All sorts of consequences, in the present instance, followed this state of things. The school became, in this particular, like a besieged city, cut off from supplies from without, while its inhabitants lived on under an ever increasing pressure of difficulties, which made premature Micawbers of the unfortunate aspirants to that temple which is so artistically represented in the frontispiece to Webster's spelling book, as surmounting the hill of Science, and animated by the figure of Fame on the roof, proclaiming through her trumpet a perpetual invitation to enter the majestic portals beneath.
The possessor of money, received, under these circumstances, a greater degree of consideration than is usually accorded to the millionaire in the world at large. The owner of a "quarter" had troops of friends, and became purse-proud on the strength of that magnificent coin. Happy was he who had unlimited "tick;" to whose call livery-stable keepers were obsequious, and with whom tailors were ready to invest, having faith to believe that the present dry aspect of the financial sky would be succeeded by refreshing showers of "mint-drops" from the paternal pockets. Some of the young ladies who had invoked the milliner's assistance in defiance of the poet's line—"Beauty unadorned, &c.," occasionally received hints respecting the settlement of their trifling accounts, which materially diminished the pleasure that they would otherwise have felt in the contemplation of their outer adornments. Bonnets reminded them of bills, and dresses of duns.
The more juvenile portion of our scholastic community, too, felt the pressure of the "hard times" which some invisible hand had brought upon them. In early life, the saccharine bump is largely developed, but unlike other organs described by phrenologists, this is within the mouth, and is commonly called the "sweet tooth." Those luxurious youth who had hitherto indulged the cravings of this organ ad libitum, or as far as they could do so without the knowledge of their teachers, found the wary confectioners unwilling longer to satisfy their unsophisticated appetites, without more "indemnity for the past" if not "security for the future," than they had yet furnished.
So these victims of raging desire were compelled to retire hungry from untasted luxuries, not without sundry candid expressions of their feelings toward the obdurate retailers of sweets, and tart replies from those individuals. Their only consolation was to revel in dreams in which the temple of Fame was supported by pillars of candy, with a protuberant pie for a dome; while her trumpet was converted into a cornucopia from which unfailing streams of sugar-plums were issuing.
But such annoyances and inconveniences as have been enumerated were trifling, compared with other consequences which resulted from this prolonged and systematic robbery of the mails. It is hard for one who never had his word doubted, to learn by unmistakeable indications that his story of money expected and not received, is disbelieved by an impatient creditor, who perhaps hints that the money has come and gone in some other direction than that which it should have taken. The honorable pride of some was wounded in this manner, and much ill-feeling arose between those who had hitherto regarded each other with mutual respect.
The term of the school was just closing, and worthy Mrs. K., who had several of the pupils as boarders in her family, being blessed with a rather large organ of caution, refused to allow one or two to leave (who did not expect to return the next term,) without depositing some collateral security for the payment of their board-bills. Those luckless youth had written again and again for the money necessary to settle their accounts in the place; but their entreaties were apparently unnoticed and unanswered. They were in the condition of Mr. Pecksniff's pupils, who were requested by their preceptor to ring the bell which was in their room, if they wanted anything. They often did so, but nobody ever answered it. It very naturally seemed almost incredible to Mrs. K. that the parents of her boarders should neglect to provide for the various expenses which arise at the close of a school term, especially as these pupils were not to return. So the good lady felt bound by her duty to herself to lay an embargo upon their trunks, and she further took occasion to observe that if there hadn't been so much horseback riding, &c., during the summer, her bill could have been settled. This of course provoked an angry retort, and suspicion smouldered on one side, and resentment flamed out on the other, until the whole mystery was unravelled.
In another boarding-house, inhabited by pupils of both sexes, it had been customary for some of their number to get from the post-office the letters and papers sent to them, and this duty had lately devolved, for the most part, on one person. Henry S., who was a relation of the post master, and, from other circumstances, had frequent occasion to visit the office. As he returned almost empty-handed of letters from day to day, his disappointed fellow-boarders at first wondered at the silence of their friends, then suspicion began to work in their minds; and since the post master was a man of unsullied honor, and entirely reliable for honesty, they at length reluctantly admitted the supposition that Henry S. must be the delinquent.
Acting on the ground that S. was the guilty one, his fellow-boarders gave orders to the post master, forbidding the delivery of their letters to him. So the next day, when he presented himself at the office, he was thunderstruck by the information that he had lost the confidence of his fellow-pupils, and that they would no longer trust their letters in his hands.
"It can't be," exclaimed he, "that they suppose I took their letters."
"I guess they do," said the old post master; "but I think they had better be sure that there were letters coming to them, before they suspect you."