The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
take a bright view of life? You will never get on in your business or
anything else, if you don't take the bright view of life. It's the
ruination of a man to take the dismal one.' Then, gayly poking at him
with his gold-headed cane, 'Why don't you, then? Why don't you be bright
and hopeful, like me? Why don't you have confidence, China Aster?
"I'm sure I don't know, friend Orchis,' soberly replied China Aster,
'but may be my not having drawn a lottery-prize, like you, may make some
difference.'
"Nonsense! before I knew anything about the prize I was gay as a lark,
just as gay as I am now. In fact, it has always been a principle with me
to hold to the bright view.'
"Upon this, China Aster looked a little hard at Orchis, because the
truth was, that until the lucky prize came to him, Orchis had gone under
the nickname of Doleful Dumps, he having been beforetimes of a
hypochondriac turn, so much so as to save up and put by a few dollars of
his scanty earnings against that rainy day he used to groan so much
about.
"I tell you what it is, now, friend China Aster,' said Orchis, pointing
down to the check under the stone, and then slapping his pocket, 'the
check shall lie there if you say so, but your note shan't keep it
company. In fact, China Aster, I am too sincerely your friend to take
advantage of a passing fit of the blues in you. You _shall_ reap the
benefit of my friendship.' With which, buttoning up his coat in a
jiffy, away he ran, leaving the check behind.
"At first, China Aster was going to tear it up, but thinking that this
ought not to be done except in the presence of the drawer of the check,
he mused a while, and picking it up, trudged back to the candlery, fully
resolved to call upon Orchis soon as his day's work was over, and
destroy the check before his eyes. But it so happened that when China
Aster called, Orchis was out, and, having waited for him a weary time in
vain, China Aster went home, still with the check, but still resolved
not to keep it another day. Bright and early next morning he would a
second time go after Orchis, and would, no doubt, make a sure thing of
it, by finding him in his bed; for since the lottery-prize came to him,
Orchis, besides becoming more cheery, had also grown a little lazy. But
as destiny would have it, that same night China Aster had a dream, in
which a being in the guise of a smiling angel, and holding a kind of
cornucopia in her hand, hovered over him, pouring down showers of small
gold dollars, thick as kernels of corn. 'I am Bright Future, friend
China Aster,' said the angel, 'and if you do what friend Orchis would
have you do, just see what will come of it.' With which Bright Future,
with another swing of her cornucopia, poured such another shower of
small gold dollars upon him, that it seemed to bank him up all round,
and he waded about in it like a maltster in malt.
"Now, dreams are wonderful things, as everybody knows--so wonderful,
indeed, that some people stop not short of ascribing them directly to
heaven; and China Aster, who was of a proper turn of mind in everything,
thought that in consideration of the dream, it would be but well to wait
a little, ere seeking Orchis again. During the day, China Aster's mind
dwelling continually upon the dream, he was so full of it, that when Old
Plain Talk dropped in to see him, just before dinnertime, as he often
did, out of the interest he took in Old Honesty's son, China Aster told
all about his vision, adding that he could not think that so radiant an
angel could deceive; and, indeed, talked at such a rate that one would
have thought he believed the angel some beautiful human philanthropist.
Something in this sort Old Plain Talk understood him, and, accordingly,
in his plain way, said: 'China Aster, you tell me that an angel appeared
to you in a dream. Now, what does that amount to but this, that you
dreamed an angel appeared to you? Go right away, China Aster, and return
the check, as I advised you before. If friend Prudence were here, he
would say just the same thing.' With which words Old Plain Talk went off
to find friend Prudence, but not succeeding, was returning to the
candlery himself, when, at distance mistaking him for a dun who had long
annoyed him, China Aster in a panic barred all his doors, and ran to the
back part of the candlery, where no knock could be heard.
"By this sad mistake, being left with no friend to argue the other side
of the question, China Aster was so worked upon at last, by musing over
his dream, that nothing would do but he must get the check cashed, and
lay out the money the very same day in buying a good lot of spermaceti
to make into candles, by which operation he counted upon turning a
better penny than he ever had before in his life; in fact, this he
believed would prove the foundation of that famous fortune which the
angel had promised him.
"Now, in using the money, China Aster was resolved punctually to pay the
interest every six months till the principal should be returned, howbeit
not a word about such a thing had been breathed by Orchis; though,
indeed, according to custom, as well as law, in such matters, interest
would legitimately accrue on the loan, nothing to the contrary having
been put in the bond. Whether Orchis at the time had this in mind or
not, there is no sure telling; but, to all appearance, he never so much
as cared to think about the matter, one way or other.
"Though the spermaceti venture rather disappointed China Aster's
sanguine expectations, yet he made out to pay the first six months'
interest, and though his next venture turned out still less
prosperously, yet by pinching his family in the matter of fresh meat,
and, what pained him still more, his boys' schooling, he contrived to
pay the second six months' interest, sincerely grieved that integrity,
as well as its opposite, though not in an equal degree, costs something,
sometimes.
"Meanwhile, Orchis had gone on a trip to Europe by advice of a
physician; it so happening that, since the lottery-prize came to him, it
had been discovered to Orchis that his health was not very firm, though
he had never complained of anything before but a slight ailing of the
spleen, scarce worth talking about at the time. So Orchis, being abroad,
could not help China Aster's paying his interest as he did, however much
he might have been opposed to it; for China Aster paid it to Orchis's
agent, who was of too business-like a turn to decline interest regularly
paid in on a loan.
"But overmuch to trouble the agent on that score was not again to be the
fate of China Aster; for, not being of that skeptical spirit which
refuses to trust customers, his third venture resulted, through bad
debts, in almost a total loss--a bad blow for the candle-maker. Neither
did Old Plain Talk, and Old Prudence neglect the opportunity to read him
an uncheerful enough lesson upon the consequences of his disregarding
their advice in the matter of having nothing to do with borrowed money.
'It's all just as I predicted,' said Old Plain Talk, blowing his old
nose with his old bandana. 'Yea, indeed is it,' chimed in Old Prudence,
rapping his staff on the floor, and then leaning upon it, looking with
solemn forebodings upon China Aster. Low-spirited enough felt the poor
candle-maker; till all at once who should come with a bright face to him
but his bright friend, the angel, in another dream. Again the cornucopia
poured out its treasure, and promised still more. Revived by the vision,
he resolved not to be down-hearted, but up and at it once more--contrary
to the advice of Old Plain Talk, backed as usual by his crony, which was
to the effect, that, under present circumstances, the best thing China
Aster could do, would be to wind up his business, settle, if he could,
all his liabilities, and then go to work as a journeyman, by which he
could earn good wages, and give up, from that time henceforth, all
thoughts of rising above being a paid subordinate to men more able than
himself, for China Aster's career thus far plainly proved him the
legitimate son of Old Honesty, who, as every one knew, had never shown
much business-talent, so little, in fact, that many said of him that he
had no business to be in business. And just this plain saying Plain Talk
now plainly applied to China Aster, and Old Prudence never disagreed
with him. But the angel in the dream did, and, maugre Plain Talk, put
quite other notions into the candle-maker.
"He considered what he should do towards reëstablishing himself.
Doubtless, had Orchis been in the country, he would have aided him in
this strait. As it was, he applied to others; and as in the world, much
as some may hint to the contrary, an honest man in misfortune still can
find friends to stay by him and help him, even so it proved with China
Aster, who at last succeeded in borrowing from a rich old farmer the sum
of six hundred dollars, at the usual interest of money-lenders, upon the
security of a secret bond signed by China Aster's wife and himself, to
the effect that all such right and title to any property that should be
left her by a well-to-do childless uncle, an invalid tanner, such
property should, in the event of China Aster's failing to return the
borrowed sum on the given day, be the lawful possession of the
money-lender. True, it was just as much as China Aster could possibly do
to induce his wife, a careful woman, to sign this bond; because she had
always regarded her promised share in her uncle's estate as an anchor
well to windward of the hard times in which China Aster had always been
more or less involved, and from which, in her bosom, she never had seen
much chance of his freeing himself. Some notion may be had of China
Aster's standing in the heart and head of his wife, by a short sentence
commonly used in reply to such persons as happened to sound her on the
point. 'China Aster,' she would say, 'is a good husband, but a bad
business man!' Indeed, she was a connection on the maternal side of Old
Plain Talk's. But had not China Aster taken good care not to let Old
Plain Talk and Old Prudence hear of his dealings with the old farmer,
ten to one they would, in some way, have interfered with his success in
that quarter.
"It has been hinted that the honesty of China Aster was what mainly
induced the money-lender to befriend him in his misfortune, and this
must be apparent; for, had China Aster been a different man, the
money-lender might have dreaded lest, in the event of his failing to
meet his note, he might some way prove slippery--more especially as, in
the hour of distress, worked upon by remorse for so jeopardizing his
wife's money, his heart might prove a traitor to his bond, not to hint
that it was more than doubtful how such a secret security and claim, as
in the last resort would be the old farmer's, would stand in a court of
law. But though one inference from all this may be, that had China Aster
been something else than what he was, he would not have been trusted,
and, therefore, he would have been effectually shut out from running his
own and wife's head into the usurer's noose; yet those who, when
everything at last came out, maintained that, in this view and to this
extent, the honesty of the candle-maker was no advantage to him, in so
saying, such persons said what every good heart must deplore, and no
prudent tongue will admit.
"It may be mentioned, that the old farmer made China Aster take part of
his loan in three old dried-up cows and one lame horse, not improved by
the glanders. These were thrown in at a pretty high figure, the old
money-lender having a singular prejudice in regard to the high value of
any sort of stock raised on his farm. With a great deal of difficulty,
and at more loss, China Aster disposed of his cattle at public auction,