As I knew no one, I waited patiently to be directed where I should sit, and was at last shown to a place between a very fat lady of créole tint—another dip would have made her black—and a little brisk man, whom I soon heard was Monsieur Palamede himself.
The dinner was good, the conversation easiest of the easy, taking in all, from matters commercial to social,—the whole seasoned with the greatest good-humor and no small share of smartness. Personal adventures by land and sea,—many of the latter recounted by men who made no scruple of confessing that they “dealt in ebony,”—the slave-trade. Little incidents of life, that told much for the candor of the recounter, were heard on all sides, until at length I really felt ashamed of my own deficiency in not having even contributed an anecdote for the benefit of the company. This preyed upon me the more as I saw myself surrounded by persons who really, if their own unimpeachable evidence was to be credited, began the world in ways and shapes the most singular and uncommon. Not a man or woman of the party that had not slipped into existence in some droll, quaint fashion of their own, so that positively, and for the first time, I really grew ashamed to think that I belonged to “decent people” who had not compromised me in the slightest degree. “Voilà un jeune homme qui ne dit pas un mot!” said a pretty-looking woman, with fair brown hair and a very liquid pair of blue eyes. The speech was addressed to me, and the whole table at once turned their glances towards me.
“Ay, very true,” said a short, stout little skipper, with an unmistakable slash from a cutlass across his nose; “a sharp-looking fellow like that has a story if he will only tell it.”
“And you may see,” cried another, “that we are above petty prejudices here; roguery only lies heavy on the conscience that conceals it.” The speaker was a tall, sallow man, with singularly intelligent features; he had been a Jesuit tutor in the family of an Italian noble, and after consigning his patron to the Inquisition, had been himself banished from Rome.
Pressing entreaties and rough commands, half imperious instances and very seductive glances, all were directed towards me, with the object of extorting some traits of my life, and more particularly of that part of it which concerned my birth and parentage. If the example of the company invited the most unqualified candor, I cannot say that it overcame certain scruples I felt about revealing my humble origin. I was precisely in that anomalous position in life when such avowals are most painful. Without ambition, the confession had not cost me any sacrifice; while, on the other hand, I had not attained that eminence which has a proud boastfulness in saying, “Yes, I, such as you see me now,—great, titled, wealthy, and powerful,—I was the son of a newsvender or a lamplighter.” Such avowals, highly lauded as they are by the world, especially when made by archbishops or chancellors, or other great folk, at public dinners, are, to my thinking, about as vainglorious bits of poor human nature as the most cynical could wish to witness. They are the mere victories of vanity over self-esteem. Now, I had no objection that the world should think me a young gentleman of the very easiest notions of right and wrong, with a conscience as elastic as gutta-percha, picking my way across life's stream on the stepping-stones made by other men's skulls,—being, as the phrase has it, a very loose fish indeed; but I insisted on their believing that I was well-born. Every one has his weakness,—this was Con Cregan's; and as these isolated fissures in strong character are nearly allied with strength, so was it with me: had I not had this frailty, I had never cherished so intensely the passion to become a gentleman. This is all digressionary; but I 'll not ask pardon of my dear reader for all that. If he be reading in his snug, well-cushioned chair, with every appliance of ease about him, he'll not throw down these “Confessions” for a bit of prosing that invites the sleep that is already hovering round him. If he has taken me up in the few minutes before dinner, he 'll not regret the bit of meditation which does not involve him in a story. If he be spelling me out in a mail-train, he'll be grateful for the “skipping” place, which leaves him time to look out and see the ingenious preparations that are making by the “down” or the “up” train to run into and smash the unhappy convoy of which he forms a part.
“Come, my young lad, out with it. Let us hear a bit about the worthy people who took the sin of launching you into the wide ocean. You must have had owners one time or other.” This was said by a hearty looking old man, with hair white as snow, and an enormous pair of eyebrows to match.
“Willingly, sir,” said I, with an air of the easiest confidence; “I should be but too proud if anything in a history humble as mine is could amuse this honorable company. But the truth is, a life so devoid of interest would be only a tax upon its patience to listen to; and as to my birth, I can give little, indeed no, information. The earliest record of my existence that I possess is from the age of two days and three hours.”
“That will do,—do admirably!” chorused the party, who laughed heartily at the gravity with which I spoke, and which to them seemed an earnest of my extreme simplicity. “We shall be quite satisfied with that,” cried they again.
“Well, then, gentlemen, thanking you for the indulgence with which you consent to overlook my want of accuracy, I proceed. At the tender age I have mentioned, I was won in a raffle!”
“Won in a raffle! won in a raffle!” screamed one after the other; and amid shouts of laughter the phrase continued to be echoed from end to end of the table. “That beats you hollow, Giles!” “By Jove, how scarce babies must be in the part you come from, if people take tickets for em!” Such were some of the commentaries that broke out amidst the mirth.