THE INVALID.
By this time the reader may be a little curious to hear the upshot of this magnificent and fair-promising scheme. At a given moment the whole corps of robust carriers was set in motion by command of Tirrell. Then what a ringing of bells and thumping of knockers was there, in that mighty city! How many fond expectations leaped in the bosoms of the fairest, as letters were announced to their pretty names! For about an hour all went off like a charm. Tirrell was in his element—passing hurriedly from street to street—advising, cheering, animating all. And as for Estabrook, he was so overcome with joy that he went up garret and stowed himself away among the old furniture, to reflect upon the question whether human nature was mutable, or not?
But the sport was soon over. Several worthy citizens lodged information with the Police, that a great gang of petty swindlers were taking the city by storm, infringing alike upon the post office laws and the finances of the community. Justice Parker, alarmed by this startling news, promptly issued orders commanding all constables and officers to seize the depredators and bring them before the bar of the Court. A scene now took place which beggars description. In all directions there was pulling and hauling and bawling. The people gaped in amazement from door and window and street-corner. Excitement rose to so high a pitch that some of the “fathers of the city” were really terrified with the idea that every body was about to blow up. Some cried out, “The Vandals are in the city!” The boys shouted “fire!” and the women screamed “murder!” Tirrell, watching the great commotion with intense interest, began to clench his teeth and mutter revenge; but he soon became seized of the conviction that nothing of a joke but Sing Sing would be likely to come out of the “flare up.” Then his heels cut the atmosphere with as much celerity as when he was making his escape from the vicinity of the spot where poor Maria Bickford lay weltering in gore.
Violent hands were laid on Estabrook, while in the very heart of his golden reveries; and when they explained to him the cause of his arrest, he doubted his own senses, and declared the whole to be “a spell.” But it was a wakeful one, for Mr. Justice Parker consigned him to an apartment in the “Egyptian Tombs.”
Immured within the walls of a dungeon, for the only time during his previous and hitherto crimeless life, he threw his lank form upon a flea-infected couch and gave vent to an insupportable grief. When this subsided, he began to review the matter stoically. A thought struck him, that the only relief from the horrors of his present situation lay in a full and frank explanation of all the circumstances connected with the affair, demonstrating most clearly his innocence of any intention to commit a fraud; winding up with an affecting appeal to public sympathy; and publishing the document in the penny papers of the following morning. This he did; and the device was successful. The city folks, after learning the facts, laughed at the singularity of the project, and freely bestowed their sympathy upon the dupe of Tirrell. More than twenty thousand individuals on that morning gathered around the “Tombs” and demanded the liberation of Estabrook. Justice P. trembled in his ermine when he looked upon that mob. In former times he had been a raving politician, and a desciple of the mob spirit; he now thought it prudent to grant the demand of that funny populace, by stipulating a trifling bail for the release of the prisoner. This was instantly given, and Estabrook soon made his appearance amidst thunders of applause. He stood on the massive granite steps of the “Tombs,” and, after gracefully bowing to the multitude, made a thrilling harangue about the magic influence of the pennypress, and on human rights in general. When he concluded the multitude gave him three times three.
These occurrences so wrought upon the curiosity of the people of that city, that they were now even more eager to obtain the Unexpected Letter than had been to suppress it the day previous. It was thrown into the hands of a gallant band of newsboys, who cried it by its name for a week, when the edition became exhausted, and Estabrook had “bettered his fortunes” very materially.
Tirrell returned to Boston about five thousand dollars poorer than he left it a month before. If he ever visited the city of New York after this, it was in disguise.