Martin felt that to dispute such testimony, for no better reason than because he had his secret misgivings on the subject, would be ungentlemanly and indecent. So he thanked the General for his promise to put him in personal communication with the agent; and “concluded” to see that officer next morning. He then begged the General to inform him who the Watertoast Sympathisers were, of whom he had spoken in addressing Mr La Fayette Kettle, and on what grievances they bestowed their Sympathy. To which the General, looking very serious, made answer, that he might fully enlighten himself on those points to-morrow by attending a Great Meeting of the Body, which would then be held at the town to which they were travelling; “over which, sir,” said the General, “my fellow-citizens have called on me to preside.”
They came to their journey's end late in the evening. Close to the railway was an immense white edifice, like an ugly hospital, on which was painted “NATIONAL HOTEL.”There was a wooden gallery or verandah in front, in which it was rather startling, when the train stopped, to behold a great many pairs of boots and shoes, and the smoke of a great many cigars, but no other evidences of human habitation. By slow degrees, however, some heads and shoulders appeared, and connecting themselves with the boots and shoes, led to the discovery that certain gentlemen boarders, who had a fancy for putting their heels where the gentlemen boarders in other countries usually put their heads, were enjoying themselves after their own manner in the cool of the evening.
There was a great bar-room in this hotel, and a great public room in which the general table was being set out for supper. There were interminable whitewashed staircases, long whitewashed galleries upstairs and downstairs, scores of little whitewashed bedrooms, and a four-sided verandah to every story in the house, which formed a large brick square with an uncomfortable courtyard in the centre, where some clothes were drying. Here and there, some yawning gentlemen lounged up and down with their hands in their pockets; but within the house and without, wherever half a dozen people were collected together, there, in their looks, dress, morals, manners, habits, intellect, and conversation, were Mr Jefferson Brick, Colonel Diver, Major Pawkins, General Choke, and Mr La Fayette Kettle, over, and over, and over again. They did the same things; said the same things; judged all subjects by, and reduced all subjects to, the same standard. Observing how they lived, and how they were always in the enchanting company of each other, Martin even began to comprehend their being the social, cheerful, winning, airy men they were.
At the sounding of a dismal gong, this pleasant company went trooping down from all parts of the house to the public room; while from the neighbouring stores other guests came flocking in, in shoals; for half the town, married folks as well as single, resided at the National Hotel. Tea, coffee, dried meats, tongue, ham, pickles, cake, toast, preserves, and bread and butter, were swallowed with the usual ravaging speed; and then, as before, the company dropped off by degrees, and lounged away to the desk, the counter, or the bar-room. The ladies had a smaller ordinary of their own, to which their husbands and brothers were admitted if they chose; and in all other respects they enjoyed themselves as at Pawkins's.
“Now, Mark, my good fellow, said Martin, closing the door of his little chamber, “we must hold a solemn council, for our fate is decided to-morrow morning. You are determined to invest these savings of yours in the common stock, are you?”
“If I hadn't been determined to make that wentur, sir,” answered Mr Tapley, “I shouldn't have come.”
“How much is there here, did you say” asked Martin, holding up a little bag.
“Thirty-seven pound ten and sixpence. The Savings” Bank said so at least. I never counted it. But THEY know, bless you!” said Mark, with a shake of the head expressive of his unbounded confidence in the wisdom and arithmetic of those Institutions.
“The money we brought with us,” said Martin, “is reduced to a few shillings less than eight pounds.”
Mr Tapley smiled, and looked all manner of ways, that he might not be supposed to attach any importance to this fact.
“Upon the ring—HER ring, Mark,” said Martin, looking ruefully at his empty finger—
“Ah!” sighed Mr Tapley. “Beg your pardon, sir.”
“—We raised, in English money, fourteen pounds. So, even with that, your share of the stock is still very much the larger of the two you see. Now, Mark,” said Martin, in his old way, just as he might have spoken to Tom Pinch, “I have thought of a means of making this up to you—more than making it up to you, I hope—and very materially elevating your prospects in life.”
“Oh! don't talk of that, you know, sir,” returned Mark. “I don't want no elevating, sir. I'm all right enough, sir, I am.”
“No, but hear me,” said Martin, “because this is very important to you, and a great satisfaction to me. Mark, you shall be a partner in the business; an equal partner with myself. I will put in, as my additional capital, my professional knowledge and ability; and half the annual profits, as long as it is carried on, shall be yours.”
Poor Martin! For ever building castles in the air. For ever, in his very selfishness, forgetful of all but his own teeming hopes and sanguine plans. Swelling, at that instant, with the consciousness of patronizing and most munificently rewarding Mark!
“I don't know, sir,” Mark rejoined, much more sadly than his custom was, though from a very different cause than Martin supposed, “what I can say to this, in the way of thanking you. I'll stand by you, sir, to the best of my ability, and to the last. That's all.”
“We quite understand each other, my good fellow,” said Martin rising in self-approval and condescension. “We are no longer master and servant, but friends and partners; and are mutually gratified. If we determine on Eden, the business shall be commenced as soon as we get there. Under the name,” said Martin, who never hammered upon an idea that wasn't red hot, “under the name of Chuzzlewit and Tapley.”
“Lord love you, sir,” cried Mark, “don't have my name in it. I ain't acquainted with the business, sir. I must be Co., I must. I've often thought,” he added, in a low voice, “as I should like to know a Co.; but I little thought as ever I should live to be one.”
“You shall have your own way, Mark.”
“Thank'ee, sir. If any country gentleman thereabouts, in the public way, or otherwise, wanted such a thing as a skittle-ground made, I could take that part of the bis'ness, sir.”
“Against any architect in the States,” said Martin. “Get a couple of sherry-cobblers, Mark, and we'll drink success to the firm.”
Either he forgot already (and often afterwards), that they were no longer master and servant, or considered this kind of duty to be among the legitimate functions of the Co. But Mark obeyed with his usual alacrity; and before they parted for the night, it was agreed between them that they should go together to the agent's in the morning, but that Martin should decide the Eden question, on his own sound judgment. And Mark made no merit, even to himself in his jollity, of this concession; perfectly well knowing that the matter would come to that in the end, any way.
The General was one of the party at the public table next day, and after breakfast suggested that they should wait upon the agent without loss of time. They, desiring nothing more, agreed; so off they all four started for the office of the Eden Settlement, which was almost within rifle-shot of the National Hotel.
It was a small place—something like a turnpike. But a great deal of land may be got into a dice-box, and why may not a whole territory be bargained for in a shed? It was but a temporary office too; for the Edeners were “going” to build a superb establishment for the transaction of their business, and had already got so far as to mark out the site. Which is a great way in America. The officedoor was wide open, and in the doorway was the agent; no doubt a tremendous fellow to get through his work, for he seemed to have no arrears, but was swinging backwards and forwards in a rocking-chair, with one of his legs planted high up against the door-post, and the other doubled up under him, as if he were hatchi
ng his foot.
He was a gaunt man in a huge straw hat, and a coat of green stuff. The weather being hot, he had no cravat, and wore his shirt collar wide open; so that every time he spoke something was seen to twitch and jerk up in his throat, like the little hammers in a harpsichord when the notes are struck. Perhaps it was the Truth feebly endeavouring to leap to his lips. If so, it never reached them.
Two grey eyes lurked deep within this agent's head, but one of them had no sight in it, and stood stock still. With that side of his face he seemed to listen to what the other side was doing. Thus each profile had a distinct expression; and when the movable side was most in action, the rigid one was in its coldest state of watchfulness. It was like turning the man inside out, to pass to that view of his features in his liveliest mood, and see how calculating and intent they were.
Each long black hair upon his head hung down as straight as any plummet line; but rumpled tufts were on the arches of his eyes, as if the crow whose foot was deeply printed in the corners had pecked and torn them in a savage recognition of his kindred nature as a bird of prey.
Such was the man whom they now approached, and whom the General saluted by the name of Scadder.
“Well, Gen'ral,” he returned, “and how are you?”
“Ac-tive and spry, sir, in my country's service and the sympathetic cause. Two gentlemen on business, Mr Scadder.”
He shook hands with each of them—nothing is done in America without shaking hands—then went on rocking.
“I think I know what bis'ness you have brought these strangers here upon, then, Gen'ral?”
“Well, sir. I expect you may.”
“You air a tongue-y person, Gen'ral. For you talk too much, and that's fact,” said Scadder. “You speak a-larming well in public, but you didn't ought to go ahead so fast in private. Now!”
“If I can realise your meaning, ride me on a rail!” returned the General, after pausing for consideration.
“You know we didn't wish to sell the lots off right away to any loafer as might bid,” said Scadder; “but had con-cluded to reserve “em for Aristocrats of Natur”. Yes!”
“And they are here, sir!” cried the General with warmth. “They are here, sir!”
“If they air here,” returned the agent, in reproachful accents, “that's enough. But you didn't ought to have your dander ris with ME, Gen'ral.”
The General whispered Martin that Scadder was the honestest fellow in the world, and that he wouldn't have given him offence designedly, for ten thousand dollars.
“I do my duty; and I raise the dander of my feller critters, as I wish to serve,” said Scadder in a low voice, looking down the road and rocking still. “They rile up rough, along of my objecting to their selling Eden off too cheap. That's human natur”! Well!”
“Mr Scadder,” said the General, assuming his oratorical deportment. “Sir! Here is my hand, and here my heart. I esteem you, sir, and ask your pardon. These gentlemen air friends of mine, or I would not have brought “em here, sir, being well aware, sir, that the lots at present go entirely too cheap. But these air friends, sir; these air partick'ler friends.”
Mr Scadder was so satisfied by this explanation, that he shook the General warmly by the hand, and got out of the rocking-chair to do it. He then invited the General's particular friends to accompany him into the office. As to the General, he observed, with his usual benevolence, that being one of the company, he wouldn't interfere in the transaction on any account; so he appropriated the rocking-chair to himself, and looked at the prospect, like a good Samaritan waiting for a traveller.
“Heyday!” cried Martin, as his eye rested on a great plan which occupied one whole side of the office. Indeed, the office had little else in it, but some geological and botanical specimens, one or two rusty ledgers, a homely desk, and a stool. “Heyday! what's that?”
“That's Eden,” said Scadder, picking his teeth with a sort of young bayonet that flew out of his knife when he touched a spring.
“Why, I had no idea it was a city.”
“Hadn't you? Oh, it's a city.”
A flourishing city, too! An architectural city! There were banks, churches, cathedrals, market-places, factories, hotels, stores, mansions, wharves; an exchange, a theatre; public buildings of all kinds, down to the office of the Eden Stinger, a daily journal; all faithfully depicted in the view before them.
“Dear me! It's really a most important place!” cried Martin turning round.
“Oh! it's very important,” observed the agent.
“But, I am afraid,” said Martin, glancing again at the Public Buildings, “that there's nothing left for me to do.”
“Well! it ain't all built,” replied the agent. “Not quite.”
This was a great relief.
“The market-place, now,” said Martin. “Is that built?”
“That?” said the agent, sticking his toothpick into the weathercock on the top. “Let me see. No; that ain't built.”
“Rather a good job to begin with—eh, Mark?” whispered Martin nudging him with his elbow.
Mark, who, with a very stolid countenance had been eyeing the plan and the agent by turns, merely rejoined “Uncommon!”
A dead silence ensued, Mr Scadder in some short recesses or vacations of his toothpick, whistled a few bars of Yankee Doodle, and blew the dust off the roof of the Theatre.
“I suppose,” said Martin, feigning to look more narrowly at the plan, but showing by his tremulous voice how much depended, in his mind, upon the answer; “I suppose there are—several architects there?”
“There ain't a single one,” said Scadder.
“Mark,” whispered Martin, pulling him by the sleeve, “do you hear that? But whose work is all this before us, then?” he asked aloud.
“The soil being very fruitful, public buildings grows spontaneous, perhaps,” said Mark.
He was on the agent's dark side as he said it; but Scadder instantly changed his place, and brought his active eye to bear upon him.
“Feel of my hands, young man,” he said.
“What for?” asked Mark, declining.
“Air they dirty, or air they clean, sir?” said Scadder, holding them out.
In a physical point of view they were decidedly dirty. But it being obvious that Mr Scadder offered them for examination in a figurative sense, as emblems of his moral character, Martin hastened to pronounce them pure as the driven snow.
“I entreat, Mark,” he said, with some irritation, “that you will not obtrude remarks of that nature, which, however harmless and well-intentioned, are quite out of place, and cannot be expected to be very agreeable to strangers. I am quite surprised.”
“The Co. “s a-putting his foot in it already,” thought Mark. “He must be a sleeping partner—fast asleep and snoring— Co. must; I see.”
Mr Scadder said nothing, but he set his back against the plan, and thrust his toothpick into the desk some twenty times; looking at Mark all the while as if he were stabbing him in effigy.
“You haven't said whose work it is,” Martin ventured to observe at length, in a tone of mild propitiation.
“Well, never mind whose work it is, or isn't,” said the agent sulkily. “No matter how it did eventuate. P'raps he cleared off, handsome, with a heap of dollars; p'raps he wasn't worth a cent. P'raps he was a loafin” rowdy; p'raps a ring-tailed roarer. Now!”
“All your doing, Mark!” said Martin.
“P'raps,” pursued the agent, “them ain't plants of Eden 's raising. No! P'raps that desk and stool ain't made from Eden lumber. No! P'raps no end of squatters ain't gone out there. No! P'raps there ain't no such location in the territoary of the Great U-nited States. Oh, no!”
“I hope you're satisfied with the success of your joke, Mark,” said Martin.
But here, at a most opportune and happy time, the General interposed, and called out to Scadder from the doorway to give his friends the particulars of that little lot of fifty acres with the house upon it;
which, having belonged to the company formerly, had lately lapsed again into their hands.
“You air a deal too open-handed, Gen'ral,” was the answer. “It is a lot as should be rose in price. It is.”
He grumblingly opened his books notwithstanding, and always keeping his bright side towards Mark, no matter at what amount of inconvenience to himself, displayed a certain leaf for their perusal. Martin read it greedily, and then inquired:
“Now where upon the plan may this place be?”
“Upon the plan?” said Scadder.
“Yes.”
He turned towards it, and reflected for a short time, as if, having been put upon his mettle, he was resolved to be particular to the very minutest hair's breadth of a shade. At length, after wheeling his toothpick slowly round and round in the air, as if it were a carrier pigeon just thrown up, he suddenly made a dart at the drawing, and pierced the very centre of the main wharf, through and through.
“There!” he said, leaving his knife quivering in the wall; “that's where it is!”
Martin glanced with sparkling eyes upon his Co., and his Co. saw that the thing was done.
The bargain was not concluded as easily as might have been expected though, for Scadder was caustic and ill-humoured, and cast much unnecessary opposition in the way; at one time requesting them to think of it, and call again in a week or a fortnight; at another, predicting that they wouldn't like it; at another, offering to retract and let them off, and muttering strong imprecations upon the folly of the General. But the whole of the astoundingly small sum total of purchase-money—it was only one hundred and fifty dollars, or something more than thirty pounds of the capital brought by Co. into the architectural concern—was ultimately paid down; and Martin's head was two inches nearer the roof of the little wooden office, with the consciousness of being a landed proprietor in the thriving city of Eden.
“If it shouldn't happen to fit,” said Scadder, as he gave Martin the necessary credentials on recepit of his money, “don't blame me.”
“No, no,” he replied merrily. “We'll not blame you. General, are you going?”
Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit Page 44