The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
no private purchaser being found who could be prevailed upon to invest.
And now, raking and scraping in every way, and working early and late,
China Aster at last started afresh, nor without again largely and
confidently extending himself. However, he did not try his hand at the
spermaceti again, but, admonished by experience, returned to tallow.
But, having bought a good lot of it, by the time he got it into candles,
tallow fell so low, and candles with it, that his candles per pound
barely sold for what he had paid for the tallow. Meantime, a year's
unpaid interest had accrued on Orchis' loan, but China Aster gave
himself not so much concern about that as about the interest now due to
the old farmer. But he was glad that the principal there had yet some
time to run. However, the skinny old fellow gave him some trouble by
coming after him every day or two on a scraggy old white horse,
furnished with a musty old saddle, and goaded into his shambling old
paces with a withered old raw hide. All the neighbors said that surely
Death himself on the pale horse was after poor China Aster now. And
something so it proved; for, ere long, China Aster found himself
involved in troubles mortal enough.
At this juncture Orchis was heard of. Orchis, it seemed had returned
from his travels, and clandestinely married, and, in a kind of queer
way, was living in Pennsylvania among his wife's relations, who, among
other things, had induced him to join a church, or rather semi-religious
school, of Come-Outers; and what was still more, Orchis, without coming
to the spot himself, had sent word to his agent to dispose of some of
his property in Marietta, and remit him the proceeds. Within a year
after, China Aster received a letter from Orchis, commending him for his
punctuality in paying the first year's interest, and regretting the
necessity that he (Orchis) was now under of using all his dividends; so
he relied upon China Aster's paying the next six months' interest, and
of course with the back interest. Not more surprised than alarmed, China
Aster thought of taking steamboat to go and see Orchis, but he was saved
that expense by the unexpected arrival in Marietta of Orchis in person,
suddenly called there by that strange kind of capriciousness lately
characterizing him. No sooner did China Aster hear of his old friend's
arrival than he hurried to call upon him. He found him curiously rusty
in dress, sallow in cheek, and decidedly less gay and cordial in manner,
which the more surprised China Aster, because, in former days, he had
more than once heard Orchis, in his light rattling way, declare that all
he (Orchis) wanted to make him a perfectly happy, hilarious, and
benignant man, was a voyage to Europe and a wife, with a free
development of his inmost nature.
"Upon China Aster's stating his case, his trusted friend was silent for
a time; then, in an odd way, said that he would not crowd China Aster,
but still his (Orchis') necessities were urgent. Could not China Aster
mortgage the candlery? He was honest, and must have moneyed friends; and
could he not press his sales of candles? Could not the market be forced
a little in that particular? The profits on candles must be very great.
Seeing, now, that Orchis had the notion that the candle-making business
was a very profitable one, and knowing sorely enough what an error was
here, China Aster tried to undeceive him. But he could not drive the
truth into Orchis--Orchis being very obtuse here, and, at the same time,
strange to say, very melancholy. Finally, Orchis glanced off from so
unpleasing a subject into the most unexpected reflections, taken from a
religious point of view, upon the unstableness and deceitfulness of the
human heart. But having, as he thought, experienced something of that
sort of thing, China Aster did not take exception to his friend's
observations, but still refrained from so doing, almost as much for the
sake of sympathetic sociality as anything else. Presently, Orchis,
without much ceremony, rose, and saying he must write a letter to his
wife, bade his friend good-bye, but without warmly shaking him by the
hand as of old.
"In much concern at the change, China Aster made earnest inquiries in
suitable quarters, as to what things, as yet unheard of, had befallen
Orchis, to bring about such a revolution; and learned at last that,
besides traveling, and getting married, and joining the sect of
Come-Outers, Orchis had somehow got a bad dyspepsia, and lost
considerable property through a breach of trust on the part of a factor
in New York. Telling these things to Old Plain Talk, that man of some
knowledge of the world shook his old head, and told China Aster that,
though he hoped it might prove otherwise, yet it seemed to him that all
he had communicated about Orchis worked together for bad omens as to his
future forbearance--especially, he added with a grim sort of smile, in
view of his joining the sect of Come-Outers; for, if some men knew what
was their inmost natures, instead of coming out with it, they would try
their best to keep it in, which, indeed, was the way with the prudent
sort. In all which sour notions Old Prudence, as usual, chimed in.
"When interest-day came again, China Aster, by the utmost exertions,
could only pay Orchis' agent a small part of what was due, and a part of
that was made up by his children's gift money (bright tenpenny pieces
and new quarters, kept in their little money-boxes), and pawning his
best clothes, with those of his wife and children, so that all were
subjected to the hardship of staying away from church. And the old
usurer, too, now beginning to be obstreperous, China Aster paid him his
interest and some other pressing debts with money got by, at last,
mortgaging the candlery.
"When next interest-day came round for Orchis, not a penny could be
raised. With much grief of heart, China Aster so informed Orchis' agent.
Meantime, the note to the old usurer fell due, and nothing from China
Aster was ready to meet it; yet, as heaven sends its rain on the just
and unjust alike, by a coincidence not unfavorable to the old farmer,
the well-to-do uncle, the tanner, having died, the usurer entered upon
possession of such part of his property left by will to the wife of
China Aster. When still the next interest-day for Orchis came round, it
found China Aster worse off than ever; for, besides his other troubles,
he was now weak with sickness. Feebly dragging himself to Orchis' agent,
he met him in the street, told him just how it was; upon which the
agent, with a grave enough face, said that he had instructions from his
employer not to crowd him about the interest at present, but to say to
him that about the time the note would mature, Orchis would have heavy
liabilities to meet, and therefore the note must at that time be
certainly paid, and, of course, the back interest with it; and not only
so, but, as Orchis had had to allow the interest for good part of the
time, he hoped that, for the back interest, China Aster would, in
reciprocation, have no objections to allowing interest on the interest
annually. To be sure, this was not the law; but, between friends who
accommodate each other, it was the custom.
"Just then, Old Plain Talk with Old Prudence turned the corner, coming
plump upon China Aster as the agent left him; and whether it was a
sun-stroke, or whether they accidentally ran against him, or whether it
was his being so weak, or whether it was everything together, or how it
was exactly, there is no telling, but poor China Aster fell to the
earth, and, striking his head sharply, was picked up senseless. It was a
day in July; such a light and heat as only the midsummer banks of the
inland Ohio know. China Aster was taken home on a door; lingered a few
days with a wandering mind, and kept wandering on, till at last, at dead
of night, when nobody was aware, his spirit wandered away into the other
world.
"Old Plain Talk and Old Prudence, neither of whom ever omitted attending
any funeral, which, indeed, was their chief exercise--these two were
among the sincerest mourners who followed the remains of the son of
their ancient friend to the grave.
"It is needless to tell of the executions that followed; how that the
candlery was sold by the mortgagee; how Orchis never got a penny for his
loan; and how, in the case of the poor widow, chastisement was tempered
with mercy; for, though she was left penniless, she was not left
childless. Yet, unmindful of the alleviation, a spirit of complaint, at
what she impatiently called the bitterness of her lot and the hardness
of the world, so preyed upon her, as ere long to hurry her from the
obscurity of indigence to the deeper shades of the tomb.
"But though the straits in which China Aster had left his family had,
besides apparently dimming the world's regard, likewise seemed to dim
its sense of the probity of its deceased head, and though this, as some
thought, did not speak well for the world, yet it happened in this case,
as in others, that, though the world may for a time seem insensible to
that merit which lies under a cloud, yet, sooner or later, it always
renders honor where honor is due; for, upon the death of the widow, the
freemen of Marietta, as a tribute of respect for China Aster, and an
expression of their conviction of his high moral worth, passed a
resolution, that, until they attained maturity, his children should be
considered the town's guests. No mere verbal compliment, like those of
some public bodies; for, on the same day, the orphans were officially
installed in that hospitable edifice where their worthy grandfather, the
town's guest before them, had breathed his last breath.
"But sometimes honor maybe paid to the memory of an honest man, and
still his mound remain without a monument. Not so, however, with the
candle-maker. At an early day, Plain Talk had procured a plain stone,
and was digesting in his mind what pithy word or two to place upon it,
when there was discovered, in China Aster's otherwise empty wallet, an
epitaph, written, probably, in one of those disconsolate hours, attended
with more or less mental aberration, perhaps, so frequent with him for
some months prior to his end. A memorandum on the back expressed the
wish that it might be placed over his grave. Though with the sentiment
of the epitaph Plain Talk did not disagree, he himself being at times of
a hypochondriac turn--at least, so many said--yet the language struck
him as too much drawn out; so, after consultation with Old Prudence, he
decided upon making use of the epitaph, yet not without verbal
retrenchments. And though, when these were made, the thing still
appeared wordy to him, nevertheless, thinking that, since a dead man was
to be spoken about, it was but just to let him speak for himself,
especially when he spoke sincerely, and when, by so doing, the more
salutary lesson would be given, he had the retrenched inscription
chiseled as follows upon the stone.
'HERE LIE
THE REMAINS OF
CHINA ASTER THE CANDLE-MAKER,
WHOSE CAREER
WAS AN EXAMPLE OF THE TRUTH OF SCRIPTURE, AS FOUND
IN THE
SOBER PHILOSOPHY
OF
SOLOMON THE WISE;
FOR HE WAS RUINED BY ALLOWING HIMSELF TO BE PERSUADED,
AGAINST HIS BETTER SENSE,
INTO THE FREE INDULGENCE OF CONFIDENCE,
AND
AN ARDENTLY BRIGHT VIEW OF LIFE,
TO THE EXCLUSION
OF
THAT COUNSEL WHICH COMES BY HEEDING
THE
OPPOSITE VIEW.'
"This inscription raised some talk in the town, and was rather severely
criticised by the capitalist--one of a very cheerful turn--who had
secured his loan to China Aster by the mortgage; and though it also
proved obnoxious to the man who, in town-meeting, had first moved for
the compliment to China Aster's memory, and, indeed, was deemed by him a