There’s Tom Hillot. Tom’s married. I was his groomsman. I would have given a small fortune to have been in his white satin vest—what with the music, and the roses, and the pretty little bridesmaid! Didn’t the bride look bewitching, with the rose-flush on her cheek and the tear on her eyelash? And how provokingly happy Tom looked, when he whirled off with her in the carriage to their new home; and what a pretty little home it was, to be sure. It is just a year to-day since they were married. I dined there yesterday. It strikes me that Tom don’t joke as much as he used in his bachelor days; and then he has a way, too, of leaving his sentences unfinished. And I noticed that his wife often touched his foot with her slipper under the table. What do you suppose she did that for? Just as I was buttoning up my coat to come away, I asked Tom if he would go up to Tammany Hall with me. He looked at his wife, and she said, “Oh, go by all means, Mr. Hillot;” when Tom immediately declined. I don’t understand matrimonial tactics; but it seems to me he ought to have obliged her.
Do you know John Jones and his wife? (peculiar name that—“Jones!”) Well, they are another happy couple. It is enough to make bachelor eyes turn green to see them. Mrs. Jones had been four times a widow when she married John. She knows the value of husbands. She takes precious good care of John. Before he goes to the office in the morning, she pops her head out the window to see if the weathercock indicates a surtout, spencer, cloak, or Tom and Jerry; this point settled, she follows him to the door, and calls him back to close his thorax button “for fear of quinsy.” Does a shower come up in the forenoon? She sends him clogs, India rubbers, an extra flannel shirt, and an oilcloth overall, and prepares two quarts of boiling ginger tea to administer on his arrival, to prevent the damp from “striking in.” If he helps himself to a second bit of turkey, she immediately removes it from his plate, and applying a handkerchief to her eyes, asks him “if he has the heart to make her for the fifth time a widow?” You can see, with half an eye, that John must be the happiest dog alive. I’d like to see the miscreant who dares to say he is not!
Certainly—matrimony is an invention of ——. Well, no matter who invented it. I’m going to try it. Where’s my blue coat with the bright brass buttons? The woman has yet to be born who can resist that; and my buff vest and neck-tie, too: may I be shot if I don’t offer them both to the little Widow Pardiggle this very night. “Pardiggle!” Phœbus! what a name for such a rose-bud. I’ll re-christen her by the euphonious name of Smith. She’ll have me, of course. She wants a husband—I want a wife: there’s one point already on which we perfectly agree. I hate preliminaries. I suppose it is unnecessary for me to begin with the amatory alphabet. With a widow, I suppose you can skip the rudiments. Say what you’ve got to say in a fraction of a second. Women grow as mischievous as Satan if they think you are afraid of them. Do I look as if I were afraid? Just examine the growth of my whiskers. The Bearded Lady could n’t hold a candle to them (though I wonder she don’t to her own). Afraid? h-m-m! I feel as if I could conquer Asia. What the mischief ails this cravat? It must be the cold that makes my hand tremble so. There—that’ll do: that’s quite an inspiration. Brummel himself couldn’t go beyond that. Now for the widow; bless her little round face! I’m immensely obliged to old Pardiggle for giving her a quit claim. I’ll make her as happy as a little robin. Do you think I’d bring a tear into her lovely blue eye? Do you think I’d sit after tea, with my back to her, and my feet upon the mantel, staring up the chimney for three hours together? Do you think I’d leave her blessed little side to dangle about oyster-saloons and theatres? Do I look like a man to let a woman flatten her pretty little nose against the window-pane night after night, trying to see me reel up the street.
Refused by a widow! Who ever heard of such a thing? Well; there’s one comfort: nobody’ll ever believe it. She is not so very pretty after all; her eyes are too small, and her hands are rough and red-dy:—not so very ready either, confound the gipsy. What amazing pretty shoulders she has! Well, who cares?
“If she be not fair for me,
What care I how fair she be?”
Ten to one she’d have set up that wretch of a Pardiggle for my model. Who wants to be Pardiggle second? I am glad she didn’t have me. I mean—I’m glad I didn’t have her!
