“The same. You know him, then, already? Poor fellow! he's terribly cut up; but he 'll be glad to see an old friend. Have you been much together?”
“A great deal. I made a cruise with him in his yacht, the 'Firefly.'”
“What a rare piece of fortune to have met you!” cried Falkoner, as he shook my hand once more. And so, with the most fervent assurances of meeting on the morrow, we parted,—he, to saunter slowly towards his hotel; and I, to stand in the middle of the street, and, as I wiped the perspiration from my brow, to ask myself, had I gone clean mad.
I was so overwhelmed by the shock of my own impudence that I stood where Falkoner left me, for full five minutes, motionless and spell-bound. To have boasted of my intimacy with Captain De Courcy, although the Atlantic rolled between us, was bad enough, in all conscience; but to have talked of Sir Dudley—the haughty, insolent, overbearing Sir Dudley Broughton—as “my old friend,” was something that actually appalled me. How could my vain boastfulness have so far got the better of my natural keenness; how could my silly self-sufficiency have carried me so far? “Ah,” thought I, “it was not the real Con Cregan who spoke such ineffable folly; these were the outpourings of that diabolical 'Thumbo-rig.'”
While, therefore, I entered into a bond with myself to eschew that insidious compound in future, I also adopted the far more imminent and important resolve, to run away from New Orleans. Another sun must not set upon me in that city, come what might. With a shudder, I called to mind Sir Dudley's own avowal of his passion as a hater, and I could not venture to confront such danger.
I accordingly hastened to my miserable lodging, and, packing up my few clothes, now reduced to the compass of a bundle in a handkerchief, I paid my bill, and, on a minute calculation of various pieces of strange coinage, found myself the possessor of four dollars and a quarter,—a small sum, and something less than a cent for every ten miles I was removed from my native land. What meant the term “country,” after all, to such as me? He has a country who possesses property in it, whose interests tie him to the soil, where his name is known and his presence recognized; but what country belongs to him where no resting-place is found for his weary feet, whose home is an inn, whose friends are the fellow-travellers with whom he has journeyed? The ties of country, like those of kindred, are superstitions,—high and holy ones sometimes, but still superstitions. Believe in them if you can, and so much the better for you; but in some hour the conviction will come that man is of every land.
Thus pondering, I trudged along at a smart pace, my bundle on a stick over my shoulder, never noticing the road, and only following the way because it seemed to lead out of the city. It was a gorgeous morning; the sun glittered on the bright roofs, and lit up the gay terraces of the houses, where creepers of every tint and foliage were tastefully entwined and festooned, as these people knew so well to dispose. Servants were opening windows, displaying handsomely-furnished rooms, replete with every luxury, as I passed; busy housemaids were brushing, and sweeping, and polishing; and shining niggers were beating carpets and shaking hearthrugs, while others were raking the gravel before the doors, or watering the rich magnolias and cactuses that stood sentinel beneath the windows. Carriages, too, were washing, and high-bred horses standing out to be groomed,—all signs of wealth and of the luxuries of the rich men, whose close-drawn curtains portended sleep. “Ay,” thought I, “there are hundreds here, whose weightiest evil would be that they awoke an hour earlier than their wont; that their favorite Arab had stood on a sharp stone; that some rude branch had scratched the rich varnish on their chariot: while I wander along, alone and friendless, my worldly substance a few dollars.” This disparity of condition of course occurs to the mind of every poor man; but it only is a canker to him who has had a glimpse, be it ever so fleeting, of a life of luxury and ease. For this reason, the servant-class will always be a great source of danger to our present social condition; seeing the weakness, the folly, and sometimes the worse than folly of those they serve, viewing, from a near point, the interior lives of those who, seen from afar, are reckoned great and illustrious,—they lose the prestige of respect for the distinguishing qualities of station, and only yield it to the outward symbols,—the wealth and riches. What Socialists are our butlers; what Democrats our footmen; what Red Republicans are our cooks; what a Leveller is the gardener! For all your “yellow plush,” you are Sans-culottes, every man of you.
Now, I deem it a high testimony to my powers of judgment that I never entertained these views. On the contrary, I always upheld the doctrine that society, like a broken thigh-bone, did best on an “inclined plane,” and I repudiated equality with the scorn a man six feet high would feel were he told that the human standard was to be four and a half. The only grudge I did feel towards the fortunate man of wealth was that I should lose so many brilliant years of life in acquiring—for acquire it I would—what I would far rather employ in dispensing. A guinea at twenty is worth a hundred at thirty, a thousand at forty, a million at sixty,—that's the geometrical mean of life. Glorious youth, that only needs “debentures” to be divine!
My head became clearer and my brain more unclouded as I walked along in the free air of the morning, and I felt that with a cigar I should both compose my vagrant fancies, and cheat myself out of the necessity of a breakfast. Excellent weed! that can make dulness imaginative, and imagination plodding; that renders stupid men companionable to clever ones, and gives a meek air of thought to the very flattest insipidity!
I searched my pocket for the little case that contained my Manillas, but in vain; I tried another,—like result. How was it? I always carried it in my great-coat: had I been robbed? I could not help laughing at the thought, it sounded so ineffably comic. I essayed again, alas! with no better success. Could I have placed it in the breast-pocket? What! there is no breast-pocket! How is this, Con? Has Thumbo-rig its influence over you yet? I passed my hand across my brow, and tried to remember if the breast-pocket had only been a tradition of another coat, or what had become of it. Pockets do not close from being empty, like county banks, nor do they dry up, like wells, from disuse.