SOME SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A FASTIDIOUS MAN, "Il n'y a point d'homme qui n'ait son foible." CHAPTER I. Dedicated to the Inmates of all Boarding-Houses in Country Places. It was the night of the first day of my enlargement from the humdrum monotony of the great city, and of my pilgrimage among the uplands in quest of quiet contentment and cow's milk. The "entertainment for man and horse" so impressively displayed before the hostel of Socrates Nubbins, was such as the traveller receives in the majority of Maryland country taverns,—the everlasting bacon and eggs,-alternated only by bacon without eggs,-a most questionable description of coffee, brown sugar and tallow. Socrates Nubbins represented a class of bipeds, common in Maryland, in the piny regions of Ohio, and in the sandy districts of New Jersey. He was small in most respects, wriggling and fidgety; wore drab colored clothes and flimsy hair of the same complexion; had a dry, yellow ochreous looking skin; light, very light, blue eyes, and a voice of scrannel harsh ness. "Where's the Captain?" demanded Socrates, after seating himself at the supper table. "Tell the Captain that supper 's waitin'," addressing a mangy looking negress near the door. This command produced a perceptible emotion in the faces of two or three of the junior Nubbins-1 wherewith he regarded Socrates Nubbins, as he for all the children did me the honor of eating with replied:-" Prodigal purveyor of vulgar proverbs; me-particularly in that of master Lenox Ireneus prodigal, because they cost you nothing! As the Nubbins, a five or six-year-old, who sat on my left. old saying is? eh?" He went on with a fine and The captain's name, indeed, seemed to fill the swelling energy, "you furnish us with all that is breast of this tender juvenile with apprehension for old,' stale and abominable; and a fresh sentiment a moment, but he quickly rallied and commenced from your lips, it were as vain to expect as fresh filling his mouth with so commendable an energy meat on your table. Did you not promise to have as bid fair to strike a speedy balance in favor of me a beef-steak this evening? Am I to be poisoned his comfort. with lard and pork at five dollars a week? Do you intend me to shoot forth a garment of bristles and become one of the swinish multitude?" And dropping his knife and fork, he leant back pale and trembling with passion. "Will you stop cramming yourself, Lenox Ireneus, until the Captain comes? D'ye hear me? The lord bless the child! he'll surely choak himself." The youngster, however, had capital powers of deglutition, and did not "choak," but persisted in cramming himself with great philosophical steadiness, while I was beginning to wish the whole family, Captain included, at the bottom of the sea. 'Who is this Captain, pray?" I ventured to ask, while resolutely helping myself to the bacon and eggs. 66 66 Captain Pringle, sir," answered mine host, with ill-concealed chagrin at my not waiting for the absent gentleman, "Captain Pringle, sir, of the army, sir," with a singular kind of a-hem! "Will you have a bit of the white, sir?" he added, on seeing that I would eat, and holding up on his fork a slice of middling about fifty-four degrees and forty minutes broad. "I prefer a bit of the red, sir," said I in the same facetious vein, and endeavoring to hide my disgust. "Ah! you're like the Captain in that respect. But there's my son, George Washington,” But at that moment the door opened. "Ah, Captain!" vociferated Socrates, with that familiar air your half and-half people affect toward their betters, "We're waitin, for you, ha!" The Captain" strode hastily forward and sat down, without looking to the right or left. He was about thirty years of age, of slight and elegant form, dark complexion, irascible temperament, as displayed both by eye and lip, and of a depressed and scowling brow, the latter occasioned probably by the coarse familiarity of the landlord's address. Lenox Ireneus turned pale, his eyes became unnaturally distended, his jaws suspended their motion for a moment, but only for a moment, while an oppressive silence supervened. 66 I thought, Captain, you was fond of a cutlash— a nice, tender bit of cutlash. If you are say so now, for it's goin' to be killed in the mornin'. The calf's a fine little two-year-old," deprecatingly concluded Socrates, while the moisture oozed from his brick-colored forehead. "A cutlet! a nice, tender bit of cutlet' off a two-year-old!' to be garnished with the horns and hoofs, I suppose. So you intend to drive me mad?" "Who? me? ho! ho! no, no: lord bless me, no," returned Socrates with a desperate effort at cachination and winking significantly at me, as much as to say, "the Captain's too crazy ever to be otherwise than mad." White," thought I, he would say if he dared; but he gave no name to the enormous lump of oleaginous matter, now poised on the end of his fork and inclined towards the Captain. I shall not easily forget the look and attitude of the man of war at that moment. While Socrates with a hesitating, yet legible "wont-you-eat-some"It's better, however, to be at the latter end of of-this" expression of countenance, was ready to a feast than the beginning of a fight, as the old say-disburthen his fork on the plate of the Captain, the ing is; eh, Captain ?" ventured Socrates, for the latter hastily covered his plate with his left hand, manifest purpose of re-assuring himself by the while with the right he grasped his knife, and setsound of his own voice. ting his teeth fiercely and defyingly, gazed alternately at the dab of pork and at Socrates, with a do-if-you-dare" look written in every feature. This "old saying." I fancied, was any thing but palatable to the military bias of the Captain, who, like all men of war, might be supposed to prefer the "beginning of a fight" to any thing else; and I was right, for I shall never forget the annihilating scowl 66 "Why will you continue to provoke me with your abominations?" at last he uttered, struggling to suppress his choler. Have I not already 66 66 spoken to you of this? That fork, now, I saw you |sibles, and pathetically descanting on the vulgarity this moment take from your mouth. Have I not of the times. furnished you, at my own expense, with a knife and fork to carve with? Why do you not use them? Is it because you endeavored to eat with them, too, but finding them unwieldy you threw them aside? Have you no feeling of shame within you to restrain you from impropriety so revolting?" And, at length, he began to help himself to some bacon and eggs. "However your utterance of a proverb would seem to contradict it," replied the Captain, steadily regarding me for several seconds, yet your appreciation of the sentiment it conveys, proves you a gentleman." At this moment, George Washington, incited either by the ridiculous expression of his parent's countenance, the irritability of the Captain, or some transient feeling of gastronomic complacency, delivered himself of a hemi-snigger. "You will allow me to remark, sir, that I am not in the habit of permitting any gentleman to question that matter, said I," something nettled by the character of his look. “And yet I tell you that it is a character oftener assumed than either merited or understood." "Sir?" said I, not exactly understanding the bearing of this asseveration. "You had better not, my young savage," I mentally ejaculated, for I sympathized with the Captain in spite of myself. "Were I only," continued 1, in the same voiceless manner, "to inform the Captain here how you defiled that same dish of eggs and bacon before he sat down!" And I felt now that the Captain was a much abused man. Just at that moment, Lenox Ireneus, who had been all along stuffing himself with exemplary energy, and had been seated quite close on the Captain's right, so evidently excited the disgust of that gentleman, that he endeavored to cut himself loose from the neighborhood, but in forcing back may be an expressive, is certainly not a very clashis chair, in his alarmed haste, he seized hold of sical word. You make, however, a distinction the table-cloth, thereby drawing down on himself, beside the wrath of the Captain, sundry cups and plates with their contents. The Captain's coffee, which was still piping hot, was capsized into the lap of the exasperated officer. Lenox Ireneus squalled and ran for it, the Captain stormed and capered about like a dancing Dervish, I retained my usual stoical calmness, Socrates executed a gurgling description of noise in his throat, while George Washington sang out a loud overwhelming peal of laughter. But George Washington's triumph was brief, for the Captain, now fairly white with rage, seized hold of the butter-plate- one of the few things the table-cloth had retained on it, and hurled it with such violence at his head as to shiver the plate and leave its contents glued to the left side of George Washington's face, in such a way as to fill up the cavity of the eye as effectually as a trowel-full of mortar would shut up a rat hole. "Wealth cannot confer it; neither can birth nor courage." "What?" said I, " neither birth nor courage ?" "Certainly not," was the reply. "Some years ago, when in England, and on a hunting excursion with the Earl of Scamperdown, I was challenged by him to fight a duel because I declined putting his brandy flask to my lips after he had drunk from it." "It would have been more graceful in him had he given you the first swig at the flask." "You will excuse me, sir, but 'swig,' though it CHAPTER 11. without a difference. Had I, after first drinking from the flask, presented it to his lips, I would have acted precisely as would Socrates Nubbins; and had his lordship drunk from it, after me, he would have acted in a manner equally unbecoming a gentleman." "But you certainly did not place the Earl of Scamperdown in the same category you would Socrates Nubbins, did the latter think proper to challenge you?" 66 Quoad hoc, sir, Socrates and he were even: and although I could not easily reconcile the discrepancy, I gave him the meeting. We fought, sir, for I prevailed on myself to yield that deference to his rank, which, as a gentleman, he had forfeited." "It is very odd," said I, musingly, "but did you kill him?" ་ No; but what is odd ?"" "That a duel should spring from such a matter," I answered; and then continued, "Had you, now, declined the flask on some other plea-of dislike, for instance, to the nature of the. beverage." 66 What, sir?" he retorted with an expression of Cautionary to the Extensive Family of the Vulga- eye that was truly terrible. "I was fond of brandy, garians. **Cleanliness is akin to godliness,"" said I, after retiring to the parlor in company with the Captain, who now stood before the fire drying his inexpres and would you have had me to lie for fear of con- |