Amos had grown rich, Heaven knows how—he did net know himself; but, what was somewhat extraordinary, he considered his wealth a signal proof of his talents and sagacity, and valued himself according to the infallible standard of pounds, shillings, and pence. But though he lorded it without, he was, as we have just said, the most gentle of men within doors. The moment he stepped inside of his own house, his spirit cowered down, like that of a pious man entering a church; he felt as if he was in the presence of a superior being—to wit, Mrs. Abigail Shuttle. He was, indeed, the meekest of beings at home, except Moses; and Sir Andrew Aguecheek's song, which Sir Toby Belch declared “would draw nine souls out of one weaver,” would have failed in drawing half a one out of Amos. The truth is, his wife, who ought to have known, affirmed he had no more soul than a monkey; but he was the only man in the city thus circumstanced at the time we speak of. No wonder, therefore, the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty was called _annus mirabilis_!
Such as he was, Mr. Amos Shuttle waxed richer and richer every day, insomuch that those who envied his prosperity were wont to say, “that he had certainly been born with a dozen silver spoons in his mouth, or such a great blockhead would never have got together such a heap of money.” When he had become worth ten thousand pounds, he launched his shuttle magnanimously out of the window, ordered his weaver's beam to be split up for oven wood, and Mrs. Amos turned his weaver's shop into a _boudoir_. Fortune followed him faster than he ran away from her. In a few years the ten thousand doubled, and in a few more trebled, quadrupled—in short, Amos could hardly count his money.
“What shall we do now, my dear?” asked Mrs. Shuttle, who never sought his opinion, that I can learn, except for the pleasure of contradicting him.
“Let us go and live in the country, and enjoy ourselves,” quoth Amos.
“Go into the country! go to—” I could never satisfy myself what Mrs. Shuttle meant; but she stopped short, and concluded the sentence with a withering look of scorn, that would have cowed the spirits of nineteen weavers.
Amos named all sorts of places, enumerated all sorts of modes of life he could think of, and every pleasure that might enter into the imagination of a man without a soul. His wife despised them all; she would not hear of them.
“Well, my dear, suppose you suggest something; do now, Abby,” at length said Amos, in a coaxing whisper; “will you, my onydoney?”
“Ony fiddlestick! I wonder you repeat such vulgarisms. But if I must say what I should like, I should like to travel.”
“Well, let us go and make a tour as far as Jamaica, or Hackensack, or Spiking-devil. There is excellent fishing for striped bass there.”
“Spiking-devil!” screamed Mrs. Shuttle; “an't you ashamed to swear so, you wicked mortal! I won't go to Jamaica, nor Hackensack among the Dutch Hottentots, nor to Spiking-devil to catch striped bass. I'll go to Europe!”