Aaron’s friend, Madam Fenwick, is told of his triumph, and straightway begs him to restore the health of her many chimneys—a forest of them, all sick! Aaron writes:
“Madam Fenwick challenged me to cure her chimneys. Accepted, and was assigned for a first trial the worst in the house. Enter the mason, the bricks, and the mortar. To work; Madam Fenwick making, meanwhile, my breakfast—coffee, blanc and honey—in the adjoining room, and laughing at my folly. Visitors came in to see what was going forward. Much wit and some satire was displayed. The work was finished. Made a large fire. The chimney drew in a manner not to be impeached. I was instantly a hero, especially to the professional fumiste, who bent to the floor before me, such was the burden of his respect.”
Griswold, a New York man and a speculator, unites with Aaron; the two take a moderate flier in the Holland Company stocks. Aaron is made richer by several thousand francs. These riches come at a good time, for the evening before he entered in his journal:
“Having exactly sixteen sous, I bought with them two plays for my present amusement. Came home with my two plays, and not a single sou. Have been ransacking everywhere to see if some little vagrant ten-sou piece might not have gone astray. Not one! To make matters worse, I am out of cigars. However, I have some black vile tobacco which will serve as a substitute.”
With Volney, Aaron meets Baron Denon, who is charmed to know “the celebrated Colonel Burr.” Baron Denon was with Napoleon in Egypt, and is a privileged character. Denon is a bosom friend of Maret. Nothing will do but Maret must know Aaron. He does know him and is enchanted. Denon and Maret ask Aaron how they may serve him.
“Get me my passports,” says Aaron.
Maret and Denon are figures of power. Armstrong, minister, and McRae, consul, begin to feel a pressure. It is intimated that the Emperor’s post office is tired of stealing Aaron’s letters, Fouché’s police weary of dogging him. In brief, it is the emperor’s wish that Aaron depart. Maret and Denon intrigue so sagaciously, press so surely, that, acting as one man, the French and the American officials agree in issuing passports to Aaron. He is free; he may quit France when he will. He is quite willing, and makes his way to Amsterdam.
Lowering in the world’s sky is the cloud of possible war between England and America. “Once a subject, always a subject,” does not match the wants of a young and growing republic, and America is racked of a war fever. The feeble Madison, in leash to Monticello, does not like war and hangs back. In spite of the weakly peaceful Madison, however, the war cloud grows large enough to scare American ships. Being scared, they avoid the ports of Northern Europe, as lying too much within the perilous shadow of England.
This war scare, and its effect on American ships, now gets much in Aaron’s way. He turns the port of Amsterdam upside down; not a ship for New York can he find. Killing time, he again gambles in the Holland Company’s shares. He travels about the country. He does not like the swamps and canals and windmills; nor yet the Dutchmen themselves, with their long pipes and twenty pairs of breeches. He returns to Amsterdam, and, best of good fortunes! discovers the American ship Vigilant, Captain Combes.
“Can he arrange passage for America?”