freckle, who had recovered, "every tree cut off the plantation—every nigga run off, down to old Sim, a hundred years old—every panel of fence toted away—no bacon in smoke-house—not an old rip in stable—no corn, coon, possum, rabbit, fox, dog or hog within ten miles of the place—house stands in a mire—mire stands in desert—Yankee general going to conscrip brotha. I save myself, sp'ose, for stahvation."
"Wait till you come down to my condition," faltered the proprietor, making emphasis with his meagre finger—"I have been my own enemy; the Yankees will but finish what is almost consummated now. I tell you, boys, I expect to die in this room; I shall never quit this bed. I am offensive, wasted, withered, and would look gladly upon Père la Chaise,[A] if with my bodily maladies my mind was not also diseased. I have no fortitude; I am afraid of death!"
[A] The great Cemetery of Paris.
The room seemed to grow suddenly cold, and the faces of all the inmates became pale; they looked more squalid than ever—the threadbare curtains, the rheumatic chairs, the soiled floor, sashes and wallpaper.
Mr. Hugenot fumbled his shirt-bosom nervously, and his diamond pin, glaring like a lamp upon the worn garbs and faces of his compatriots, showed them still wanner and meaner by contrast.
"Put the blues under your feet!" cried Auburn Risque, in his hard, practical way; "my system will resurrect the dead. You shall have clothes upon your backs, shoes upon your feet, specie in your pockets, blood in your veins. Let us sell, borrow and pawn; we can raise a thousand francs together. I will return in a fortnight