It is with a sad and melancholy sincerity I record the fact, that this election left behind it much heart-burning in Quodlibet. The New-Light Democracy were now broken into three parts, the Mandarins, the Middlings, and the True Grits; and Theodore Fog, in command of the True Grits, had evidently got the upper hand. The defeat of Agamemnon Flag was a severe blow to our distinguished representative, the Hon. Middleton Flam, and no less galling to Nicodemus Handy; for these three worthy gentlemen were undoubtedly at the head of the Mandarins, and their overthrow on the present occasion led to unpleasant consequences which I shall be called upon to notice hereafter.
The first unhappy fruit of this election was of a domestic nature, and wrought very seriously against the peace of our friend Jesse Ferret.
For three days and nights after the publication of the polls, all Quodlibet was alive with the rejoicings of the True Grits at the success of Theodore Fog. The bar-room of The Hero was full all day with these energetic friends of the prosperous candidate; and it is worthy of remark that their number was vastly greater than was shown by the ballot box, many more individuals claiming the honor of having voted for him than the return of the polls would authorize us to believe; all night long bonfires blazed, drums and fifes disturbed the repose of the Borough, and processions, not remarkable for their decorum, marched from house to house with Theodore mounted in a chair, borne on the shoulders of sturdy True Grits. A hundred torches in the hands of thirty men and seventy boys, flared on the signs and flickered on the walls of Quodlibet, and fifty negroes, great and small, ragged and patched, hatless and hatted, slip-shod and barefoot, leaped, danced, limped, and hobbled in wide-spread concourse around black Isaac the Kent bugle player, and yellow Josh the clarionet man, who struck in with the drum and fife to the tune of Jim Crow, about the center of the column. Flan Sucker was installed grand marshal of this procession, and was called King of the True Grits; while Ben Inky, Sim Travers, Jeff Drinker, and More M'Nulty, served along the flanks as his lieutenants; the whole array huzzaing at every corner, and stopping to refresh every time they came into the neighborhood of Peter Ounce's, Jesse Ferret's, or the smaller ordinaries which the rapid growth of Quodlibet had supplied in various quarters to relieve the drought of its inhabitants.
This state of things, as I have said, continued for three days after the election. At the end of that period, Jesse Ferret, somewhere about noon, was in his bar casting up his accounts. He wore a serious, disturbed countenance—not because his accounts showed a bad face; for so far from that, the late jubilee had very considerably increased his capital in trade, but because his rest had been broken—and Jesse never could bear to lose his sleep. While he was engaged in summing up these recent gains, his worthy spouse entered the bar and quietly seated herself in a chair behind him. The expression of her face showed that her thoughts were occupied with matter of interesting import: a slight frown sat upon her brow, her lips were partially compressed, and her fat arms made an attempt to cross each other on her bosom. The chair was too small for her; and, from her peculiar configuration, one looking at her in a full front view would not be likely to conjecture she was seated, but rather that she was a short and dumpy woman, and leaned against some prop for rest—the line from her chin to her toe being that of the face of a pyramid. Her posture denoted an assumed patience. So quietly had she entered the inclosure of the bar, that Jesse was altogether ignorant of her presence, and therefore continued at his occupation. It was not long, however, before his attention was awakened to the interesting fact that his wife was behind him, by the salutation, conveyed in a rather deep-toned voice, "Jesse Ferret, how long are you agoing to be poking over them accounts?"
Jesse turned short round, in some surprise at the sound of these well-known accents so near him, and, surveying the dame for an instant, replied—
"Bless me, Polly! how came you here? You go about like one of them church-yard vaporations that melts in thin air and frightens children in the dead of night. What did you want with me, my love?"
"I want to know," said Mrs. Ferret, "who's master of this house—you or me? Ef I'm the master, say so—but ef you're the master, then act as sich. It ain't no longer to be endured, this shilly-shally, visy-versy politicks of yourn. Here you are casting up of the accounts this blessed day, and please Heaven, if there's one cent got into the till in the three days that have gone by, the last person in the world to thank for it is yourself, Jesse Ferret. Theodore Fog's in—got in by a vote that one might say's almost magnanimous, and he's got all the thirstiest men in this Borough under his thumb—and he's been pouring 'em in here in shoals, which he wouldn't have done, one man of 'em, ef it hadn't a been for my principles, which goes the whole hog—and you so contrairy, constantly a giving out your no sides—it's raly abominable! and time you should change, Jesse Ferret, it is."
"Why, my dear, don't you see the good of it?" said Mr. Ferret, in a mild, good-natured tone of expostulation. "The very best thing we can do is for you to go on as you are doing, and me to go on as I am. Here's come up a great split in the party; and presently, as sure as you are born, they'll be having their separate houses and making party questions out of it: then, my dear, you know Theodore Fog and his people counts you as a sort of sun-dial to their side, and goes almost by your pinting. And then the others, you know, can't have nothing to find fault against me upon account of my sentiments: so, in this way we shall get the custom of the thorough-stitchers, the half-and-halfs, the promiscuous, and of every kind of stripe that's going. Can't you see into it, Mrs. Ferret?"
"No, I cannot see into it," replied the landlady. "In the first place, them Mandarins, as The. Fog says, is not worth the looking after in our line—they drink nothing but Champagne and Madeery, and ef they do sometimes send down to our bar for ourn, they are sure to turn up their noses at it, and say it's sour. Didn't Nicodemus Handy tell me to my face that my Anchor Brand, which you've got on the top shelf, and which cost you six dollars a basket at auction, was nothing but turnip-juice?—and did you ever know Middleton Flam to call for as much as a thimbleful of your liquors, with all his preachings and parleyings in this house? No, you did not: and it's your duty to cast off your bucket o' both sides, and go in for The. with the True Grits, as he calls them; and true enough they are in the drinking line!—that, nobody who knows them, will deny. I'm tired, Jesse Ferret, and fretted down to the very bone, at being put upon in this here way, having to keep up the politicks of this house, which I don't think you haint no right to do, I don't. I'm been a talking to you about this tell I'm tired, and I wonder you can be so obstinate, considering I take it so much to heart."
"Now, Polly," interposed our landlord with an affectionate remonstrance, intended to soothe Mrs. Ferret's feelings, "many's the struggle I've had on this here very topic with my own conscience; I may say I have wrestled for it at the very bottom of my nature. But the case is this, and I'll explain it to you once for all. I've got a sentiment at the core of my heart, which is a secret in regard of these here politicks. I wish to go right—you know I do—but if I only knowed what sentiments to take up:—there's the mystery. If I knowed that, I should feel easy; but I never could keep any principles, upon account of the changes. Before a plain, simple man can cleverly tell where he is, everything has whisked away in the contrairy direction. One year we are 'all tariff,' and the next, 'down with it as an abomination.' Here we go 'for canals and railroads!'—a crack of the whip, and there we are all t'other side. 'No electioneering of officers!' cries out the captain of the squad. 'Turn that fellow out, he don't work for the party!' cries the very same captain in the very next breath. 'Retrenchment and reform!' says every big fellow there at Washington; and the same words are bawled all the way down among us, even to Theodore Fog;—'Damn the expense!' (the Lord forgive me for using such words,) says the very same fellows in the same breath, 'stick on a million here and a million there—the more the merrier!' And so we go. Here, t'other day, this here Sub-Treasury was monarchy and revolution to boot, and treason outright; and now, what it is, every man's afeard to say—some's for, some's against—some's both, and all's in a state of amalgamation, perplexity, and caterwauling unaccountable. What between specy circlars, anti-masons, pocketing of bills, (Lord knows what that means!) vetoes, distribution, fortifications, abolition, running down Indians, and running up accounts, politics has got into a jumble that a Philadelphy lawyer couldn't steer through them. A poor publican has a straining time of it, Polly. He can't get right if he tries—and if he does blunder upon it, he can't stay right six months, let him do his best—morally impossible! That's where it's a matter o' conscience with me; and my conclusion is, in such a mucilaginous state of affairs, a man who wants to accommodate the public must be either all sides or no sides; and, therefore I say, my motto is, a publican should—leastways I speak in regard to these times—have no sides. And there's the whole matter laid out to you, Polly, my wife."