“Yes, if she was the devil’s dam herself, we promised the good man to let her go. Stand back, boys, and let the doctor pass.”
An opening was accordingly formed, through which the doctor hastened to make his way. When he made his appearance at the door, he was greeted with three wild, hearty cheers for himself, and as many groans and hisses for the character of the woman whom he bore, the news of the identification of whom had instantly found its way to the outside.
Regardless of all this, and only congratulating himself upon the prospect of getting his patient off alive, he pressed rapidly through the crowd, with the purpose of bearing her to the shelter of his own bachelor home.
The mob now instantly occupied the building, which was gutted by them, and the shattered contents, along with its occupants, men and women, roughly hurled into the street. Some of the former were very severely handled, and among the rest, the Spiritual Professor had his share of material chastening. The mob found him under a cot-bed, with three or four feminine disciples of his spiritual correspondences piled over him, or clinging distractedly to his nerveless limbs.
They dragged him out by the heels, with his squalling cortege trailing after him, and finding that the occult professor of spiritualities had gone into a state of obliviousness, or rather fainted, they proceeded, in their solicitude for his recovery, to deluge his person with sundry convenient slops, which shall be nameless, and afterwards kicked him headlong into the street below, where the screaming boys pelted him with gutter-mud and rotten eggs, until, finding his spiritual legs, as he had been advised—it is to be supposed—of a sudden, he made himself scarce, down Barclay Street, in an inappreciable twinkle.
In a word, the people, in this instance, as in many others, when they have found it necessary to take the laws of decency and common sense into their own sovereign hands, did the work of ridding themselves of this most detestable nuisance effectually. The Graham House was broken up, and although the pestilent nest of knaves and fools who most delighted there to congregate, have endeavored, in subsequent years, to reassemble, and renew the ancient character of the place as their head-quarters, yet the attempt has only been attended with partial success.
The blow was too decisive on this night; for, although the walls were left standing, the proprietor was given clearly to understand, that the unnatural orgies of amalgamation would not be tolerated again by the community, under the decisive penalty of no one stone left standing upon the other, of the building.
He took the hint, and it was about time! It has been fairly conjectured by this time, from the glimpses we have taken of the interior, that the house was the scene of other vices than those implied in amalgamation merely. It will be seen in yet other words and years how much there was of real danger to the well-being of society, in the doctrines taught and practised within its unhallowed walls. No one lesson could ever prove sufficient for these people; they enjoy a fatal impunity even now, and we shall endeavor that men shall know them as they are!
CHAPTER IV.
BOANERGES PHOSPHER, THE SPIRITUAL PROFESSOR.
He strikes no coin, ’tis true, but coins new phrases,