“Dollars and dimes, dollars and dimes,
An empty pocket is the worst of crimes.”
Yes; and don’t you presume to show yourself anywhere, until you get it filled. “Not among good people?” No, my dear Simplicity, not among “good people.” They will receive you with a galvanic ghost of a smile, scared up by an indistinct recollection of the “ten commandments,” but it will be as short-lived as their stay with you. You are not welcome—that’s the amount of it. They are all in a perspiration lest you should be delivered of a request for their assistance, before they can get rid of you. They are “very busy,” and what’s more, they always will be busy when you call, until you get to the top of fortune’s ladder.
Climb, man! climb! Get to the top of the ladder, though adverse circumstances and false friends break every round in it! and see what a glorious and extensive prospect of human nature you’ll get when you arrive at the summit! Your gloves will be worn out shaking hands with the very people who didn’t recognize your existence two months ago. “You must come and make me a long visit;” “you must stop in at any time;” “you’ll always be welcome;” it is such a long time since they had the pleasure of a visit from you, that they begin to fear you never intended to come; and they’ll cap the climax by inquiring with an injured air, “if you are nearsighted, or why you have so often passed them in the street without speaking.”
Of course, you will feel very much like laughing in their faces, and so you can. You can’t do anything wrong, now that your “pocket is full.” At the most, it will only be “an eccentricity.” You can use anybody’s neck for a footstool, bridle anybody’s mouth with a silver bit, and have as many “golden opinions” as you like. You won’t see a frown again between this and your tombstone!
OUR NELLY.
“Who is she?” “Why, that is our Nelly, to be sure. Nobody ever passed Nelly without asking, ‘Who is she?’ One can’t forget the glance of that blue eye; nor the waving of those golden locks; nor the breezy grace of that lithe figure; nor those scarlet lips; nor the bright, glad sparkle of the whole face; and then, she is not a bit proud, although she steps so like a queen; she would shake hands just as quick with a horny palm as with a kid glove. The world can’t spoil ‘our Nelly;’ her heart is in the right place.
“You should have seen her thank an old farmer, the other day, for clearing the road that she might pass. He shaded his eyes with his hand when she swept by, as if he had been dazzled by a sudden flash of sunlight, and muttered to himself, as he looked after her—‘Won’t she make somebody’s heart ache?’ Well, she has; but it is because from among all her lovers she could marry but one, and (God save us!) that her choice should have fallen upon Walter May. If he don’t quench out the love-light in those blue eyes, my name is not John Morrison. I’ve seen his eyes flash when things didn’t suit him; I’ve seen him nurse his wrath to keep it warm till the smouldering embers were ready for a conflagration. He’s as vindictive as an Indian. I’d as soon mate a dove with a tiger, as give him ‘our Nelly.’ There’s a dozen noble fellows, this hour, ready to lay down their lives for her, and yet out of the whole crowd she must choose Walter May! Oh, I have no patience to think of it. Well-a-day! mark my words, he will break her heart before a twelvemonth! He’s a pocket edition of Napoleon.”