Some weeks had elapsed since I had seen uncle Barabbas; and at his name visions of cakes and apples, peg-tops and whipping-tops, rose before me. Like Agesilaus, Socrates, Yorick, and other men whom I do not hesitate to call of his kidney, my uncle would chequer and ameliorate the labour of public life by sporting with little children. “He hath borne me on his back a thousand times.” I was of course delighted at the prospect of visiting my uncle; but was at the same time made to wonder at the preparation of my father, who carefully bound up one of his eyes, glued large whiskers on his cheeks, and otherwise so disguised himself that, although I saw him do it, I could scarcely believe it was he. However, I thought it was all to have some game with Uncle Barabbas—and in my childishness crowed with laughter at anticipation of the sport.
I walked with my father, and in about half-an-hour came to a very large house, a place I had never seen before: for my dear mother, always fuming about fevers and measles, kept me close at home. My father, suddenly walking very lame, knocked at the door, and through a cold that had come on him all in a minute, asked hoarsely enough for my uncle. The man let us in, and then another man went before us; and then I knew I was in a place where there were heaps of gold and diamonds, for the man unlocked and locked again at least a dozen doors. I give my childish impressions, which I entreat the reader not to smile at, but to remember the simplicity and ingenuousness of my age. Well, after a time, we were led into an open court, where some gentlemen were throwing up halfpence, and two on a bench were pushing straws; and there was one dancing, and one or two singing, and all as happy as birds.
I looked round the place and saw uncle Barabbas smoking in a corner. I was about to call him when my father gave my arm such a pull I thought it was broken; and so I resolved to say nothing, but to wait and see the fun that father would play off upon uncle. Sure enough Barabbas never knew him; and though my uncle patted me upon the head, he had, I thought, forgotten me, for he gave me nothing. My father and my uncle talked together for a long time; when—I see my uncle now—Barabbas suddenly brought himself up, and raising his head, and extending his right arm, the palm open, he said in a solemn voice:—
“Depend upon it, every man has within him a bit of the swindler.”
My father shook his head; whereupon my uncle, for he was very scholarly, and could talk for an hour without stopping, proceeded as follows:—I am perfectly certain as to the words, having subsequently found the whole written speech among other of my uncle’s papers; Barabbas, like some other wits and orators, carefully putting in pen and ink any brilliant thought that struck him—any argument that was a hobby with him, that he might at proper season extemporaneously bring it forth to the delight and astonishment of his hearers. My father shook his head at the dogma of my uncle, who, without stop, continued:—
“Are you so ignorant as to believe in the deficiency of mankind in general—to imagine that nature is so partial a mother as to dower with her best gifts only a few of her children, leaving the multitude defenceless, unarmed? My dear sir,”—here my uncle lowered his voice,—“amend your ignorance—be just to nature. Do you see tigers whelped without claws—elephants calved that never have tusks—rattlesnakes hatched with no stings? Is nature so niggard—so partial—so unjust? No—philosophers and conquerors have made their marks, and signed their names to the fact—to swindle is to exhibit the peculiar attribute of the human animal; it is at once the triumph and distinguishing faculty of the race. But you will say, do all men swindle? and I ask, do all snakes sting—all elephants gore? There is, however, an unanswerable argument which proves that men, when gregarious, are inevitably swindlers; at least, if they are not, let not the failing be placed to their account; they would be, if they might. Let me put a case. You recollect Gloss, the retired merchant? What an excellent man was Gloss! A pattern man to make a whole generation by! Nobody could surpass him in what is called honesty, rectitude, moral propriety, and other gibberish. Well, Gloss joins a ‘Board’; he becomes one of a community; and, immediately, the latent feeling asserts itself: he is a backbone man with the rest of his brotherhood; and though as simple Gloss, and not a member of the ‘board,’ he is the same as ever, yet when acting with his fellows, when one of the body corporate, when he merges the man Gloss in the board member, the inherent faculty becomes active, and he gratifies the instinct, or the refined reason, or whatever men agree to call it—and complacently swindles with the rest. He cannot do otherwise: human nature is tested by the occasion; and if, under the circumstances, he refuse to swindle, he ceases to be a man. Swindling, my dear sir”—and here my uncle spoke in a tremulous voice, and my father seemed touched by the emotion—“Swindling, my dear sir, has indeed a far more comprehensive meaning than that superficially awarded to it by, possibly, very respectable people. Good soldiers may fight, pillage, and violate under a banner, and yet, in truth, shall not be able to read and interpret the legend emblazoned on it.”
I could perceive that my father did not perfectly understand this. He, therefore, nodded assentingly, and my uncle, with new animation, proceeded:—
“When I reflect on the extensive and subtle operation of the faculty—when I perceive that, in this our best possible social state, it is, so to speak, the cement that keeps society together; the bond of union; the very salt of human government—it does, I confess it, irk me to find men ungraciously deny its existence, putting off its triumphs upon other motives, and depriving swindling of the glory of its deeds. Strange perversion of human intellect—laughable contradiction of moral purposes! Thus, the politician flutters at the very breath of swindler; thus, the stockbroker struts and swells, and lays his hand upon his waistcoat with a blank look of wondering innocence at the slightest allusion to the faculty that makes a man of him—to which he owes his carriage and country house, his conservatories and his pineries; and above all, the flattering hope of calling Lord Giggleton son-in-law; his lordship being over head, and, what is more, over ears in love with Arabella’s guineas. And yet, such is the base, the black ingratitude of human nature, that this man, this most adroit and lucky stockbroker, starts even at the name of swindler! He indignantly denies the slightest obligation to the higher faculty—the mens divinior of the cabinet, the mart, and the counting-house. Look at Sir Godfrey Measles, the illustrious pork contractor, in whom our brave and magnanimous sailors confide for dinners. Did he not in the most handsome way forfeit a fine to his king and country for having failed to supply swine’s flesh at so much per stone? And then, having paid his fine like a patriot and a man,—did he not, having before bought up all the pork to be had—did he not, with the gushing feelings of a philanthropist, offer it at three times the contract price? Now what was this? Men who veil their meaning in allegory may say that Sir Godfrey Measles ‘drove his pigs to a fine market.’ For myself, I elevate the homely phrase of pig-driver into the more ennobling name of swindler. Others may say that Sir Godfrey only traded—I stick to my belief; I say he swindled. More: I reverence him for the act; my only deep regret is, that he should have failed in an ingenuous gratitude, and denied the action of the higher principle. I have long looked upon the world, and, with sorrow, I say it, in nothing do the generations of successful men show so much cold and callous ingratitude as in their treatment of their guardian genius, that prettiest of Pucks, that best of Robin Goodfellows, that deftest of household fairies, hight Swindling!”
My father cast his one eye towards his eloquent brother with a look of speaking admiration; and, although there was a pause, did not presume to make any rejoinder. My uncle proceeded:—
“But why number examples? Why attempt to prove that which every man, if he would but consult the recesses of his own bosom, must truly know? Ask all the professions; demand of the lawyer, with yellow, studious cheek, wherefore he should coin gold out of little strips of paper, written over by youthful scribes at two or three shillings per diem. Request him to give you the philosophy of costs—the exquisite meaning of appearance and declaration, and reply and rejoinder, and all the thousand terms invented by the most cunning class of labourers, the overlookers at the building of Babel. Ask the sleek practitioner to what he owes his fortune. To common-sense—to justice—to the fair and rational barter of labour for shillings? If he be a hypocrite—if he be resolved to clap in with the world, and carry on a profitable duplicity, he will swell like a bull-frog at the query, and, forgetful of his knuckles, will strike his heart, answering with the big-mouthed ‘Yes!’ But if at the end of a long practice there should by miracle remain in that attorney’s bosom a throb of truth, he will blandly, yet significantly smile at the words—the counters men play with—common-sense and justice, and magnanimously and unblushingly declare his debt to—swindling!