The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
In much the same strain the discussion continued--the hook-nosed
gentleman talking at large and excellently, with a view of demonstrating
that a smart fool always talks just so. Ere long he talked to such
purpose as almost to convince.
Presently, back came the person of whom the auburn-haired gentleman had
predicted that he would not return. Conspicuous in the door-way he
stood, saying, in a clear voice, "Is the agent of the Seminole Widow and
Orphan Asylum within here?"
No one replied.
"Is there within here any agent or any member of any charitable
institution whatever?"
No one seemed competent to answer, or, no one thought it worth while
to.
"If there be within here any such person, I have in my hand two dollars
for him."
Some interest was manifested.
"I was called away so hurriedly, I forgot this part of my duty. With the
proprietor of the Samaritan Pain Dissuader it is a rule, to devote, on
the spot, to some benevolent purpose, the half of the proceeds of sales.
Eight bottles were disposed of among this company. Hence, four
half-dollars remain to charity. Who, as steward, takes the money?"
One or two pair of feet moved upon the floor, as with a sort of itching;
but nobody rose.
"Does diffidence prevail over duty? If, I say, there be any gentleman,
or any lady, either, here present, who is in any connection with any
charitable institution whatever, let him or her come forward. He or she
happening to have at hand no certificate of such connection, makes no
difference. Not of a suspicious temper, thank God, I shall have
confidence in whoever offers to take the money."
A demure-looking woman, in a dress rather tawdry and rumpled, here drew
her veil well down and rose; but, marking every eye upon her, thought it
advisable, upon the whole, to sit down again.
"Is it to be believed that, in this Christian company, there is no one
charitable person? I mean, no one connected with any charity? Well,
then, is there no object of charity here?"
Upon this, an unhappy-looking woman, in a sort of mourning, neat, but
sadly worn, hid her face behind a meagre bundle, and was heard to sob.
Meantime, as not seeing or hearing her, the herb-doctor again spoke, and
this time not unpathetically:
"Are there none here who feel in need of help, and who, in accepting
such help, would feel that they, in their time, have given or done more
than may ever be given or done to them? Man or woman, is there none such
here?"
The sobs of the woman were more audible, though she strove to repress
them. While nearly every one's attention was bent upon her, a man of the
appearance of a day-laborer, with a white bandage across his face,
concealing the side of the nose, and who, for coolness' sake, had been
sitting in his red-flannel shirt-sleeves, his coat thrown across one
shoulder, the darned cuffs drooping behind--this man shufflingly rose,
and, with a pace that seemed the lingering memento of the lock-step of
convicts, went up for a duly-qualified claimant.
"Poor wounded huzzar!" sighed the herb-doctor, and dropping the money
into the man's clam-shell of a hand turned and departed.
The recipient of the alms was about moving after, when the auburn-haired
gentleman staid him: "Don't be frightened, you; but I want to see those
coins. Yes, yes; good silver, good silver. There, take them again, and
while you are about it, go bandage the rest of yourself behind
something. D'ye hear? Consider yourself, wholly, the scar of a nose, and
be off with yourself."
Being of a forgiving nature, or else from emotion not daring to trust
his voice, the man silently, but not without some precipitancy,
withdrew.
"Strange," said the auburn-haired gentleman, returning to his friend,
"the money was good money."
"Aye, and where your fine knavery now? Knavery to devote the half of
one's receipts to charity? He's a fool I say again."
"Others might call him an original genius."
"Yes, being original in his folly. Genius? His genius is a cracked pate,
and, as this age goes, not much originality about that."
"May he not be knave, fool, and genius altogether?"
"I beg pardon," here said a third person with a gossiping expression who
had been listening, "but you are somewhat puzzled by this man, and well
you may be."
"Do you know anything about him?" asked the hooked-nosed gentleman.
"No, but I suspect him for something."
"Suspicion. We want knowledge."
"Well, suspect first and know next. True knowledge comes but by
suspicion or revelation. That's my maxim."
"And yet," said the auburn-haired gentleman, "since a wise man will keep
even some certainties to himself, much more some suspicions, at least he
will at all events so do till they ripen into knowledge."
"Do you hear that about the wise man?" said the hook-nosed gentleman,
turning upon the new comer. "Now what is it you suspect of this fellow?"
"I shrewdly suspect him," was the eager response, "for one of those
Jesuit emissaries prowling all over our country. The better to
accomplish their secret designs, they assume, at times, I am told, the
most singular masques; sometimes, in appearance, the absurdest."
This, though indeed for some reason causing a droll smile upon the face
of the hook-nosed gentleman, added a third angle to the discussion,
which now became a sort of triangular duel, and ended, at last, with but
a triangular result.
CHAPTER XIX.
A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.
"Mexico? Molino del Rey? Resaca de la Palma?"
"Resaca de la _Tomba_!"
Leaving his reputation to take care of itself, since, as is not seldom
the case, he knew nothing of its being in debate, the herb-doctor,
wandering towards the forward part of the boat, had there espied a
singular character in a grimy old regimental coat, a countenance at once
grim and wizened, interwoven paralyzed legs, stiff as icicles, suspended
between rude crutches, while the whole rigid body, like a ship's long
barometer on gimbals, swung to and fro, mechanically faithful to the
motion of the boat. Looking downward while he swung, the cripple seemed
in a brown study.
As moved by the sight, and conjecturing that here was some battered hero
from the Mexican battle-fields, the herb-doctor had sympathetically
accosted him as above, and received the above rather dubious reply. As,
with a half moody, half surly sort of air that reply was given, the
cripple, by a voluntary jerk, nervously increased his swing (his custom
when seized by emotion), so that one would have thought some squall had
suddenly rolled the boat and with it the barometer.
"Tombs? my friend," exclaimed the herb-doctor in mild surprise. "You
have not descended to the dead, have you? I had imagined you a scarred
campaigner, one of the noble children of war, for your dear country a
glorious sufferer. But you are Lazarus, it seems."
"Yes, he who had sores."
"Ah, the _other_ Lazarus. But I never knew that either of them was in
the army," glancing at the dilapidated regimentals.
"That will do now. Jokes enough."
"Friend," said the other reproachfully, "you think amiss. On principle,
I greet unfortunates with some pleasant remark, the better to call off
their thoughts from their troubles. The physician who is at once wise
and humane seldom unreservedly sympathizes with his patient. But come, I
am a herb-doctor, and also a natural bone-setter. I may be sanguine, but
I think I can do something for you. You look up now. Give me your story.
Ere I undertake a cure, I require a full account of the case."
"You can't help me," returned the cripple gruffly. "Go away."
"You seem sadly destitute of----"
"No I ain't destitute; to-day, at least, I can pay my way."
"The Natural Bone-setter is happy, indeed, to hear that. But you were
premature. I was deploring your destitution, not of cash, but of
confidence. You think the Natural Bone-setter can't help you. Well,
suppose he can't, have you any objection to telling him your story? You,
my friend, have, in a signal way, experienced adversity. Tell me, then,
for my private good, how, without aid from the noble cripple, Epictetus,
you have arrived at his heroic sang-froid in misfortune."
At these words the cripple fixed upon the speaker the hard ironic eye of
one toughened and defiant in misery, and, in the end, grinned upon him
with his unshaven face like an ogre.
"Come, come, be sociable--be human, my friend. Don't make that face; it
distresses me."
"I suppose," with a sneer, "you are the man I've long heard of--The
Happy Man."
"Happy? my friend. Yes, at least I ought to be. My conscience is
peaceful. I have confidence in everybody. I have confidence that, in my
humble profession, I do some little good to the world. Yes, I think
that, without presumption, I may venture to assent to the proposition
that I am the Happy Man--the Happy Bone-setter."
"Then, you shall hear my story. Many a month I have longed to get hold
of the Happy Man, drill him, drop the powder, and leave him to explode
at his leisure.".
"What a demoniac unfortunate" exclaimed the herb-doctor retreating.
"Regular infernal machine!"
"Look ye," cried the other, stumping after him, and with his horny hand
catching him by a horn button, "my name is Thomas Fry. Until my----"
--"Any relation of Mrs. Fry?" interrupted the other. "I still correspond
with that excellent lady on the subject of prisons. Tell me, are you
anyway connected with _my_ Mrs. Fry?"
"Blister Mrs. Fry! What do them sentimental souls know of prisons or any
other black fact? I'll tell ye a story of prisons. Ha, ha!"
The herb-doctor shrank, and with reason, the laugh being strangely
startling.
"Positively, my friend," said he, "you must stop that; I can't stand
that; no more of that. I hope I have the milk of kindness, but your
thunder will soon turn it."
"Hold, I haven't come to the milk-turning part yet. My name is Thomas
Fry. Until my twenty-third year I went by the nickname of Happy
Tom--happy--ha, ha! They called me Happy Tom, d'ye see? because I was so
good-natured and laughing all the time, just as I am now--ha, ha!"
Upon this the herb-doctor would, perhaps, have run, but once more the
hyæna clawed him. Presently, sobering down, he continued:
"Well, I was born in New York, and there I lived a steady, hard-working
man, a cooper by trade. One evening I went to a political meeting in the
Park--for you must know, I was in those days a great patriot. As bad
luck would have it, there was trouble near, between a gentleman who had
been drinking wine, and a pavior who was sober. The pavior chewed
tobacco, and the gentleman said it was beastly in him, and pushed him,
wanting to have his place. The pavior chewed on and pushed back. Well,
the gentleman carried a sword-cane, and presently the pavior was
down--skewered."
"How was that?"
"Why you see the pavior undertook something above his strength."
"The other must have been a Samson then. 'Strong as a pavior,' is a
proverb."
"So it is, and the gentleman was in body a rather weakly man, but, for
all that, I say again, the pavior undertook something above his
strength."
"What are you talking about? He tried to maintain his rights, didn't
he?"
"Yes; but, for all that, I say again, he undertook something above his
strength."
"I don't understand you. But go on."
"Along with the gentleman, I, with other witnesses, was taken to the
Tombs. There was an examination, and, to appear at the trial, the
gentleman and witnesses all gave bail--I mean all but me."
"And why didn't you?"
"Couldn't get it."
"Steady, hard-working cooper like you; what was the reason you couldn't
get bail?"
"Steady, hard-working cooper hadn't no friends. Well, souse I went into
a wet cell, like a canal-boat splashing into the lock; locked up in