The following day, when I came home from the Exchange, Fred told me that somebody had called to speak to me. According to the description it was Shawlman. How could he have found me out——oh, yes, I see, the card!
This made me think of taking my children away from school, for it is very annoying to be troubled twenty or thirty years afterwards by a school-companion who wears a shawl instead of a coat, and who does not know what o’clock it is. I have also forbidden Fred to go to the Wester Market when there are booths.
Next day I received a letter with a large parcel. I began at once to read:
“Dear Drystubble!” [I think he ought to have written ‘Sir,’ because I am a broker.] “Yesterday I called at your house with the intention of asking you a favour. I believe you are in good circumstances”—[that is true; we are thirteen of us in our office],—“and I should like to use your credit to bring about a matter of great importance [[22]]to me.”—[Should you not think that he would rather have given me a commission for the Spring Auction?]—“Through many misfortunes I stand somewhat in need of money.”—[Somewhat! he had no shirt on his back; this is what he calls somewhat!]—“I cannot give my dear wife everything that is necessary to make life agreeable, and the education of my children is, from pecuniary impediments, not as I should like it to be.”—[To make life agreeable——? education of children——? Do you think that he wishes to take a season ticket for his wife at the opera, and place his children in a gymnasium at Geneva? It was autumn, and very cold,—he lived in a garret, and without fire. When I received that letter I was ignorant of this, but afterwards I went to him, and I am still angry at the foolish style of his letter. What the deuce!——Whoever is poor may say it;——there must be poor people; that is necessary in society. If he does not ask charity, if he annoys nobody, I don’t care for his poverty, but disguising the matter is very improper. Now, let us see what more he has to say.]—“As I am obliged to provide for my household, I have resolved to make use of a talent which, as I believe, I am in possession of. I am a poet——”—[Pshaw! you know, reader, how I and all reasonable men think about that] “——and writer. Since childhood I have expressed my feelings in verse, and afterwards, too, I always wrote down in poetry the sensations of my soul. [[23]]I believe that I have made some valuable pieces, and I want a publisher for them. This, then, is the difficulty. I am unknown to the public, and the publishers judge of works more according to the reputation of the author than the value of the contents.”—[Exactly as we judge of the coffee, according to the reputation of the trademarks.]—“The merit of my work can only be established by publication; and the booksellers require payment in advance of all the expenses”—[There they are quite right]—“which is at present not convenient to me. I am, however, so convinced that my book would clear the expenses, that I could pledge my word for it, and as I am encouraged by our meeting of the day before yesterday,”—[That is what he calls being encouraged!]—“I have resolved to ask you to be surety for me to a bookseller for the expenses of a first edition, even if it were only a small book. I give you the choice of works for that first experiment. In the accompanying parcel you will find many manuscripts; from which you will see that I have thought, worked, and experienced much”—[I never heard that he had any business at all];—“and if I am not a stranger to the talent of expressing myself well, my ill success will not be due to any want of impressions. In hopes of a kind answer, I remain your old school-fellow”——[And he signed this with his name; but I make a secret of that, because I do not like to bring discredit on any one.] [[24]]
Dear reader, you can understand how foolish I looked in being made all at once a broker in verses. I am quite sure that if Shawlman—so I will continue to call him—had seen me by daylight, he would not have dared to ask me such a favour; for respectability and dignity cannot be concealed; but it was evening, and therefore I don’t mind.
Of course, I would have nothing to do with this nonsense. I should have returned the parcel, but that I did not know where he lived, and I heard nothing of him. I thought that he was ill, or dead. Last week there was a party at the Rosemeyers, who are sugar-brokers. Fred went out for the first time with us; he is sixteen, and I think it right that a young man at that age should see something of the world; otherwise he will go to the Wester Market, or somewhere else. The girls had been playing on the piano and singing, and at dessert they teased each other about something that seemed to have happened in the front room while we played at whist in the back room—something in which Fred was concerned.
“Yes, yes, Louise,” said Betsy Rosemeyer; “you did cry. Papa, Fred made Louise cry.”
My wife said that Fred should not go out again if he was so naughty; she thought that he had pinched Louise, or something like that, which is not proper, and I, too, made preparations to say a few words about it, [[25]]when Louise said: “No, no, Fred was very kind; I should like him to do it again!”
“What then?” He had not pinched her; he had been reciting, that was all. Of course the mistress of the house likes to have some fun at dessert,—it enlivens the company. Mrs. Rosemeyer thought that what had made Louise cry would amuse us too, and therefore asked Fred, who was as red as a turkey-cock, to repeat it. I could not understand what he had done; I knew his whole répertoire, which consisted of the “Wedding-Party of the Gods,” the books of the Old Testament in rhyme, and an episode from the “Wedding of Camacho,” which boys always like so much, because it is rather funny; and what there was in all this that could make any one cry was a riddle to me; it is true, a girl of that age weeps very soon.—“Come, Fred! Please do!”—and Fred began. As I do not like to stretch the curiosity of the reader, I will here at once state, that before leaving home they had opened Shawlman’s parcel, and Fred and Mary had picked out of it a piece of sentimentality, which afterwards gave me a great deal of trouble. This book owes its existence to that parcel, and in due time I will account for it quite becomingly; for I like to make it known that I love truth, and am a good man of business.—[Last and Co., coffee-brokers, at No. 37 Laurier Canal.]
Fred recited a thing full of nonsense. A young man wrote to his mother that he had been in love, and that [[26]]his sweetheart had married another—[there she was quite right I think]—yet that he nevertheless always loved his mother very much. Is that statement true or not? Do you think so many words are wanted to say that? At all events I had eaten a piece of bread and cheese, and nearly finished my second pear, before Fred finished his story. But Louise cried again, and the ladies said that it was very beautiful.