Suns had risen and set; moons had waxed and waned, and Mrs. Lawyer and myself were now settled in a boarding-house. I will not say comfortably, for, although never in my youth did I own a little hatchet, still I have read in my younger days the fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.
My powers of description are exceedingly limited, so I will not attempt to sketch, for the benefit of my readers, either the house itself, its furnishings, its occupants, or the entertainment provided as a quid pro their dollars. Of the furniture, I will only say that the carpet on the parlor floor “was bedizened like a Ricaree Indian—all red chalk, yellow ochre, and cock’s feathers.” Of our fellow boarders, ’tis sufficient to remark that some, on one or two occasions, had, perhaps, worn kid gloves; most of the men were “self-made, whittled into shape with their own jack-knives”; the ladies—but de feminis nil nisi bonum.
Of the food provided for the inner man, need more be said than that the poultry, which appeared on the second day of our sojourn, would have seemed to Mr. Bagnet’s fastidious eye, suitable for Mrs. B.’s birthday dinner? If there be any truth in adages, they certainly were not caught by chaff. Every kind of finer tendon and ligament that it is in the nature of poultry to possess, was developed in these specimens in the singular form of guitar strings. Their limbs appeared to have struck roots into their breasts and bodies, as aged trees strike roots into the earth. Their legs were so hard as to encourage the idea that they must have devoted the greater part of their long and arduous lives to pedestrian exercises and the walking of matches. No one could have cleaned the drumsticks without being of ostrich descent.
Ab uno disce omnes. Ex pede Herculem. From these three hints let each one, for himself, erect images of our boarding-house, our fellow-boarders, and our meals, as a Cuvier would reconstruct a megatherium from a tooth, or an Agassiz draw a picture of an unknown fish from a single scale. But I must not dip my pen in vinegar, nor tip it with wormwood, when I write of boarding-houses and their industrious and unfortunate keepers. These providers of food and lodging seem to be the descendants of Ishmael, their hand being against every one to eke out their little profits, and every one’s hand being against them. Let me be an honorable exception to the general rule, and act like the Good Samaritan, although, by the way, that worthy patronized a cheap hotel, not a boarding-house.
* * * * * *
It has ever been a hobby of mine that a door—hall or otherwise—is intended to be shut (if not, a hole in the wall would answer every purpose and be cheaper). Well, one great source of trouble with me at Madame Dee’s private boarding-house was that the domestic-of-all-work was in the constant habit of leaving the hall door ajar whenever she made her exit on to the street in her hunt for butter, eggs, or milk. A fellow-boarder, seeing my anxiety on this point, asked me if I was afraid of some one stealing Mrs. Lawyer.
“No,” I replied, “I am more afraid of my overcoat. Although not very new, it is still serviceable.”
“Well, sir,” said a youthful reader of Blackstone and Story, “if any one feloniously and wickedly takes away your bad habit could you not deduct the value of it on your next week’s settlement with Mrs. Dee? An innkeeper would be liable in such a case.”
“My dear young friend,” I replied, “you have as yet acquired only the A B C of professional knowledge. The liability of a boarding-house keeper for the goods of a boarder is by no means the same as that of an innkeeper.”
Here I paused, but the first speaker asked me to proceed and explain the difference, so I spake somewhat as follows: