A Fling At Dressing-Gowns.
My name is Albert Fling. I am an active, business, married man, that is, wedded to Mrs. Fling, and married to business. I had the misfortune, some time since, to break a leg; and before it was mended Madame Fling, hoping to soothe my hours of convalescence, caused to be made for me a dressing-gown, which, on due reflection, I believe was modeled after the latest style of strait-jacket. This belief is confirmed by the fact that when I put it on, I am at once confined to the house, 'get mad,' and am soberly convinced that if any of my friends were to see me walking in the street, clad in this apparel, they would instantly entertain ideas of my insanity.
In the hours of torture endured while wearing it, I have appealed to my dear wife to truly tell me where she first conceived the thought that there was a grain of comfort to be found in bearing it on my back? She has candidly answered that she first read about it in divers English novels and sundry American novels, the latter invariably a rehash of the first. In both of these varieties of the same species of books, the hero is represented as being very comfortable the instant he dons this garment, puts his feet in slippers, picks up a paper and—goes to sleep.
A friend of mine who has discovered that Shakspeare knew all about steam-engines, electric telegraphs, cotton-gins, the present rebellion, and gas-lights, assures me that dressing-gowns are distinctly alluded to in The Tempest:
'TRINCULO: O King Stephano! look, what a wardrobe here is for thee!
CALIBAN: Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash.
Having thus proved its age, let us next prove that it is in its dotage, and is as much out of place in this nineteenth century as a monkey in a bed of tulips.
We find in the Egyptian temples paintings of priests dressed in these gowns: proof that they are antiquely heathenish. And as we always associate a man who wears one with Mr. Mantilini, this proves that they are foolish. Ergo, as they are old and foolish, they are in their dotage.
I have three several times, while wearing this gown, been mistaken for Madame Fling by people coming to the house. The first time I was shaving in my chamber: in bounced Miss X——, who believed, as it was rather late, that I had gone down-town. She threw up her hands, exclaiming:
'Good gracious, Fanny! do you shave?'
N.B.—Fanny is my wife's first name.
The second time I had brought the woodsaw and horse up from the cellar, and was exercising myself sawing up my winter's wood, in the summer-kitchen, according to Doctor Howl's advice, when the Irishman from the grocery entered, bearing a bundle. My back was to him, and only seeing the gay and flowery gown, he exclaimed, in an awfully audible whisper to the cook:
'Shure yer mistriss has the power in her arms, jist!'
Think of my wife, my gentle Fanny, having it shouted around the neighborhood that her brute of a husband made her saw all their winter's wood—yes! and split it, and pile it too, and make all the fires, and so on and cetera, and oh! I am glad my husband isn't such a monster!'
I turned on the Irishman, and when he saw my whiskers, he quailed!
The third time, I was blacking my boots, according to Dr. Howl's advice, 'expands the deltoid muscles, is of benefit to the metacarpis, stretches the larynx, opens the oilsophagers, and facilitates expectoration!' I had chosen what Fanny calls her conservatory for my field of operation—the conservatory has two dried fish-geraniums, and a dead dog-rose, in it, besides a bad-smelling cat-nip bush; when, who should come running in but the identical Miss X—— who caught me shaving.
'Poor Fanny,' said she, before I could turn round; 'do you have to black the boots of that odious brute?'
'Miss X——,' said I, turning toward her, folding my arms over my dressing-gown, spite of having a damp, unpolished boot on one arm and a wet blacking-brush in the other hand, for I wished to strike a position and awe at the same time; 'Miss X——, I am that odious brute himself!'
If you had observed her wilt, droop, stutter, fly!
My wife went to the sea-shore last summer. I kept the house open, and staid in town; cause, business. When she returned, Miss X——, who lives opposite, called to see her. In less than five minutes, my wife was a sad, moaning, desolate, injured, disconsolate, afflicted, etcet. woman.
'How-ow-ow c-could you d-do it, Al-lal-bert?' she ejaculated, flooding every word as it came out with tears.
'Do what?'
'Oh-woh! oh-woe-wooh-wa-ah!'
Miss X—— here thought proper to leave, casting from her eyes a small hardware-shop in the way of daggers at me, as much as to say, You are vicious, and I hate cheese! (theatrical for hate ye.)
Fanny, left to herself, revealed all to me. Miss X——, through the Venetian blinds, had seen a—gown in my room, late at night.
'It is too true,' said I, 'too, too true.'
'Al-lal-al-bert! you will b-b-break my h-heart. I c-could tear the d-d-destroy-oy-yer of my p-p-peace to p-p-pieces!'
'Come on,' said I, 'you shall behold the destroyer of your peace. You shall tear her to pieces, or I'll be d—dashed if I don't. I am tired of the blasted thing.'
I grasped her hand, and led her to the back-chamber. 'There, against the wall.'
'It is—'said she.
'It is,' said I, 'my dressing-gown! I will never again put it on my shoulders, never. Here goes!' Rip it went from the tails up the back to the neck.
'Hold, Albert! I will send it to the wounded soldiers.'
'Never! they are men, bricks, warriors. Such female frippery as this shall never degrade them. Into the rag-bag with it, and sell it to the Jews for a pair of China sheep or a crockery shepherd. Vamos!'
The age for dressing-gowns has passed away, Rococo shams are hastening to decay!
* * * * *
He who writes a book on Boston should have something to say on the ladies at lectures, in the libraries, and at Loring's—at which latter celebrated institution for the dissemination of belles lettres lettered belles do vastly congregate of Saturday, providing themselves with novel—no, we mean novelties [of course of a serious sort] for their Sunday reading. Which may serve as an introduction to the following characteristic of