the other.
He makes much ado before he can get suited with a boarding house. He
dislikes children. He has been accustomed to quiet. His habits are
methodical -- and then he would prefer getting into a private and
respectable small family, piously inclined. Terms, however, are no
object -- only he must insist upon settling his bill on the first of
every month, (it is now the second) and begs his landlady, when he
finally obtains one to his mind, not on any account to forget his
instructions upon this point -- but to send in a bill, and receipt,
precisely at ten o'clock, on the first day of every month, and under
no circumstances to put it off to the second.
These arrangements made, our man of business rents an office in a
reputable rather than a fashionable quarter of the town. There is
nothing he more despises than pretense. "Where there is much show,"
he says, "there is seldom any thing very solid behind" -- an
observation which so profoundly impresses his landlady's fancy, that
she makes a pencil memorandum of it forthwith, in her great family
Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.
The next step is to advertise, after some such fashion as this, in
the principal business six-pennies of the city -- the pennies are
eschewed as not "respectable" -- and as demanding payment for all
advertisements in advance. Our man of business holds it as a point of
his faith that work should never be paid for until done.
"WANTED -- The advertisers, being about to commence extensive
business operations in this city, will require the services of three
or four intelligent and competent clerks, to whom a liberal salary
will be paid. The very best recommendations, not so much for
capacity, as for integrity, will be expected. Indeed, as the duties
to be performed involve high responsibilities, and large amounts of
money must necessarily pass through the hands of those engaged, it is
deemed advisable to demand a deposit of fifty dollars from each clerk
employed. No person need apply, therefore, who is not prepared to
leave this sum in the possession of the advertisers, and who cannot
furnish the most satisfactory testimonials of morality. Young
gentlemen piously inclined will be preferred. Application should be
made between the hours of ten and eleven A. M., and four and five P.
M., of Messrs.
"Bogs, Hogs Logs, Frogs & Co.,
"No. 110 Dog Street"
By the thirty-first day of the month, this advertisement has brought
to the office of Messrs. Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and Company, some
fifteen or twenty young gentlemen piously inclined. But our man of
business is in no hurry to conclude a contract with any -- no man of
business is ever precipitate -- and it is not until the most rigid
catechism in respect to the piety of each young gentleman's
inclination, that his services are engaged and his fifty dollars
receipted for, just by way of proper precaution, on the part of the
respectable firm of Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and Company. On the
morning of the first day of the next month, the landlady does not
present her bill, according to promise -- a piece of neglect for
which the comfortable head of the house ending in ogs would no doubt
have chided her severely, could he have been prevailed upon to remain
in town a day or two for that purpose.
As it is, the constables have had a sad time of it, running hither
and thither, and all they can do is to declare the man of business
most emphatically, a "hen knee high" -- by which some persons imagine
them to imply that, in fact, he is n. e. i. -- by which again the
very classical phrase non est inventus, is supposed to be understood.
In the meantime the young gentlemen, one and all, are somewhat less
piously inclined than before, while the landlady purchases a
shilling's worth of the Indian rubber, and very carefully obliterates
the pencil memorandum that some fool has made in her great family
Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE ANGEL OF THE ODD
AN EXTRAVAGANZA.
IT was a chilly November afternoon. I had just consummated an
unusually hearty dinner, of which the dyspeptic _truffe_ formed not
the least important item, and was sitting alone in the dining-room,
with my feet upon the fender, and at my elbow a small table which I
had rolled up to the fire, and upon which were some apologies for
dessert, with some miscellaneous bottles of wine, spirit and
_liqueur_. In the morning I had been reading Glover's "Leonidas,"
Wilkie's "Epigoniad," Lamartine's "Pilgrimage," Barlow's "Columbiad,"
Tuckermann's "Sicily," and Griswold's "Curiosities" ; I am willing
to confess, therefore, that I now felt a little stupid. I made
effort to arouse myself by aid of frequent Lafitte, and, all failing,
I betook myself to a stray newspaper in despair. Having carefully
perused the column of "houses to let," and the column of "dogs lost,"
and then the two columns of "wives and apprentices runaway," I
attacked with great resolution the editorial matter, and, reading it
from beginning to end without understanding a syllable, conceived the
possibility of its being Chinese, and so re-read it from the end to
the beginning, but with no more satisfactory result. I was about
throwing away, in disgust,
"This folio of four pages, happy work
Which not even critics criticise,"
when I felt my attention somewhat aroused by the paragraph which
follows :
"The avenues to death are numerous and strange. A London paper
mentions the decease of a person from a singular cause. He was
playing at 'puff the dart,' which is played with a long needle
inserted in some worsted, and blown at a target through a tin tube.
He placed the needle at the wrong end of the tube, and drawing his
breath strongly to puff the dart forward with force, drew the needle
into his throat. It entered the lungs, and in a few days killed
him."
Upon seeing this I fell into a great rage, without exactly
knowing why. "This thing," I exclaimed, "is a contemptible falsehood
- a poor hoax - the lees of the invention of some pitiable
penny-a-liner - of some wretched concoctor of accidents in Cocaigne.
These fellows, knowing the extravagant gullibility of the age, set
their wits to work in the imagination of improbable possibilities -
of odd accidents, as they term them; but to a reflecting intellect
(like mine," I added, in parenthesis, putting my forefinger
unconsciously to the side of my nose,) "to a contemplative
understanding such as I myself possess, it seems evident at once that
the marvelous increase of late in these 'odd accidents' is by far the
oddest accident of all. For my own part, I intend to believe nothing
henceforward that has anything of the 'singular' about it."
"Mein Gott, den, vat a vool you bees for dat !" replied one of
the most remarkable voices I ever heard. At first I took it for a
rumbling i
n my ears - such as a man sometimes experiences when
getting very drunk - but, upon second thought, I considered the sound
as more nearly resembling that which proceeds from an empty barrel
beaten with a big stick; and, in fact, this I should have concluded
it to be, but for the articulation of the syllables and words. I am
by no means naturally nervous, and the very few glasses of Lafitte
which I had sipped served to embolden me no little, so that I felt
nothing of trepidation, but merely uplifted my eyes with a leisurely
movement, and looked carefully around the room for the intruder. I
could not, however, perceive any one at all.
"Humph !" resumed the voice, as I continued my survey, "you mus
pe so dronk as de pig, den, for not zee me as I zit here at your
zide."
Hereupon I bethought me of looking immediately before my nose,
and there, sure enough, confronting me at the table sat a personage
nondescript, although not altogether indescribable. His body was a
wine-pipe, or a rum-puncheon, or something of that character, and
had a truly Falstaffian air. In its nether extremity were inserted
two kegs, which seemed to answer all the purposes of legs. For arms
there dangled from the upper portion of the carcass two tolerably
long bottles, with the necks outward for hands. All the head that I
saw the monster possessed of was one of those Hessian canteens which
resemble a large snuff-box with a hole in the middle of the lid.
This canteen (with a funnel on its top, like a cavalier cap slouched
over the eyes) was set on edge upon the puncheon, with the hole
toward myself; and through this hole, which seemed puckered up like
the mouth of a very precise old maid, the creature was emitting
certain rumbling and grumbling noises which he evidently intended for
intelligible talk.
"I zay," said he, "you mos pe dronk as de pig, vor zit dare and
not zee me zit ere; and I zay, doo, you mos pe pigger vool as de
goose, vor to dispelief vat iz print in de print. 'Tiz de troof -
dat it iz - eberry vord ob it."
"Who are you, pray ?" said I, with much dignity, although
somewhat puzzled; "how did you get here ? and what is it you are
talking about ?"
"Az vor ow I com'd ere," replied the figure, "dat iz none of your
pizzness; and as vor vat I be talking apout, I be talk apout vat I
tink proper; and as vor who I be, vy dat is de very ting I com'd here
for to let you zee for yourzelf."
"You are a drunken vagabond," said I, "and I shall ring the bell
and order my footman to kick you into the street."
"He ! he ! he !" said the fellow, "hu ! hu ! hu ! dat you
can't do."
"Can't do !" said I, "what do you mean ? - I can't do what ?"
"Ring de pell ;" he replied, attempting a grin with his little
villanous mouth.
Upon this I made an effort to get up, in order to put my threat
into execution; but the ruffian just reached across the table very
deliberately, and hitting me a tap on the forehead with the neck of
one of the long bottles, knocked me back into the arm-chair from
which I had half arisen. I was utterly astounded; and, for a moment,
was quite at a loss what to do. In the meantime, he continued his
talk.
"You zee," said he, "it iz te bess vor zit still; and now you
shall know who I pe. Look at me ! zee ! I am te _Angel ov te
Odd_."
"And odd enough, too," I ventured to reply; "but I was always
under the impression that an angel had wings."
"Te wing !" he cried, highly incensed, "vat I pe do mit te wing
? Mein Gott ! do you take me vor a shicken ?"
"No - oh no !" I replied, much alarmed, "you are no chicken -
certainly not."
"Well, den, zit still and pehabe yourself, or I'll rap you again
mid me vist. It iz te shicken ab te wing, und te owl ab te wing, und
te imp ab te wing, und te head-teuffel ab te wing. Te angel ab _not_
te wing, and I am te _Angel ov te Odd_."
"And your business with me at present is - is" -
"My pizzness !" ejaculated the thing, "vy vat a low bred buppy
you mos pe vor to ask a gentleman und an angel apout his pizziness !"
This language was rather more than I could bear, even from an
angel; so, plucking up courage, I seized a salt-cellar which lay
within reach, and hurled it at the head of the intruder. Either he
dodged, however, or my aim was inaccurate; for all I accomplished was
the demolition of the crystal which protected the dial of the clock
upon the mantel-piece. As for the Angel, he evinced his sense of my
assault by giving me two or three hard consecutive raps upon the
forehead as before. These reduced me at once to submission, and I am
almost ashamed to confess that either through pain or vexation, there
came a few tears into my eyes.
"Mein Gott !" said the Angel of the Odd, apparently much softened
at my distress; "mein Gott, te man is eder ferry dronk or ferry
zorry. You mos not trink it so strong - you mos put te water in te
wine. Here, trink dis, like a goot veller, und don't gry now - don't
!"
Hereupon the Angel of the Odd replenished my goblet (which was
about a third full of Port) with a colorless fluid that he poured
from one of his hand bottles. I observed that these bottles had
labels about their necks, and that these labels were inscribed
"Kirschenwasser."
The considerate kindness of the Angel mollified me in no little
measure; and, aided by the water with which he diluted my Port more
than once, I at length regained sufficient temper to listen to his
very extraordinary discourse. I cannot pretend to recount all that
he told me, but I gleaned from what he said that he was the genius
who presided over the _contretemps_ of mankind, and whose business it
was to bring about the _odd accidents_ which are continually
astonishing the skeptic. Once or twice, upon my venturing to express
my total incredulity in respect to his pretensions, he grew very
angry indeed, so that at length I considered it the wiser policy to
say nothing at all, and let him have his own way. He talked on,
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 126