For some time, Mr. Brush’s reflections had been silent. Following Hamlet’s advice, he “gave them an understanding, but no tongue;” and he relieved himself at intervals by spitting forlornly into the kennel. At length, suffering his locked hands to fall between his knees, and heaving a deep sigh, he spoke:
“A long time ago, my ma used to put on her specs and say, ‘Peter, my son, put not your trust in princes;’ and from that day to this I haven’t done anything of the kind, because none on ’em ever wanted to borry nothing of me: and I never see a prince or a king, but one or two, and they had been rotated out of office, to borry nothing of them. Princes! pooh! Put not your trust in politicianers—them’s my sentiments. You might jist as well try to hold an eel by the tail. I don’t care which side they’re on, for I’ve tried both, and I know. Put not your trust in politicianers, or you’ll get a hyst.
“Ten years ago it came into my head that things weren’t going on right; so I pretty nearly gave myself up tee-totally to the good of the republic, and left the shop to look out for itself. I was brimfull of patriotism, and so uneasy in my mind for the salivation of freedom, I couldn’t work. I tried to guess which side was going to win, and I stuck to it like wax; sometimes I was a-one side, sometimes I was a-tother, and sometimes I straddled till the election was over, and came up jist in time to jine the hurrah. It was good I was after; and what good could I do if I wasn’t on the ’lected side? But, after all, it was never a bit of use. Whenever the battle was over, no matter what side was sharing out the loaves and the fishes, and I stepped up, I’ll be hanged if they didn’t cram all they could into their own mouths, put their arms over some, and grab at all the rest with their paws, and say, ‘Go away, white man, you ain’t capable.’ Capable! what’s the reason I ain’t capable? I’ve got as extensive a throat as any of ’em, and I could swallow the loaves and fishes without choking, if each loaf was as big as a grindstone and each fish as big as a sturgeon. Give Peter a Chance, and leave him alone for that. Then, another time when I called—‘I want some spoils,’ says I; ‘a small bucket full of spoils. Whichever side gets in, shares the spoils, don’t they?’ So they first grinned, and then they ups and tells me that virtue like mine was its own reward, and that spoils might spoil me. But it was no spoils that spoilt me, and no loaf and fish that starved me—I’m spoilt because I couldn’t get either. Put not your trust in politicianers—I say it agin. Both sides used me jist alike.
“Here I’ve been serving my country, more or less, these ten years, like a patriot—going to town meetings, hurraing my daylights out, and getting as blue as blazes—blocking the windows, getting licked fifty times, and having more black eyes and bloody noses than you could shake a stick at, all for the common good, and for the purity of our illegal rights—and all for what? Why, for nix. If any good has come of it, the country has put it into her own pocket, and swindled me out of my arnings. I can’t get no office! Republics is ungrateful! It wasn’t reward I was after. I scorns the base insinivation. I only wanted to be took care of, and have nothing to do but to take care of the public, and I’ve only got half—nothing to do! Being took care of was the main thing. Republics is ungrateful; I’m swaggered if they ain’t. This is the way old sojers is served.”
Peter, having thus unpacked his o’erfraught heart, heaved a sigh or two, as every one does after a recapitulation of their own injuries, and remained for a few minutes wrapped in abstraction.
“Well, well,” said he, mournfully, swaying his head to and fro after the sagacious fashion of Lord Burleigh, “live and learn—live and learn—the world’s not what a man takes it for before he finds it out. Whiskers grow a good deal sooner than experience—genus and patriotism ain’t got no chance—heigh-ho!—But anyhow, a man might as well be under kiver as out in the open air in sich weather as this. It’s as cheap laying down as it is settin’ up, and there’s not so much wear and tear about it.”
With a groan, a yawn, and a sigh, Peter Brush slowly arose, and stretching himself like a drowsy lion, he walked towards the steps of a neighbouring house. Having reached the top of the flight, he turned about and looked round with a scrutinizing glance, peering both up and down the street, to ascertain that none of the hereditary enemies of the Brushes were in the vicinity. Being satisfied on that score, he prepared to enjoy all the comfort that his peculiar situation could command. According to the modern system of warfare, he carried no baggage to encumber his motions, and was always ready to bivouac without troublesome preliminaries. He therefore placed himself on the upper step, so that he was just within the doorway, his head reclining against one side of it, and his feet braced against the other, blockading the passage in a very effectual manner. He adjusted himself in a position as carefully as the Sybarite who was annoyed at the wrinkle of a rose-leaf on his couch, grunting at each motion like a Daniel Lambert at his toilet, and he made minute alterations in his attitude several times before he appeared perfectly satisfied that he had effected the best arrangements that could be devised.
After reposing for a while as if “the flinty and steel couch of war were his thrice-driven bed of down,” he moved his head with an exclamation of impatience at the hardness of the wall, and taking his time-worn beaver, he crumpled it up, and mollified the austerity of his bolster by using the crushed hat as a pillow.
“That will do,” ejaculated Brush, clasping his hands before him, and twirling his thumbs; and he then closed his eyes for the purpose of reflecting upon his condition with a more perfect concentration of thought than can be obtained when outward objects distract the mind. But thinking in this way is always a hazardous experiment, whether it be after dinner, or in the evening; and Peter Brush soon unwittingly fell into a troubled, murmuring sleep, in which his words were mere repetitions of what he had said before, the general scope of the argument being to prove the received axiom of former times, that republics do not distribute their favours in proportion to services rendered, and that, in the speaker’s opinion, they are not, in this respect, much better than the princes against whom his mother cautioned him. Such, at least, was the conviction of Mr. Brush; at which he had arrived, not by theory and distant observation, but by his own personal experience.
It is a long lane which has no turning, and it is a long sleep in the open air, especially in a city, which does not meet with interruption. Brush found it so in this instance, as he had indeed more than once before. Several gentlemen, followed by a dog, arrived at the foot of the steps, and, after a short conversation, dispersed each to his several home. One, however, remained—the owner of the dog—who, whistling for his canine favourite, took out his night-key, and walked up the steps. The dog, bounding before his master, suddenly stopped, and after attentively regarding the recumbent Brush, uttered a sharp rapid bark.