“But he might sit up all night and injure his health.”
“Well, let him,” said Rogers; “I've done enough for him, for him to show some appreciation of it.”
I might as well have tried to disconcert a mummy with my facetiousness. Said Rogers: “I get all my coats there—they're the only coats fit to be seen in.”
I made one more attempt. I said, “I wish you had brought one with you—I would like to look at it.”
“Bless your heart, haven't I got one on?—this article is Morgan's make.”
I examined it. The coat had been bought ready-made, of a Chatham Street Jew, without any question—about 1848. It probably cost four dollars when it was new. It was ripped, it was frayed, it was napless and greasy. I could not resist showing him where it was ripped. It so affected him that I was almost sorry I had done it. First he seemed plunged into a bottomless abyss of grief. Then he roused himself, made a feint with his hands as if waving off the pity of a nation, and said—with what seemed to me a manufactured emotion—“No matter; no matter; don't mind me; do not bother about it. I can get another.”
When he was thoroughly restored, so that he could examine the rip and command his feelings, he said, ah, now he understood it—his servant must have done it while dressing him that morning.
His servant! There was something awe-inspiring in effrontery like this.
Nearly every day he interested himself in some article of my clothing. One would hardly have expected this sort of infatuation in a man who always wore the same suit, and it a suit that seemed coeval with the Conquest.
It was an unworthy ambition, perhaps, but I did wish I could make this man admire something about me or something I did—you would have felt the same way. I saw my opportunity: I was about to return to London, and had “listed” my soiled linen for the wash. It made quite an imposing mountain in the corner of the room—fifty-four pieces. I hoped he would fancy it was the accumulation of a single week. I took up the wash-list, as if to see that it was all right, and then tossed it on the table, with pretended forgetfulness. Sure enough, he took it up and ran his eye along down to the grand total. Then he said, “You get off easy,” and laid it down again.