But after listening to the stirring address before alluded to, I felt that I had not done enough; so, obedient to the promptings of my impulsive nature, I determined to give something more, and being so far cityfied in my habits that I desired to combine amusement with charity, and only give my money to the needy after I had received its worth in dancing, got its full value in foreign music at a high price, or eaten its equivalent in oysters and ice-cream at some kind of a pseudo-charitable gathering, I looked about me for some fitting opportunity to bestow my charity on the deserving poor, after making it previously pay for some delectation for myself.
It did not take me long to find out that there was soon to be a ladies' fair, in aid of the poor, given by the benevolent ladies of the Church of the Holy Poker.
Damphool (who can't give up city associations, and who wouldn't read his Bible if it wasn't printed in New York) had sent to me from his rural solitude to procure him a dressing-gown, a pair of slippers, and a crocheted worsted comforter.
Thought I couldn't have a better opportunity to purchase these, and so I went to the fair.
Got to the hall, paid my twenty-five cents at the door, went in—saw plenty of long tables, with ladies behind them playing "keep store"—tables covered with mysterious articles of baby linen, and complicated pieces of female harness, designed for uses to me unknown, and also all sorts of impracticable unnecessaries intended for gentlemen.
Slippers that you couldn't get on; smoking caps that could never, by any possibility, fit anybody (shaped like a Chinese pagoda, and full of tinsel and spangles to make them prickly); cigar cases, that you couldn't get a cigar into without breaking both ends off (perhaps they expect us to smoke "stubs," like the newsboys); pin-cushions, stuffed so hard they would turn the point of a marlin-spike; watch cases, just big enough to hold a three cent piece; pen wipers, that fill the point of a pen full of wool—and divers other nonsensical inconveniences fabricated by speculating females, the patterns being always very short, and the stitches very long (I suppose they think we don't know the difference), to palm off upon victimized gentlemen; and these latter resignedly submit to a price so exorbitant, that if a Chatham-street Israelite had the impudence to ask it they'd straighten out his fish-hook nose like a darning needle.
The prettiest looking girls are always placed where the least attractive-looking merchandise is displayed, and they ask the biggest kind of prices, trusting to the gallantry of the gentlemen "not to beat them down," flattering themselves, I suppose, that their pretty looks are "value received" for the exchange.
One consequence of this arrangement is, that every buyer spends all the money he has in his purse, taking in exchange therefor a lot of stuff so utterly useless, and so ridiculously absurd, that after having it on his table for a week or so to laugh at, he is fain to get rid of the rubbish, by giving the whole to his chamber-maid.
Sometimes your purchases will hold together till you leave the room, and sometimes not; you must show yourself a man, and "equal to either fortune."
There was a post-office; pretty girl called me; had a letter for me; bought it; paid ten cents; nothing in it—blank.