The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England — Complete

by Thomas Chandler Haliburton

  CHAPTER I. THE NOSE OF A SPY

  "Squire." said Mr. Hopewell, "you know Sam well enough, I hope, to makeall due allowances for the exuberance of his fancy. The sketch he hasjust given you of London society, like the novels of the presentday, though founded on fact, is very unlike the reality. There may beassemblages of persons in this great city, and no doubt there are, quiteas insipid and absurd as the one he has just pourtrayed; but you mustnot suppose it is at all a fair specimen of the society of this place.My own experience is quite the reverse. I think it the most refined,the most agreeable, and the most instructive in the world. Whateveryour favourite study or pursuit may be, here you are sure to findwell-informed and enthusiastic associates. If you have merit, it isappreciated; and for an aristocratic country, that merit places you ona level with your superiors in rank in a manner that is quiteincomprehensible to a republican. Money is the great leveller ofdistinctions with us; here, it is talent. Fashion spreads many tableshere, but talent is always found seated at the best, if it thinks properto comply with certain usages, without which, even genius ceases to beattractive.

  "On some future occasion, I will enter more at large on this subject;but now it is too late; I have already exceeded my usual hour forretiring. 'Excuse me, Sam,' said he. 'I know you will not be offendedwith me, but Squire there are some subjects on which Sam may amuse, butcannot instruct you, and one is, fashionable life in London. You mustjudge for yourself, Sir. Good night, my children.'"

  Mr. Slick rose, and opened the door for him, and as he passed, bowed andheld out his hand. "Remember me, your honour, no man opens the door inthis country without being paid for it. Remember me, Sir."

  "True, Sam," said the Minister, "and it is unlucky that it does notextend to opening the mouth, if it did, you would soon make yourfortune, for you can't keep yours shut. Good night."

  The society to which I have subsequently had the good fortune to beadmitted, fully justifies the eulogium of Mr. Hopewell. Though manypersons can write well, few can talk well; but the number of those whoexcel in conversation is much greater in certain circles in London, thanin any other place. By talking well, I do not mean talking wisely orlearnedly; but agreeably, for relaxation and pleasure, are the principalobjects of social assemblies. This can only be illustrated by instancingsome very remarkable persons, who are the pride and pleasure of everytable they honour and delight with their presence But this may not be.For obvious reasons, I could not do it if I would; and most assuredly,I would not do it if I could. No more certain mode could be devisedof destroying conversation, than by showing, that when the citadel isunguarded, the approach of a friend is as unsafe as that of an enemy.

  Alas! poor Hook! who can read the unkind notice of thee in a lateperiodical, and not feel, that on some occasions you must have admittedto your confidence men who were as unworthy of that distinction as, theywere incapable of appreciating it, and that they who will disregard theprivileges of a table, will not hesitate to violate even the sanctityof the tomb. Cant may talk of your "_inter pocula_" errors with pioushorror; and pretension, now that its indulgence is safe, may affect todisclaim your acquaintance; but kinder, and better, and truer men thanthose who furnished your biographer with his facts will not fail torecollect your talents with pride, and your wit and your humour withwonder and delight.

  We do not require such flagrant examples as these to teach us our duty,but they are not without their use in increasing our caution.

  When Mr. Hopewell withdrew, Mr. Slick observed:

  "Ain't that ere old man a trump? He is always in the right place.Whenever you want to find him, jist go and look for him where heought to be, and there you will find him as sure as there is snakes inVarginy. He is a brick, that's a fact. Still, for all that, he ain'tjist altogether a citizen of this world nother. He fishes in deep water,with a sinker to his hook. He can't throw a fly as I can, reel out hisline, run down stream, and then wind up, wind up, wind up, and let out,and wind up again, till he lands his fish, as I do. He looks deep intothings, is a better religionist, polititioner, and bookster than I be:but then that's all he does know. If you want to find your way about, orread a man, come to me, that's all; for I'm the boy that jist can doit. If I can't walk into a man, I can dodge round him; and if he is toonimble for that, I can jump over him; and if he is too tall for that,although I don't like the play, yet I can whip him.

  "Now, Squire, I have been a good deal to England, and crossed this bigpond here the matter of seven times, and know a good deal about it, morethan a great many folks that have writtin' books on it, p'raps. Mindwhat I tell you, the English ain't what they was. I'm not speakin' injeest now, or in prejudice. I hante a grain of prejudice in me. I'vesee'd too much of the world for that I reckon. I call myself a candidman, and I tell you the English are no more like what the English usedto be, when pigs were swine, and Turkey chewed tobacky, than they arelike the Picts or Scots, or Norman, French, or Saxons, or nothin'."

  "Not what they used to be?" I said. "Pray, what do you mean?"

  "I mean," said he, "jist what I say. They ain't the same people nomore. They are as proud, and overbearin', and concaited, and haughtyto foreigners as ever; but, then they ain't so manly, open-hearted, andnoble as they used to be, once upon a time. They have the Spy Systemnow, in full operation here; so jist take my advice, and mind yourpotatoe-trap, or you will be in trouble afore you are ten days older,see if you ain't."

  "The Spy System!" I replied. "Good Heavens, Mr. Slick, how can you talksuch nonsense, and yet have the modesty to say you have no prejudice?"

  "Yes, the Spy System," said he, "and I'll prove it. You know Dr.Mc'Dougall to Nova Scotia; well, he knows all about mineralogy, andgeology, and astrology, and every thing a'most, except what he ought toknow, and that is dollar-ology. For he ain't over and above half welloff, that's a fact. Well, a critter of the name of Oatmeal, down toPictou, said to another Scotchman there one day, 'The great nateralistDr. Mc'Dougall is come to town.'

  "'Who?' says Sawney.

  "'Dr. Mc'Dougall, the nateralist,' says Oatmeal.

  "'Hout, mon,' says Sawney, 'he is nae nateral, that chiel; he kens mairthan maist men; he is nae that fool you take him to be.'

  "Now, I am not such a fool as you take _me_ to be, Squire. Whenever Idid a sum to, school, Minister used to say, 'Prove it, Sam, and if itwon't prove, do it over agin, till it will; a sum ain't right when itwon't prove.' Now, I say the English have the Spy System, and I'll proveit; nay, more than that, they have the nastiest, dirtiest, meanest,sneakenest system in the world. It is ten times as bad as the Frenchplan. In France they have bar-keepers, waiters, chamber galls, guides,quotillions,--"

  "Postilions, you mean," I said.

  "Well, postilions then, for the French have queer names for people,that's a fact; disbanded sodgers, and such trash, for spies. In Englandthey have airls and countesses, Parliament men, and them that callthemselves gentlemen and ladies, for spies."

  "How very absurd!" I said.

  "Oh yes, very absurd," said Mr. Slick; "whenever I say anythin' aginEngland, it's very absurd, it's all prejudice. Nothin' is strange,though, when it is said of us, and the absurder it is, the truer it is.I can bam as well as any man when bam is the word, but when fact is theplay, I am right up and down, and true as a trivet. I won't deceive you;I'll prove it.

  "There was a Kurnel Dun--dun--plague take his name, I can't recollectit, but it makes no odds--I know _he_ is Dun for, though, that's a fact.Well, he was a British kurnel, that was out to Halifax when I was there.I know'd him by sight, I didn't know him by talk, for I didn't fill thenthe dignified situation I now do, of Attache. I was only a clockmakerthen, and I suppose he wouldn't have dirtied the tip eend of his whiteglove with me then, any more than I would sile mine with him now, andvery expensive and troublesome things them white gloves be too; there isno keepin' of them clean. For my part, I don't see why a man can't makehis own skin as clean as a kid's, any time; and if a feller can't be letshake hands with a gall except he has a glove
on, why ain't he made tocover his lips, and kiss thro' kid skin too.

  "But to get back to the kurnel, and it's a pity he hadn't had a gloveover his mouth, that's a fact. Well, he went home to England with hisregiment, and one night when he was dinin' among some first chop men,nobles and so on, they sot up considerable late over their claret; andpoor thin cold stuff it is too, is claret. A man _may_ get drowned init, but how the plague he can get drunk with it is dark to me. It's likeevery thing else French, it has no substance in it; it's nothin' but redink, that's a fact. Well, how it was I don't know, but so it eventuated,that about daylight he was mops and brooms, and began to talk somethin'or another he hadn't ought to; somethin' he didn't know himself, andsomethin' he didn't mean, and didn't remember.

  "Faith, next mornin' he was booked; and the first thing he see'd when hewaked was another man a tryin' on of his shoes, to see how they'd fit tomarch to the head of his regiment with. Fact, I assure you, and a facttoo that shows what Englishmen has come to; I despise 'em, I hate 'em, Iscorn such critters as I do oncarcumcised niggers."

  "What a strange perversion of facts," I replied.

  But he would admit of no explanation. "Oh yes, quite parvarted; not aword of truth in it; there never is when England is consarned. There isno beam in an Englishman's eye; no not a smell of one; he has pulled itout long ago; that's the reason he can see the mote in other folks'sso plain. Oh, of course it ain't true; it's a Yankee invention; it's ahickory ham and a wooden nutmeg.

  "Well, then, there was another feller got bagged t'other day, asinnocent as could be, for givin' his opinion when folks was a talkin'about matters and things in gineral, and this here one in partikilar. Ican't tell the words, for I don't know 'em, nor care about 'em; and if Idid, I couldn't carry 'em about so long; but it was for sayin' ithadn't ought to have been taken notice of, considerin' it jist popt outpermiscuous like with the bottle-cork. If he hadn't a had the cleargrit in him, and showed teeth and claws, they'd a nullified him so, youwouldn't have see'd a grease spot of him no more. What do you call that,now? Do you call that liberty? Do you call that old English? Do you callit pretty, say now? Thank God, it tante Yankee."

  "I see you have no prejudice, Mr. Slick," I replied.

  "Not one mite or morsel," he replied. "Tho' I was born in Connecticut, Ihave travelled all over the thirteen united univarsal worlds of ourn andam a citizen at large. No, I have no prejudice. You say I am mistaken;p'raps I am, I hope I be, and a stranger may get hold of the wrong eendof a thing sometimes, that's a fact. But I don't think I be wrong, orelse the papers don't tell the truth; and I read it in all the jarnals;I did, upon my soul. Why man, it's history now, if such nasty mean doinsis worth puttin' into a book.

  "What makes this Spy System to England wuss, is that theseeaves-droppers are obliged to hear all that's said, or lose whatcommission they hold; at least so folks tell me. I recollect when I wasthere last, for it's some years since Government first sot up the SpySystem; there was a great feed given to a Mr. Robe, or Robie, or somesuch name, an out and out Tory. Well, sunthin' or another was said overtheir cups, that might as well have been let alone, I do suppose, tho'dear me, what is the use of wine but to onloosen the tongue, and whatis the use of the tongue, but to talk. Oh, cuss 'em, I have no patiencewith them. Well, there was an officer of a marchin' regiment there, whoit seems ought to have took down the words and sent 'em up to the headGineral, but he was a knowin' coon, was officer, and _didn't hear it_.No sooner said than done; some one else did the dirty work for him; butyou can't have a substitute for this, you must sarve in person, so theold Gineral hawls him right up for it.

  "'Why the plague, didn't you make a fuss?' sais the General, 'why didn'tyou get right up, and break up the party?'

  "'I didn't hear it,' sais he.

  "'You didn't hear it!' sais Old Sword-belt, 'then you had ought to haveheerd it; and for two pins, I'd sharpen your hearin' for you, so that asnore of a fly would wake you up, as if a byler had bust.'

  "Oh, how it has lowered the English in the eyes of foreigners! Howsneakin' it makes 'em look! They seem for all the world like scareddogs; and a dog when he slopes off with his head down, his tail atweenhis legs, and his back so mean it won't bristle, is a caution tosinners. Lord. I wish I was Queen!"

  "What, of such a degraded race as you say the English are, of such amean-spirited, sneaking nation?"

  "Well, they warn't always so," he replied. "I will say that, for Ihave no prejudice. By natur, there is sunthin' noble and manly in aBritisher, and always was, till this cussed Spy System got into fashion.They tell me it was the Liberals first brought it into vogue. How thatis. I don't know; but I shouldn't wonder if it was them, for I knowthis, if a feller talks _very_ liberal in politics, put him into office,and see what a tyrant he'll make. If he talks very liberal in religion,it's because he hante got none at all. If he talks very liberal to thepoor, talk is all the poor will ever get out of him. If he talks liberalabout corn law, it tante to feed the hungry, but to lower wages, andso on in every thing a most. None is so liberal as those as hante gotnothin'. The most liberal feller I know on is "Old Scratch himself." Ifever the liberals come in, they should make him Prime Minister. He isvery liberal in religion and would jine them in excludin' the Bible fromcommon schools I know. He is very liberal about the criminal code, forhe can't bear to see criminals punished. He is very liberal in politics,for he don't approbate restraint, and likes to let every critter 'goto the devil' his own way. Oh, he should be Head Spy and Prime Ministerthat feller.

  "But without jokin' tho', if I was Queen, the fust time any o' myministers came to me to report what the spies had said, I'd jist up andsay, 'Minister,' I'd say, 'it is a cussed oninglish, onmanly, niggerlybusiness, is this of pumpin', and spyin', and tattlin'. I don't like ita bit. I'll have neither art nor part in it; I wash my hands clear ofit. It will jist break the spirit of my people. So, minister look here.The next report that is brought to me of a spy, I'll whip his tongue outand whop your ear off, or my name ain't Queen. So jist mind what I say;first spy pokes his nose into your office, chop it off and clap it upover Temple Bar, where they puts the heads of traitors and write thesewords over, with your own fist, that they may know the handwritin', andnot mistake the meanin', _This is the nose of a Spy_."