A SHORT CHAPTER, CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR'S COUSIN, SAMUEL WILKINS, JR.
Having debated these matters to my satisfaction and theirs, I was about taking my leave, when my cousin Sammy unexpectedly entered the apartment.
His appearance struck me dumb, and filled me with mingled terror and despair. What could I do with such a scarecrow? His appearance was death to my hopes of making the family fashionable. He was a raw youth of twenty or twenty-one, but six feet high, long-legged, lantern-jawed, and round-shouldered. He wore a white hat, like his father, but stuck upon his head with a happy contempt of order and symmetry; and his coat hung down in a straight line from his shoulders, as if cut to fit the wall of a house. He walked with a lazy, grave swagger, indicative of vast serenity of mind and self-regard, and—until I cured him of the habit—with both hands in his pockets. There was not an ounce of brain in his whole head, big as it was; though, from the gravity with which he stared and whistled one in the face (for staring and whistling were two of his greatest characteristics), it might have been supposed otherwise. I will not say the clown was ugly in visage or deformed in person; but he was a slouch from head to foot. One could see at a look that he considered himself a gentleman, that he lived in the country, and that the highest exercise of his gentility had been to stalk about from one mud-hole to another, with his hands in his pockets.
He did not seem at all daunted by my appearance, but, having surveyed me with his great staring eyes, he dragged one of his fists out of his pocket and gave me a friendly grasp, very much like the pinch of a bear. "Glad to see you; hope you're well," he said, and said no more, but remained observing me with extreme gravity during the remainder of the conference. When I got up to depart he rose also, and, though I could have well dispensed with such an escort, attended me to the door. He uttered not a word until we came within view of the bar, when the great oaf opened his lips, and said, with an extremely knowing look, "I say, Ikey, my boy, suppose we take a smaller?"
"A smaller!" said I, indignantly; "gentlemen in a city never drink smallers."
"Well, then," said the goose, "I don't care if we go the whole gill."
"Come," said I, commiserating his ignorance, "you must never more talk of such things. None but vulgarians drink strong liquors; slings, cocktails, and even julaps are fit only for bullies. Gentlemen never drink any thing but wine."
"Wine's small stuff," said my kinsman, with great equanimity; "but I'm for any thing that's genteel, and dad says you're the boy for showing us. But, od rabbit it, it's a hard thing to play the gentleman in a place where you a'n't up to it; but I say, now, how do you think we'll do—me and Pat?"
I could scarce avoid laughing in the booby's face, he asked his question with such simplicity and complacency. I perceived that, notwithstanding his lazy serenity and stolid gravity, he was as anxious to be made genteel as either of the others, and quite as ready to submit to my guidance. I told him I had no doubt he would do very well when I had polished him a little, which I would soon do; and I resolved to begin the task without delay. I carried him to a private apartment, ordered a carriage, and a bottle of Chateau-Margaux to amuse us while it was getting ready, and gave him to understand I would immediately take him to a tailor's; and this I did in a very short time, to the infinite delight of my friend Snip, whom I ordered to make three or four different suits for him, without troubling myself to ask his opinion about either. I then carried him in the same way to a hatter, shoemaker, and man-milliner, leaving the jeweller, watchmaker, and so on, for a future occasion.