[There was silence for a brief space, after my somewhat elaborate exposition of these self-evident analogies.Presently A PERSONturned towards me - I do not choose to designate the individual -and said that he rather expected my pieces had given pretty good "sahtisfahction." - I had, up to this moment, considered this complimentary phrase as sacred to the use of secretaries of lyceums, and, as it has been usually accompanied by a small pecuniary testimonial, have acquired a certain relish for this moderately tepid and unstimulating expression of enthusiasm.But as a reward for gratuitous services, I confess I thought it a little below that blood-heat standard which a man's breath ought to have, whether silent, or vocal and articulate.I waited for a favorable opportunity, however, before making the remarks which follow.]
- There are single expressions, as I have told you already, that fix a man's position for you before you have done shaking hands with him.Allow me to expand a little.There are several things, very slight in themselves, yet implying other things not so unimportant.Thus, your French servant has DEVALISE your premises and got caught.EXCUSEZ, says the SERGENT-DE-VILLE, as he politely relieves him of his upper garments and displays his bust in the full daylight.Good shoulders enough, - a little marked, - traces of smallpox, perhaps, - but white.....CRAC! from the SERGENT-DE-VILLE'S broad palm on the white shoulder! Now look! VOGUE LAGALERE! Out comes the big red V - mark of the hot iron; - he had blistered it out pretty nearly, - hadn't he? - the old rascal VOLEUR, branded in the galleys at Marseilles! [Don't! What if he has got something like this? - nobody supposes I INVENTED such a story.]
My man John, who used to drive two of those six equine females which I told you I had owned, - for, look you, my friends, simple though I stand here, I am one that has been driven in his "kerridge," - not using that term, as liberal shepherds do, for any battered old shabby-genteel go-cart which has more than one wheel, but meaning thereby a four-wheeled vehicle WITH A POLE, - my man John, I say, was a retired soldier.He retired unostentatiously, as many of Her Majesty's modest servants have done before and since.John told me, that when an officer thinks he recognizes one of these retiring heroes, and would know if he has really been in the service, that he may restore him, if possible, to a grateful country, he comes suddenly upon him, and says, sharply, "Strap!"If he has ever worn the shoulder-strap, he has learned the reprimand for its ill adjustment.The old word of command flashes through his muscles, and his hand goes up in an instant to the place where the strap used to be.
[I was all the time preparing for my grand COUP, you understand;but I saw they were not quite ready for it, and so continued, -always in illustration of the general principle I had laid down.]
Yes, odd things come out in ways that nobody thinks of.There was a legend, that, when the Danish pirates made descents upon the English coast, they caught a few Tartars occasionally, in the shape of Saxons, who would not let them go, - on the contrary, insisted on their staying, and, to make sure of it, treated them as Apollo treated Marsyas, or an Bartholinus has treated a fellow-creature in his title-page, and, having divested them of the one essential and perfectly fitting garment, indispensable in the mildest climates, nailed the same on the church-door as we do the banns of marriage, IN TERROREM.
[There was a laugh at this among some of the young folks; but as Ilooked at our landlady, I saw that "the water stood in her eyes,"as it did in Christiana's when the interpreter asked her about the spider, and I fancied, but wasn't quite sure that the schoolmistress blushed, as Mercy did in the same conversation, as you remember.]
That sounds like a cock-and-bull-story, - said the young fellow whom they call John.I abstained from making Hamlet's remark to Horatio, and continued.
Not long since, the church-wardens were repairing and beautifying an old Saxon church in a certain English village, and among other things thought the doors should be attended to.One of them particularly, the front-door, looked very badly, crusted, as it were, and as if it would be all the better for scraping.There happened to be a microscopist in the village who had heard the old pirate story, and he took it into his head to examine the crust on this door.There was no mistake about it; it was a genuine historical document, of the Ziska drum-head pattern, - a real CUTISHUMANA, stripped from some old Scandinavian filibuster, and the legend was true.
My friend, the Professor, settled an important historical and financial question once by the aid of an exceedingly minute fragment of a similar document.Behind the pane of plate-glass which bore his name and title burned a modest lamp, signifying to the passers-by that at all hours of the night the slightest favors (or fevers) were welcome.A youth who had freely partaken of the cup which cheers and likewise inebriates, following a moth-like impulse very natural under the circumstances, dashed his fist at the light and quenched the meek luminary, - breaking through the plate-glass, of course, to reach it.Now I don't want to go into MINUTIAE at table, you know, but a naked hand can no more go through a pane of thick glass without leaving some of its cuticle, to say the least, behind it, than a butterfly can go through a sausage-machine without looking the worse for it.The Professor gathered up the fragments of glass, and with them certain very minute but entirely satisfactory documents which would have identified and hanged any rogue in Christendom who had parted with them.- The historical question, WHO DID IT? and the financial question, WHO PAID FOR IT? were both settled before the new lamp was lighted the next evening.
