JONATHAN SLICK RETURNED.
Jonathan's Arrival in New York from the onion beds at Weathersfield—Jonathan puts up at the Astor House—His notion of that great heap of stones—Jonathan's Ideas of a New York Cab, and the usual quarrel of a Stranger with Cabmen—A Sensation is created at the Astor.
Dear Par:
Here I am down in York agin, as large as life and as springy as a steel trap. Hurra! but don't it make a feller feel as suple as a green walnut gad to have these stun side walks under his shoe leather once more! I raly felt as if I could a'most have jumped over the housen, eend foremost, I was so glad to git ashore at Peck Slip. Captin Doolittle, he kept his gab a going, a hull hour, a trying to make out it warn't worthy a ginuine Yankee to hanker after the York big bugs so. Now my opinion is, Captin Doolittle ain't no bad judge of onions and other garden sarse, and he did run the old sloop down here as slick as grease, but when he sets himself up to talk about genteel society, he raly is green.
Look a here, par, did I ever tell you what a looking place that Astor House is? If I didn't, jest you suppose that all the stun walls in old Connecticut had been hewed down as smooth as glass, and heaped together, one a-top of t'other, over two acres of clearing, up and up, half away to the sky and a leetle over; suppose then the hull etarnal great heap cut up into winders and doors, with almighty great slabs of stun piled up for steps and pillars standing on eend, on the top, to hold them down—bigger than the highest oak tree you ever sot eyes on, and then you have some idee what a whopping consarn that Astor House is.
At fust I felt a leetle skeery at going to board there, for think sez I, if they charge according to the size of the house, I guess it'll make my puss strings ache; but, think sez I agin, the best taverns, according to my experience, all'rs charge the leastest prices, I will give 'em a try any how.
I gin a cuffy on the wharf two cents to go and get a carriage for me, for I meant to du the thing up in genteel style, and cut the hull figger when I once begun. Besides, the cabin was so stived up with onion barrels and heaps of red cabbages, besides the turnips and winter squashes, that I hadn't no room to fix up in till I got a hum somewhere else, and my dandy clothes have got a leetle the wus for wear, and don't cut quite so much of a dash as they used tu. I hadn't but jest time to rub them down a trifle with a handful of oat straw that I took from one of the winter apple barrels, and to slick down my hair a few, with both my hands, when the nigger cum back and said he couldn't find a carriage, but he'd got a fust rate cab.
Sartinly that cab was one of the darndest queer animals that ever run arter a hoss. It looked like a set of stairs on wheels, with a great overgrown leather trunk sot on eend half way up, with the lid turned over one side. The horse was hitched to the lowermost step, and on the top step of all, clear back, sot a feller histed up in the air with a great long whip, and lines that reached clear over the hull consarn to the horse's head, and this chap was the driver; but he looked as if he'd been sot there wrong eend foremost, and felt awfully streaked and top-heavy about it. It raly was curious to watch the chap as he laid his lines on the top of the box and crept down stairs to stow away my saddle-bags and the hair trunk that marm gin me. When he'd got through, I jest lifted one foot from the ground, and there I sot in a little cushioned pen, like a rooster in a strange coop, or a rat in an empty meal bin. The feller slam'd tu the door and went up the steps behind agin, then I ketched sight of the lines a dangling over head, like a couple of ribbon snakes a twisting about in the sunshine; and away we went trundling along like a great oversized wheelbarrow, with a horse before, a driver behind, and a poor unfortunate critter like me cooped in the middle, with a trunk and pair of saddle-bags for company.
Well, on we went hitch-a-te-hitch, jerk-a-ty-jerk through the carts and horses till we got out of the slip, and then we kept on a leetle more regular till by-and-by the horse he stopped all of himself jest afore the Astor House.
"Wal," sez I to the driver, a feeling in my trousers' pocket for a ninepence—for the nigger told me that them new fangled cabs had sot up a sort of cheap opposition to the hacks—so sez I,