Townley’s friendship had even extended to providing him with a boarding-place, a room in the house where he himself lodged; and toward this the young fellows took their way, early in the afternoon. Arthur was already tired, with his short and idle day; he was overcome by the rush and the whirl and the magnitude of things. He had heard talked of, had handled, had seen the management of, huge sums of money; he had seen millions in the process of their making; but how to divert a rivulet of the Pactolean stream to himself seemed a greater mystery than ever. It took so much to make so little! Such huge heaps of bullion had to be sweated to yield to the manipulator the clippings of one gold dollar! Truly, on the other hand, Townley talked to him of millions made and lost as if they had been blackberries. It was, “There’s old Prime—he made a million in that Panhandle deal,” or “There goes poor old Howard—the shorts in Erie used him up,” until Arthur saw that he was seeing here a most instructive process: nothing less than the creation and founding of American families. Here were the people, the progenitors of future castes; the sources of inherited estate, of culture, of consideration; this old man with the battered hat, that sharp-faced young Israelite, were the ancestors, the probable fathers and grandfathers of the men and maidens who were to be “society” in the future Republic; the first acquirers of—not the broad acres, but the city lots—the rich houses, the stocks and bonds, the whole equipment of life, that was (if our laws are maintained) to make sleek the jeunesse dorée of the twentieth century. A million! It is not much, in many ways, in most ways that we read about in books and bibles; it is not a factor of the Crusades, nor of the War of the Roses, nor yet (as we are informed) of the kingdom of heaven. But most things that Townley saw were multiples of it; and now Townley carefully avoided reading books; for even General Gordon, you remember, writing from Khartoum to posterity, records the reflection that mankind and his works are governed by his ventral tube. Now of ventral tubes, a million is the deity; books should, as they used to, speak to souls. And Arthur, thinking of all this, who had marvelled first at all their eagerness, now wondered rather at their carelessness; of these men, taking and losing such things so lightly.
Arthur could not have had a better cicerone than Charlie Townley. He knew his New York like the inside of his pocket; its streets, its ways, its women, its wiles, its heroes and its favorites; its eating places, drinking places, breathing places; its getting up and its lying down. When they passed Fourteenth Street, his manner changed very apparently; the æsthetic overcame the practical; the hard shine of millions was displaced by the softer radiance of women’s eyes. Many of these same eyes were, in their turn, riveted by the display of women’s wares in the shop-windows about Union Square, which gave Townley the opportunity of gazing at his ease; although, it must be owned, if any of these eyes looked up and met his own, he seemed little disconcerted.
They stopped and made a call at the Columbian Club, which was crowded with men, breaking the long journey homeward to their firesides, domestic or otherwise. And as, in some country hamlet of the Middle Ages, we can fancy the little ale-house, standing on the heath, midway; Jock and Dickon are plodding home tired from the long day’s plowing; behind this one smoking chimney the cold November sky lowers drearily, the last pale tints of the tired day are fading, and the common is bare, and the naked moorland left to the wolves; and the two men stop in a moment at the Cat-and-Fiddle to have a bite and a sup, a cup around the tavern-fire, and a bit of human companionship, to talk about the price of corn, and of Hodge the tinker’s son and Joan his sweetheart, and the doings of the new squire, whose round brown towers peep from the coppice of the distant park—so, too, here in our New York, the jaded men drop in, and chat about the price of stocks, their neighbor’s horses and his wife, and have a glass of bitters round the fire. Townley took vermouth, lamenting bitterly that his health permitted nothing stronger; but other paler men than he administered brandy-cocktails unto themselves, or pick-me-ups of gin. Here Charlie brushed himself, and took his silver-headed cane; and again the pair sallied forth upon their journey, crossing Madison Square and striking up the Avenue. Many damsels, richly robed, now lit up the long way; there is usually a received type at any period for the outdoor gorgeousness of womankind, and this year it was blue—a walking-suit of blue, from neck to heel, close-fitting, and all of velvet. Dozens and scores of velvet gowns they passed, and Arthur noticed that his guide, philosopher, and friend looked at many of them as if they were familiar sights, but bowed to few. Now there had been many, in Union Square, to whom he had nodded, at the least. He seemed to read Arthur’s thoughts, for he said:
“These are all off-side girls. You don’t see the others out at this time.”
“What do you mean?” said Arthur.
“Why, they’re not in society, you know.” And he lifted his hat to one of them, who had given him a most empressé bow, including in it Arthur. “There’s one of the prettiest girls in town,” said he, meditatively; “Kitty Farnum. They’re awfully rich, too; old Farnum’s got no end of money.” This thought seemed to depress Charlie for a minute, and they walked on in silence. Now Arthur had met Miss Farnum at a New Haven ball, where she had been a very proud belle indeed.
“There,” said Townley, at last, as they crossed a side street, “is Mrs. Levison Gower’s.” There was a certain reverence in his tone, as he said this, that his voice had not yet shown in all that day, and Arthur looked with a proper admiration, though not clearly understanding why, at the house we have already described.
Their lodgings were near by (so Townley always spoke of the boarding-house where he lived), and the young men separated to dress for dinner. Arthur had been rather surprised that so elegant a person lived in a boarding-house at all; but the fact was, Townley preferred to use his money elsewhere than at home. But he never dined with the other inhabitants; in fact, his acquaintance with them was extremely slight, as he always breakfasted in his room; and to-night he put a finishing touch upon his hospitality by inviting Arthur to a very pretty little dinner at the Piccadilly Club. But after this, Townley had an engagement, and Arthur was left to his own devices. He smoked his cigar and read the evening paper; then he began an article in the Edinburgh Review, took up the Spectator, and ended with Punch; after which he became unoccupied, and his spirits dropped visibly.
By this time several men had strolled in; there was much laughing and gay spirits; around him were all the luxuries of mind and body that the inventive bachelor mind has yet devised for the comfort of either such part of himself. But as Arthur leaned back in the deep, throne-like leather chair and sipped (if one may so say) his reina victoria, his consciousness went back to a certain sunny hillside, with the light of the rich autumn morning, and the joyous beat of the hoofs upon the dewy grass.
He had been to see Gracie only the day before; but he drew on his overcoat and walked around to the Livingstones. A light was in the second-story window of the high house; and he rang the bell hopefully.