Trumps
CONTENTS
Forty years ago Mr. Savory Gray was a prosperous merchant. No gentleman on ‘Change wore more spotless linen or blacker broadcloth. His ample white cravat had an air of absolute wisdom and honesty. It was so very white that his fellow-merchants could not avoid a vague impression that he had taken the church on his way down town, and had so purified himself for business. Indeed a white cravat is strongly to be recommended as a corrective and sedative of the public mind. Its advantages have long been familiar to the clergy; and even, in some desperate cases, politicians have found a resort to it of signal benefit. There are instructive instances, also, in banks and insurance offices of the comfort and value of spotless linen. Combined with highly-polished shoes, it is of inestimable mercantile advantage.
Mr. Gray prospered in business, and nobody was sorry. He enjoyed his practical joke and his glass of Madeira, which had made at least three voyages round the Cape. His temperament, like his person, was just unctuous enough to enable him to slip comfortably through life.
Happily for his own comfort, he had but a speaking acquaintance with politics. He was not a blue Federalist, and he never d’d the Democrats. With unconscious skill he shot the angry rapids of discussion, and swept, by a sure instinct, toward the quiet water on which he liked to ride. In the counting-room or the meeting of directors, when his neighbors waxed furious upon raking over some outrage of that old French infidel, Tom Jefferson, as they called him, sending him and his gun-boats where no man or boat wants to go, Mr. Gray rolled his neck in his white cravat, crossed his legs, and shook his black-gaitered shoe, and beamed, and smiled, and blew his nose, and hum’d, and ha’d, and said, “Ah, yes!” “Ah, indeed?” “Quite so!” and held his tongue.
Mr. Savory Gray minded his own business; but his business did not mind him. There came a sudden crash—one of the commercial earthquakes that shake fortunes to their foundations and scatter failure on every side. One day he sat in his office consoling his friend Jowlson, who had been ruined. Mr. Jowlson was terribly agitated—credit gone—fortune wrecked—no prospects—“O wife and children!” he cried, rocking to and fro as he sat.
George William Curtis
TRUMPS
A Novel
1861
CHAPTER I. — SCHOOL BEGINS.
CHAPTER II. — HOPE WAYNE.
CHAPTER III. — AVE MARIA!
CHAPTER IV. — NIGHT.
CHAPTER V. — PEEWEE PREACHING.
CHAPTER VI. — EXPERIMENTUM CRUCIS.
CHAPTER VII. — CASTLE DANGEROUS.
CHAPTER VIII. — AFTER THE BATTLE.
CHAPTER IX. — NEWS FROM HOME.
“BONIFACE NEWT.
“NANCY NEWT.”
CHAPTER X. — BEGINNING TO SKETCH.
CHAPTER XI. — A VERDICT AND A SENTENCE.
CHAPTER XII. — HELP, HO!
CHAPTER XIII. — SOCIETY.
CHAPTER XIV. — A NEW YORK MERCHANT.
CHAPTER XV. — A SCHOOL-BOY NO LONGER.
“JANE SIMCOE.”
CHAPTER XVI. — PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER XVII. — OF GIRLS AND FLOWERS.
CHAPTER XVIII. — OLD FRIENDS AND NEW.
CHAPTER XIX. — DOG-DAYS.
CHAPTER XX. — AUNT MARTHA.
CHAPTER XXI. — THE CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XXII. — THE FINE ARTS.
CHAPTER XXIV. — “QUEEN AND HUNTRESS.”
CHAPTER XXV. — A STATESMAN—AND STATESWOMAN.
CHAPTER XXVI. — THE PORTRAIT AND THE MINIATURE.
“SARATOGA.
CHAPTER XXVII. — GABRIEL AT HOME.
CHAPTER XXVIII. — BORN TO BE A BACHELOR.
CHAPTER XXIX. — MR. ABEL NEWT, GRAND STREET.
CHAPTER XXX. — CHECK.
CHAPTER XXXI. — AT DELMONICO’S.
CHAPTER XXXIII. — ANOTHER TURN IN THE WALTZ.
CHAPTER XXXIV. — HEAVEN’S LAST BEST GIFT.
CHAPTER XXXV. — MOTHER-IN-LAW AND DAUGHTER-IN-LAW.
CHAPTER XXXVI. — THE BACK WINDOW.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. — THE DAY AFTER THE WEDDING.
CHAPTER XXXIX. — A FIELD-DAY.
CHAPTER XL. — AT THE ROUND TABLE.
CHAPTER XLI. — A LITTLE DINNER.
CHAPTER XLII. — CLEARING AND CLOUDY.
CHAPTER XLIII. — WALKING HOME.
“HOPE WAYNE.”
CHAPTER XLIV. — CHURCH GOING.
CHAPTER XLV. — IN CHURCH.
CHAPTER XLVI. — IN ANOTHER CHURCH.
CHAPTER XLVII. — DEATH.
CHAPTER XLVIII. — THE HEIRESS.
CHAPTER XLIX. — A SELECT PARTY.
CHAPTER L. — WINE AND TRUTH.
CHAPTER LI. — A WARNING.
CHAPTER LII. — BREAKERS.
CHAPTER LIV. — CLOUDS AND DARKNESS.
CHAPTER LV. — ARTHUR MERLIN’S GREAT PICTURE.
CHAPTER LVI. — REDIVIVUS.
CHAPTER LVII. — DINING WITH LAWRENCE NEWT.
CHAPTER LVIII. — THE HEALTH OF THE JUNIOR PARTNER.
CHAPTER LIX. — MRS. ALFRED DINKS.
CHAPTER LX. — POLITICS.
CHAPTER LXI. — GONE TO PROTEST.
“ARCULARIUS BELCH.”
CHAPTER LXII. — THE CRASH, UP TOWN.
CHAPTER LXIII. — ENDYMION.
CHAPTER LXIV. — DIANA.
CHAPTER LXV. — THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE.
CHAPTER LXVI. — MENTOR AND TELEMACHUS.
CHAPTER LXVII. — WIRES.
CHAPTER LXVIII. — THE INDUSTRIOUS APPRENTICE.
CHAPTER LXIX. — IN AND OUT.
CHAPTER LXX. — THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE.
CHAPTER LXXI. — RICHES HAVE WINGS.
CHAPTER LXXII. — GOOD-BY.
CHAPTER LXXIII. — THE BELCH PLATFORM.
CHAPTER LXXIV. — MIDNIGHT.
CHAPTER LXXV. — REMINISCENCE.
CHAPTER LXXVI. — A SOCIAL GLASS.
CHAPTER LXXVII. — FACE TO FACE.
CHAPTER LXXVIII. — FINISHING PICTURES.
CHAPTER LXXIX. — THE LAST THROW.
CHAPTER LXXX. — CLOUDS BREAKING.
CHAPTER LXXXI. — MRS. ALFRED DINKS AT HOME.
CHAPTER LXXXII. — THE LOST IS FOUND.
CHAPTER LXXXIII. — MRS. DELILAH JONES.
CHAPTER LXXXIV. — PROSPECTS OF HAPPINESS.
CHAPTER LXXXV. — GETTING READY.
CHAPTER LXXXVI. — IN THE CITY.
CHAPTER LXXXVII. — A LONG JOURNEY.
CHAPTER LXXXVIII. — WAITING.
CHAPTER LXXXIX. — DUST TO DUST.
CHAPTER XC.
UNDER THE MISLETOE.