THE HOTEL-KEEPER AND ALDERMEN.
There is a good little story which is told of a noted hotel-keeper, whose name I will not mention, though there are dozens of New Yorkers who can give it, and can vouch for the correctness of the narrative. Some years ago there was a foreign embassy here, and the city government showed many attentions to it. Our Boniface obtained from the Board of Aldermen an order for a grand dinner to the embassy, and a splendid affair it was. The bill was about three times what it should have been; but Boniface was a good fellow, and agreed to divide with the aldermen if they would put it through. They did so, and, what was more, they ordered the immediate payment of the money. It was paid; and Boniface sent word to the members who had befriended him to come to the hotel at a certain hour, next day, and he would do the handsome thing. They came promptly, every man of them, and were assembled in one of the parlors. Boniface was among them, with a greeting for everybody, and he poured out his wine in the most liberal manner. He was a good talker, and kept them amused with his wine and his stories for a full hour or more. But time was pressing, and some of them hinted that they had better end the business, and separate.
“Don’t go yet,” said Boniface; “take some more wine.”
They took it, and hinted that they came for the divide.
“Take some more wine, boys; I’m going to do the handsome thing.”
“But that divvy, Bonny,” urged one of the party. “We can’t stay longer, as we have a meeting this afternoon, and it is almost time for it.”
“Boys,” said the hotel-keeper, “I’ve just ordered a basket of this wine for each of you, and you will find it at your houses when you go home.”
“Hang the wine! We want that money, and that’s what we came for.”
“Now, boys,” said Bonny, seating himself in an arm-chair, and smiling till his mouth resembled the entrance to a railway tunnel, “I suppose you’d call me a d—d skunk, if I went back on you, and didn’t hand over a cent.”
“Of course we should,” said half a dozen, almost in unison; “but we don’t think you’d do that.”