The ways of the hour

by James Fenimore Cooper

“Thomas Dunscomb, 2d floor, in front.”

It is somewhat singular that terms as simple as those of first floor, second floor, &c., should not signify the same things in the language of the mother country, and that of this land of progress and liberty. Certain it is, nevertheless, that in American parlance, more especially in that of Manhattan, a first floor is never up one pair of stairs, as in London, unless indeed the flight is that by which the wearied foot-passenger climbs the high stoop to gain an entrance into the building. In other words, an English first floor corresponds with an American second; and, taking that as the point of departure, the same difference exists throughout. Tom Dunscomb’s office (or offices would be the better term) occupied quite half of the second story of a large double house, that had once been the habitation of some private family of note, but which had long been abandoned to the occupation of these ministers of the law. Into those offices it has now become our duty to accompany one who seemed a little strange in that den of the profession, at the very moment he was perfectly at home.

“Lawyer Dunscomb in?” demanded this person, who had a decided rustic mien, though his dress had a sort of legal dye on it, speaking to one of the five or six clerks who raised their heads on the stranger’s entrance.

“In, but engaged in a consultation, I believe,” answered one who, being paid for his services, was the working clerk of the office; most of the others being students who get no remuneration for their time, and who very rarely deserve it.

“I’ll wait till he is through,” returned the stranger, helping himself coolly to a vacant chair, and taking his seat in the midst of dangers that might have alarmed one less familiar with the snares, and quirks, and quiddities of the law. The several clerks, after taking a good look each at their guest, cast their eyes down on their books or foolscap, and seemed to be engrossed with their respective occupations. Most of the young men, members of respectable families in town, set the stranger down for a rustic client; but the working-clerk saw at once, by a certain self-possessed and shrewd manner, that the stranger was a country practitioner.

In the course of the next half hour, Daniel Lord and George Wood came out of the sanctum, attended as far as the door by Dunscomb himself. Exchanging “good morning” with his professional friends, the last caught a glimpse of his patient visitor, whom he immediately saluted by the somewhat brief and familiar name of Timms, inviting him instantly, and with earnestness, to come within the limits of the privileged. Mr. Timms complied, entering the sanctum with the air of one who had been there before, and appearing to be in no manner overcome by the honour he enjoyed. And now, as a faithful chronicler of events, it is here become our painful, not to say revolting duty, to record an act on the part of the man who was known throughout Duke’s county as ’Squire Timms, which it will never do to overlook, since it has got to be perfectly distinctive and characteristic of late years, not of an individual, but of large classes who throng the bar, the desk, the steamboats, the taverns, the streets. A thousand paragraphs have been written on the subject of American spitting, and not one line, as we can remember, on the subject of an equally common and still grosser offence against the minor morals of the country, if decency in manners may be thus termed. Our meaning will be explained more fully in the narrative of the stranger’s immediate movements on entering the sanctum.

“Take a seat, Mr. Timms,” said Dunscomb, motioning to a chair, while he resumed his own well-cushioned seat, and deliberately proceeded to light a segar, not without pressing several with a species of intelligent tenderness, between his thumb and finger. “Take a seat, sir; and take a segar.”

Here occurred the great tour de force in manners of ’Squire Timms. Considerately turning his person quartering towards his host, and seizing himself by the nose, much as if he had a quarrel with that member of his face, he blowed a blast that sounded sonorously, and which fulfilled all that it promised. Now a better mannered man than Dunscomb it would not be easy to find. He was not particularly distinguished for elegance of deportment, but he was perfectly well-bred. Nevertheless, he did not flinch before this broad hint from vulgarity, but stood it unmoved. To own the truth, so large has been the inroad from the base of society, within the last five-and-twenty years, on the habits of those who once exclusively dwelt together, that he had got hardened even to this innovation. The fact is not to be concealed, and, as we intend never to touch upon the subject again, we shall say distinctly that Mr. Timms blowed his nose with his fingers, and that, in so doing, he did not innovate one half as much, to-day, on the usages of the Upper Ten Thousand, as he would have done had he blowed his nose with his thumb only, a quarter of a century since.

Dunscomb bore this infliction philosophically; and well he might, for there was no remedy. Waiting for Timms to use his handkerchief, which was produced somewhat tardily for such an operation, he quietly opened the subject of their interview.

“So the grand jury has actually found a bill for murder and arson, my nephew writes me,” Dunscomb observed, looking enquiringly at his companion, as if really anxious for further intelligence.