III. THE SUNNY SOUTH
We were betrothed, Saccharissa Mellasys and I.
In vain did Mellasys Plickaman glower along the corridors of the Millard. I pitied him for his defeat too much to notice his attempts to pick a quarrel. Firm in the affection of my Saccharissa and in the confidence of her father, I waived the insults of the aggrieved and truculent cousin. He had lost the heiress. I had won her. I could afford to be generous.
We were to be married in December, at Bayou La Farouche. Then we were to sail at once for Europe. Then, after a proud progress through the principal courts, we were to return and inhabit a stately mansion in New York. How the heart of my Saccharissa throbbed at the thought of bearing the elevated name of Chylde and being admitted to the sacred circles of fashion, as peer of the most elevated in social position!
I found no difficulty in getting a liberal credit from my tailor. Upon the mere mention of my engagement, that worthy artist not only provided me with an abundant supply of raiment, but, with a most charming delicacy, placed bank-notes for a considerable amount in the pockets of my new trousers. I was greatly touched by this attention, and very gladly signed an acknowledgment of debt.
I regret, that, owing to circumstances hereafter to be mentioned, the diary kept jointly by Saccharissa and myself during our journey to the sunny South has passed out of my possession. Its pages overflowed with tenderness. How beautiful were our dreams of the balls and soirées we were to give! How we discussed the style of our furniture, our carriage, and our coachman! How I fed Saccharissa's soul with adulation! She was ugly, she was vulgar, she was jealous, she was base, she had had flirtations of an intimate character with scores; but she was rich, and I made great allowances.
At last we arrived at Bayou La Farouche.
I cannot state that the locality is an attractive one. Its land scenery is composed of alligators and mud in nearly equal proportions.
I never beheld there my fancy realized of a band of gleeful negroes hoeing cane to the music of the banjo. There are no wild bandanna-trees, and no tame ones, either. The slaves of Mr. Mellasys never danced, except under the whip of a very noisome person who acted as overseer. There were no sleek and sprightly negresses in gay turbans, and no iced eau sucré. Canaan was cursed with religious rigor on the Mellasys plantation at Bayou La Farouche.
All this time Mellasys Plickaman had been my bête noir.
I know nothing of politics. Were our country properly constituted, I should be in the House of Peers. The Chylde family is of sublime antiquity, and I am its head in America. But, alas! we have no hereditary legislators; and though I feel myself competent to wear the strawberry-leaves, or even to sit upon a throne, I have not been willing to submit to the unsavory contacts of American political life. Mr. Mellasys Plickaman took advantage of my ignorance.
When several gentlemen of the neighborhood were calling upon me in the absence of Mr. Mellasys, my defeated rival introduced the subject of politics.
"I suppose you are a good Democrat, Mr. Chylde?" said one of the strangers.
"No, I thank you," replied I, sportively,—meaning, of course, that they should understand I was a good Aristocrat.
"Who's your man for President?" my interlocutor continued, rather roughly.
I had heard in conversation, without giving the fact much attention, that an election for President was to take place in a few days. These struggles of commonplace individuals for the privilege of residing in a vulgar town like Washington were without interest to me. So I answered,—
"Oh, any of them. They are all alike to me."
"You don't mean to say," here another of the party loudly broke in, "that Breckenridge and Lincoln are the same to you?"
The young man wore long hair and a black dress-coat, though it was morning. His voice was nasal, and his manner intrusive. I crushed him with a languid "Yes." He was evidently abashed, and covered his confusion by lighting a cigar and smoking it with the lighted end in his mouth. This is a habit of many persons in the South, who hence are called Fire-Eaters.
Mellasys Plickaman here changed the subject to horses, which I do understand, and my visitors presently departed.
"How happily the days of Thalaba went by!"
as the poet has it. My Saccharissa and myself are both persons of a romantic and dreamy nature. Often for hours we would sit and gaze upon each other with only occasional interjections,—"How warm!" "How sleepy!" "Is it not almost time for lunch?" As Saccharissa was not in herself a beautiful object, I accustomed myself to see her merely as a representative of value. Her yellowish complexion helped me in imagining her, as it were, a golden image which might be cut up and melted down. I used to fancy her dresses as made of certificates of stock, and her ribbons as strips of coupons. Thus she was always an agreeable spectacle.
So time flew, and the sun of the sixth of November gleamed across the scaly backs of the alligators of Bayou La Farouche.
In three days I was to be made happy with the possession of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) on the nail,—excuse the homely expression,—great expectations for the future, and the hand of my Saccharissa.
For these I exchanged the name and social position of a Chylde, and my own, I trust, not unattractive person.
I deemed that I gave myself away dirt-cheap,—excuse again the colloquialism; the transaction seems to require such a phrase,—for there is no doubt that Mr. Mellasys was greatly objectionable. It was certainly very illogical; but his neighbors who owned slaves insisted upon turning up their noses at Mellasys, because he still kept up his slave-pen on Touchpitchalas Street, New Orleans. Besides,—and here again the want of logic seems to culminate into rank absurdity,—he was viewed with a purely sentimental abhorrence by some, because he had precluded a reclaimed fugitive from repeating his evasion by roasting the soles of his feet before a fire until the fellow actually died. The fact, of coarse, was unpleasant, and the loss considerable,—a prime field-hand, with some knowledge of carpentry and a good performer on the violin,—but evasions must be checked, and I cannot see why Mr. Mellasys's method was too severe. Mr. Mellasys was also considered a very unscrupulous person in financial transactions,—indeed, what would be named in some communities a swindler; and I have heard it whispered that the estimable, but somewhat obese and drowsy person who passed as his wife was not a wife, ceremonially speaking. The dusky hues of her complexion were also attributed to an infusion of African blood. There was certainly more curl in her hair than I could have wished; and Saccharissa's wiggy looks waged an irrepressible conflict with the unguents which strove to reduce their crispness.
Indeed, why should I not be candid? Mellasys per se was a pill, Mrs. Mellasys was a dose, and Saccharissa a bolus, to one of my refined and sensitive taste.
But the sugar coated them.
To marry the daughter of the great sugar-planter of Louisiana I would have taken medicines far more unpalatable and assafoetidesque than any thus far offered.
Meanwhile Mr. Mellasys Plickaman, cousin of my betrothed, had changed his tactics and treated me with civility and confidence. We drank together freely, sometimes to the point of inebriation. Indeed, unless he put me to bed, on the evening before the day of the events I am about to describe, I do not know how I got there.
Morning dawned on the sixth of November.
I was awakened, as usual, by the outcries of the refractory negroes receiving their matinal stripes in the whipping-house. Feeling a little languid and tame, I strolled down to witness the spectacle.
It stimulated me quite agreeably. The African cannot avoid being comic. He is the grotesque element in our civilization. He will be droll even under the severest punishment. His contortions of body, his grimaces, his ejaculations of "O Lor'! O Massa!" as the paddle or the lash strikes his flesh, are laughable in the extreme.
I witnessed the flagellation of several pieces of property of either sex. The sight of their beating had the effect of a gentle tickling upon me. The tone of my system was restored. I grew gay and lightsome. I exchanged jokes with the overseer. He appreciated my mood, and gave a farcical turn to the incidents of the occasion.
I enjoyed my breakfast enormously. Saccharissa never looked so sweet; Mr. Mellasys never so little like—pardon the expression—a cross between a hog and a hyena; and I began to fancy that my mother-in-law's general flabbiness of flesh and drapery was not so very offensive.
After breakfast, Mr. Mellasys left us. It was, he said, the day of the election for President. How wretched that America should not be governed by hereditary sovereigns and an order of nobles trained to control!
The day passed. It was afternoon, and I sat reading one of the novels of my favorite De Balzac to my Saccharissa. At the same time my imagination, following the author, strayed to Paris, and recalled to me my bachelor joys in that gay capital. I resolved to repeat them again, on our arrival there, at my bride's expense. How charming to possess a hundred thousand dollars, ($100,000,) even burdened with a wife!
My reading and my reverie were interrupted by the tramp of horses without. Six persons in dress-coats rode up, dismounted, and approached. All were smoking cigars with the lighted ends in their mouths. Mellasys Plickaman led the party. I recognized also the persons who had questioned me as to my politics. They entered the apartment where I sat alone with Saccharissa.
"Thar he is!" said Mellasys Plickaman. "Thar is the d—d Abolitionist!"
Seeing that he indicated me, and that his voice was truculent, I looked to my betrothed for protection. She burst into tears and drew a handkerchief.
An odor of musk combated for an instant with the whiskey reek diffused by Mr. Plickaman and his companions. The balmy odor was, however, quelled by the ruder scent.
"I am surprised, Mr. Plickaman," said I, mildly, but conscious of tremors, "at your use of opprobrious epithets in the presence of a lady."
"Oh, you be blowed!" returned he, with unpardonable rudeness. "You can't skulk behind Saccharissy."
"To what is this change in tone and demeanor owing, Sir?" I asked, with dignity.
"Don't take on airs, you little squirt!" said he.
It will be observed that I quote his very language. His intention was evidently insulting.
"Mr. Chylde," remarked Judge Pyke, one of the gentlemen who had been inquisitive as to my political sentiments, "The Vigilance Committee of Fire-Eaters of Bayou La Farouche have come to the conclusion that you are a spy, an Abolitionist, and a friend of Beecher and Phillips. We intend to give you a fair trial; but I may as well state that we have all made up our minds as to the law, the facts, and the sentence. Therefore, prepare for justice. Colonel Plickaman, have you given directions about the tar?"
"It'll be b'ilin' in about eight minutes," replied my quondam rival, with a boo-hoo of vulgar laughter.
"Culprit!" said Judge Pyke, looking at me with a truly terrible expression, "I have myself heard you avow, with insolent audacity, that you were not a Democrat. Do you not know, Sir, that nothing but Democrats are allowed to breathe the zephyrs of Louisiana? Silence, culprit! Not a word! The court cannot be interrupted. I have also heard you state that the immortal Breckenridge, Kentucky's favorite son, was the same to you as the tiger Lincoln, the deadly foe of Southern institutions. Silence, culprit!"
Here Saccharissa moaned, and wafted a slight flavor of musk to me from her cambric wet with tears.
"Colonel Plickaman," continued the Judge, "produce the letters and papers of the culprit."
I am aware that a rival has rights, and that a defeated suitor may, according to the code, calumniate and slander the more fortunate one. I have done so myself. But it seems to me that there should be limits; and I cannot but think that Mr. Mellasys Plickaman overstepped the limits of fair play, when he took advantage of my last night's inebriety to possess himself of my journal and letters. I will not, however, absolutely commit myself on this point. Perhaps everything is fair in love. Perhaps I may desire to avail myself of the same privilege in future.
I had spoken quite freely in my journal of the barbarians of Bayou La Farouche. Each of the gentlemen now acting upon my jury was alluded to.
Colonel Plickaman read each passage in a pointed way, interjecting,—"Do you hear that, Billy Sangaree?" "How do you like yourself now, Major Licklickin?" "Here's something about your white cravat, Parson Butterfut."
The delicacy and wit of my touches of character chafed these gentlemen.
Their aspect became truly formidable.
Meantime I began to perceive an odor which forcibly recalled to me the asphaltum-kettles of the lively Boulevards of Paris.
"Wait awhile, Fire-Eaters," said Plickaman, "the tar isn't quite ready yet."
The tar! What had that viscous and unfragrant material to do with the present interview?
"I won't read you what he says of me," resumed the Colonel.
"Yes,—out with it!" exclaimed all.
Suffice it to say that I had spoken of Mr. Mellasys Plickaman as a person so very ill-dressed, so very lavish in expectoration, so entirely destitute of the arts and graces of the higher civilization, merited. His companions required that he should read his own character. He did so. I need not say that I was suffering extremities of apprehension all this time; but still I could not refrain from a slight sympathetic smile of triumph as the others roared with laughter at my accurate analysis of my rival.
"You'll pay for this, Mr. A. Bratley Chylde!" says Plickaman.
So long as my Saccharissa was on my side, I felt no special fear of what my foes might do. I knew the devoted nature of the female sex. "Elles meurent, ou elles s'attachent,"—beautiful thought! These riflers of journals would, I felt confident, be unable to produce anything reflecting my real sentiments about my betrothed. I had spoken of her and her family freely—one must have a vent somewhere—to Mr. Derby Deblore, my other self, my Pylades, my Damon, my fidus Achades in New York; but, unless they found Derby and compelled him to testify, they could not alienate my Saccharissa.
I gave her a touching glance, as Mellasys Plickaman closed his reading of my private papers.
She gave me a touching glance,—or rather, a glance which her amorphous features meant to make touching,—and, waving musk from her handkerchief through the apartment, cried,—
"Never mind, Arthur dear! I don't like you a bit the less for saying what barbarous creatures these men are. They may do what they please,—I'll stand by you. You have my heart, my warm Southern heart, my Arthur!"
"Arthur!" shouted that atrocious Plickaman,—"the loafer's name's Aminadab, after that old Jew, his grandfather."
Saccharissa looked at him and smiled contemptuously.
I tried to smile. I could not. Aminadab was my name. That old dotard, my grandfather, had borne it before me. I had suppressed it carefully.
"Aminadab's his name," repeated the Colonel. "His own mother ought to know what he was baptized, and here is a letter from her which the postmaster and I opened this morning. Look!—'My dear Aminadab.'"
"Don't believe it, Saccharissa," said I, faintly, "It is only one of those tender nicknames, relics of childhood, which the maternal parent alone remembers."
"Silence, culprit!" exclaimed Judge Pyke. "And now, Colonel, read the letter upon which our sentence is principally based,—that traitorous document which you and our patriotic postmaster arrested."
The ruffian, with a triumphant glance at me, took from his pocket a letter from Derby Deblore. He cleared his throat by a plenteous expectoration, and then proceeded to read as follows:—
"Dear Bratley,—Nigger ran like a hound. Marshall and the rest only saw his heels. I'm going on to Toronto to see how he does there. Keep your eyes peeled, when you come through Kentucky. There's more of the same stock there, only waiting for somebody to say, 'Leg it!' and they'll go like mad."
Here the audience interrupted,—"Hang him! hang him! tar and feathers a'n't half bad enough for the dam' nigger-thief!"
I began to comprehend Deblore's innocent reference to his favorite horse Nigger; and a successful race he had made with the well-known racer Marshall—not Rynders—was construed by my jury into a knowledge on my part of the operations of the "Underground Railroad." What could have been more absurd? I endeavored to protest. I endeavored to show them, on general and personal grounds, how utterly devoted I was to the "Peculiar Institution."
"Billy Sangaree," said Judge Pyke, "do you and Major Licklickin stand by the low-lived Abolitionist, and if he says another word, blow out his Black Republican heart."
They did so. I was silent. Saccharissa gave me a glance expressive of continued devotion. So long as I kept her and her hundred thousand dollars, ($100,000,) I little cared for the assaults of these noisy and ill-bred persons.
"Continue, Colonel," said Judge Pyke, severely.
Plickaman resumed the reading of my friend's letter.
"Well, Bratley," Deblore went on, "I hope you'll be able to stand Bayou La Farouche till you're married. I couldn't do it. I roar over your letters. But I swear I respect your powers of humbug. I suppose, if you didn't let out to me, you never could lie so to your dear Saccharissa. Do you know I think you are a little too severe in calling her a mean, spiteful, slipshod, vulgar, dumpy little flirt?"
"Read that again!" shrieked Saccharissa.
"You are beginning to find out your Aminadab!" says Plickaman.
I moved my lips to deny my name; but the pistol of Billy Sangaree was at my right temple, the pistol of Major Licklickin at my left. I was silent, and bore the scornful looks of my persecutors with patience and dignity.
Plickaman repeated the sentence.
"But hear the rest," said he, and read on:—
"From what you say of her tinge of African blood and other charming traits, I have constructed this portrait of the future Mrs. Bratley Chylde, as the Hottentot Venus. Behold it!"
And Mellasys held up a highly colored caricature, covering one whole side of my friend's sheet.
Saccharissa rose from the sofa where she had been sitting during the whole of my trial.
She stood before me,—really I cannot deny it,—a little, ugly, vulgar figure, overloaded with finery, and her laces and ribbons trembled with rage.
She seemed not to be able to speak, and, by way of relieving herself of her overcharge of wrath, smote me several times on either ear with that pudgy hand I had so often pressed in mine or tenderly kissed.
At this exhibition of a resentment I can hardly deem feminine, the Fire-Eaters roared with laughter and cheered her to continue. A circle of negroes also, at the window, expressed their amusement at the scene in the guttural manner of their race.
I could not refrain from tears at these unhappy exhibitions on the part of my betrothed. They augured ill for the harmony of our married life.
"Hit him again, Rissy! he's got no friends," that vulgar Plickaman urged.
She again advanced, seized me by the hair, and shook me with greater muscular force than I should have expected of one of her indolent habits. Delicacy for her sex of course forbade my offering resistance; and besides, there were my two sentries, roaring with vulgar laughter, but holding their pistols with a most unpleasant accuracy of aim at my head.
"Saccharissa, my love," I ventured to say, in a pleading tone, "these momentary ebullitions of a transitory rage will give the bystanders unfavorable impressions of your temper."
"You horrid little wretch!" she screeched, "you sneak! you irreligious infidel! you Black Republican! you Aminadab!"–
Here her unnecessary passion choked her, and she took advantage of the pause to handle my hair with extreme violence. The sensation was unpleasant, but I began to hope that no worse would befall me, and I knew that with a few dulcet words in private I could remove from Saccharissa's mind the asperity induced by my friend's caricature.
"I leave it to you, gentlemen," said she, "whether I am vulgar, as this fellow's correspondence asserts."
"Certainly not," said Judge Pyke. "You are one of the most high-toned beauties in the sunny South, the land of the magnolia and the papaw."
"Your dignity," said Major Licklickin, "is only surpassed by your grace, and both by your queenly calmness."
The others also gave her the best compliments they could, poor fellows!
I could have taught them what to say.
Here a grinning negro interrupted with,—
"De tar-kittle's a b'ilin' on de keen jump, Mas'r Mellasys."
"Gentlemen of the Jury," said Judge Pyke, "as you had agreed upon your verdict before the trial, it is not requisite that you should retire to consult. Prisoner at the Bar, rise to receive sentence."
I thought it judicious to fall upon my knees and request forgiveness; but my persecutors were blinded by what no doubt seemed to them a religious zeal.
"Git up!" said Major Licklickin; and I am ashamed, for his sake, to say that there was an application of boot accompanying this remark.
"Prisoner," continued my Rhadamanthus, "you have had a fair trial, and you are found guilty on all the counts of the indictment. First: Of disloyalty to the South. Second: Of indifference to the Democratic candidate for the Presidency. Third: Of maligning the character of Southern patriots in a book intended, no doubt, for universal circulation through the Northern States. Fourth: Of holding correspondence with an agent of the Underground Railroad, who, as he himself avows, has recently run off a nigger to Toronto.—Silence, Sir! Choke him, Billy Sangaree, if he says a word!—Fifth: Of defaming a Southern lady, while at the same time you were endeavoring to win her most attractive property and person from those who should naturally acquire them. Sixth: Of Agrarianism, Abolitionism, Atheism, and Infidelity. Prisoner at the Bar, your sentence is, that you be tarred and cottoned and leave the State. If you are caught again, you will be hung by the neck, and Henry Ward Beecher have mercy on your soul!"
I was now marched along by my two sentries to a huge tree, not of the bandanna species. Beneath it a sugar-kettle filled with ebullient tar was standing.
My persecutors, with tranquil brutality, proceeded to disrobe me. As my nether garments were removed, Mellasys Plickaman succeeded in persuading Saccharissa to retire. She, however, took her station at a window and peered through the blinds at the spectacle. I do not envy her sensations. All her bright visions of fashionable life were destroyed forever. She would now fall into the society from which I had endeavored to lift her. Poor thing! knowing, too, that I, and my friend Derby Deblore, perhaps the most elegant young man in America, regarded her as a Hottentot Venus. Poor thing! I have no doubt that she longed to rush out, fling herself at my feet, and pray me to forgive her and reconsider my verdict of dumpiness and vulgarity.
Meantime I had been reduced to my shirt and drawers,—excuse the nudity of my style in stating this fact. Mellasys Plickaman took a ladle-full of the viscous fluid and poured it over my head.
"Aminadab," said he, "I baptize thee!"
I have experienced few sensations more unpleasant than this application. The tar descended in warm and sluggish streams, trickling over my forehead, dropping from my eyelids, rolling over my cheeks, sealing my mouth, gluing my ears to my skull, identifying itself with my hair, pursuing the path indicated by my spine beneath my shirt,—in short, enveloping me with a close-fitting armor of a glutinous and most unsavory material.
Each of the jury followed the example of my detested rival. In a few moments the tarring was complete. Few can see themselves mentally or physically as others see them; but, judging from the remarks made, I am convinced that I must have afforded an entertaining spectacle to the party. They roared with laughter, and jeered me. I, however, preserved a silence discreet, and, I flatter myself, dignified.
The negroes, particularly those at whose fustigation I had assisted in the morning, joined in the scoffs of their masters, calling me Bobolitionist, Black Republican, Liberator, and other nicknames by which these simple-hearted and contented creatures express dislike and distrust.
"Bring the cotton!" now cried Mellasys Plickaman.
A bag of that regal product was brought.
"Roll him in it!" said Billy Sangaree.
"Let the Colonel work his own tricks," Major Licklickin said. "He's an artist, he is."
I must admit that he was an artist. He fabricated me an elaborate wig of the cotton. He arranged me a pair of bushy white eyebrows. He stuck a venerable beard upon my chin, and a moustache upon my lip. Then he proceeded to indicate my ribs with lines of cotton, and to cap my shoulders with epaulets. It would be long to describe the fantastic tricks he played with me amid the loud laughter of his crew.
Occasionally, also, I heard suppressed giggles from Saccharissa at the window.
I have no doubt that I should have strangled my late fiancée, if such an act had been consistent with my personal safety.
When I was completely cottoned, in the decorative manner I have described, Mellasys took a banjo from an old negro, and, striking it, not without a certain unsophisticated and barbaric grace appropriate to the instrument, commanded me to dance.
I essayed to do so. But my heart was heavy; consequently my heels were not light. My faint attempts at pirouettes were not satisfactory.
"Dance jollier, or we'll hang you," said Plickaman.
"No," says Judge Pyke,—"the sentence of the Court has been executed.
In the sacred name of Justice I protest against proceeding farther.
Culprit," continued he, in a voice of thunder, "cut for the North Star, and here's passage-money for you."
He stuck a half-eagle into the tarry integument of my person. Billy Sangaree, Major Licklickin, and others of the more inebriated, imitated him. My dignity of bearing had evidently made a favorable impression.
I departed amid cheers, some ironical, some no doubt sincere. But to the last, these chivalric, but prejudiced and misguided gentlemen declined to listen to my explanations. Mellasys Plickaman had completely perverted their judgments against me.
The last object I saw was Saccharissa, looking more like a Hottentot Venus than ever, waving her handkerchief and kissing her hand to me. Did she repent her brief disloyalty? For a moment I thought so, and resolved to lie in wait, return by night, and urge her to fly with me. But while I hesitated, Mellasys Plickaman drew near her. She threw herself into his arms, and there, before all the Committee of Fire-Eaters of Bayou La Farouche, she kissed him with those amorphous lips I had often compelled myself to taste. Faugh!
I deemed this scene a token that my engagement was absolutely terminated.
There was no longer any reason why I should degrade myself by remaining in this vulgar society. I withdrew into the thickets of the adjoining wood and there for a time abandoned myself to melancholy reminiscences.
Presently I heard footsteps. I turned and saw a black approaching, bearing the homely viand known as corn-dodger. He offered it. I accepted it as a tribute from the inferior race to the superior.
I recognized him as one whose fustigation had so revived my crapulous spirits in the morning. He seemed to bear no malice. Malignity is perhaps a mark of more highly developed character. I, for example, possess it to a considerable degree.
The black led me to a lair in the wood. He took my half-eagles from my tar. He scraped and cleansed me by simple methods of which he had the secret. He clothed me in rude garments. Gunny-bag was, I think, the material. He gave me his own shoes. The heels were elongated; but this we remedied by a stuffing of leaves. He conducted me toward the banks of Bayou La Farouche.
On our way, we were compelled to pass not far from the Mellasys mansion. There was a sound of revelry. It was night. I crept cautiously up and peered into the window.
There stood the Reverend Onesimus Butterfut, since a prominent candidate for the archbishopric of the Southern Confederacy. Saccharissa, more over-dressed than usual, and her cousin Mellasys Plickaman, somewhat unsteady with inebriation, stood before him. He was pronouncing them man and wife,—why not ogre and hag?
How fortunate was my escape!
As my negro guide would not listen to my proposal to set the Mellasys establishment on fire while the inmates slept, I followed him to the banks of the Bayou. He provided me with abundant store of the homely food already alluded to. He launched me in a vessel; known to some as a dug-out, to some as a gundalow. His devotion was really touching. It convinced me more profoundly than ever of the canine fidelity and semi-animal characteristics of his race.
I floated down the Bayou. I was picked up by a cotton-ship in the Gulf.
I officiated as assistant to the cook on the homeward voyage.
At the urgent solicitation of my mother, I condescended, on my return, to accept a situation in my Uncle Bratley's cracker-bakery. The business is not aristocratic. But what business is? I cannot draw the line between the baker of hard tack—such is the familiar term we employ—and the seller of the material for our product, by the barrel or the cargo. From the point of view of a Chylde, all avocations for the making of money seem degrading, and only the spending is dignified.
As my conduct during the Mellasys affair has been maligned and scoffed at by persons of crude views of what is comme il faut, I have drawn up this statement, confident that it will justify me to all of my order, which I need not state is distinctively that of the Aristocrat and the Gentleman.