Boscobello weighs over two hundred now, and would have a rush of blood to the head if he were to stoop to pluck pansies. Mysterious Cuban ladies, in fact ladies of any description, would pass him by as a middle-aged person of a somewhat distressed appearance, and the dreams of his youth are quite dreamed out. Nevertheless, when he warms with my white Hermitage, the colors of his old life come richly out into sight, and the romantic adventures of wealth and high spirits overpower, though in the tame measures of recital, all the adverse influences of the present hour. But as the evening wanes, the colors fade again; his voice assumes a dreary tone; and I once more feel that I am with a man who has outlived himself, and who, having never learned where the late roses blow, is now too old to learn.
The reader will perceive I am sorry for Boscobello. If I am remarkable for anything, it is for my humanity, consideration, and sympathy.
These qualities of my constitution lead me to enter into the affairs of my clients with feeling and sincerity, but I fear I am sometimes misunderstood. Not long ago I issued an order to my junior partners to exercise more compassion for those unfortunate men with whom we decline business, and not to tumble them down the front steps so roughly. Let six of the porters attend with trestles, I said, and carry them out carefully, and dump them with discretion in some quiet corner, where, as soon as they recover their faculties, they may get up and walk away. I put it to the reader if this was not a very humane idea, and yet there are those who have stigmatized it as heartless.
I wish I was better acquainted with the way in which common people live. I can see how I have made mistakes in consequence of not understanding the restricted means and the exigencies of these people, who are styled respectable merchants. Thus when Boscobello has made some more than ordinarily piteous application, I have said, 'Boscobello, dismiss about fifty of your servants;' or, 'Boscobello, sell a railroad and put the money back again into your business;' or, 'Boscobello, my good friend, limit your table, say, to turtle soup, champagne, and truffles; live more plainly, and don't take above ten quarts of strawberries a day during the winter,—the lower servants don't really need them;' or, 'Boscobello, if you are really short, send around a hundred or so of your fast trotters to my stables, and I'll pay you a long figure for them, if they are warranted under two minutes.' Boscobello has never made any very definite replies to such advice, and I have attributed his silence to his nervousness; but I begin to suspect he has'nt quite understood me on such occasions. Then again, when Twigsmith declared he was a ruined man, in consequence of my refusal of further advances, and that he should be unable to provide for his family, I said: 'Why, Twigsmith, retire to one of your country seats, and live on the interest of some canal or other, or discount bonds and mortgages for the country banks.' Actually, I heard Twigsmith mutter as he went out, that it wasn't right to insult a man's poverty. Now I hadn't the remotest idea of injuring Twigsmith's feelings, for he was a very clever fellow, and we made a good thing out of him in his time, but it seems that my advice might not have been properly grounded.
It begins to occur to me that there may be such a case as that a man may want something, and not be able to get it; and again, that at such a time a weak mind may complain, and grow discouraged, and make itself disagreeable to others.
There is a set of old fellows who call themselves family men, and apply for discounts as if they had a right to them, by reason of their having families to provide for. I have never yet been able to see the logical sequence of their conclusions, and so I tell them. What right does it give anybody to my money that he has a wife, six children, and lives in a large house with three nursery-maids, a cook, and a boy to clean the knives? 'Limit your expenses,' I say to these respectable gentlemen, 'do as I do. When Jennings comes to me on Monday morning, and reports that the receipts of the week will be eighty millions, exclusive of the Labrador coupons, which, if paid, will be eighty millions more, I say, 'Jennings, discount seventy, and don't encroach upon the reserves; you may however let Boscobello have ten on call.' This is true philosophy; adapt your outlay to your income, and you will never be in trouble, or go begging for loans. If the Bank of England had always managed in this way, they wouldn't have been obliged to call on our house for assistance during the Irish famine.'
These family men invite me to their wives' parties, constantly, unremittingly. The billets sometimes reach my desk, although I have given orders to put them all into the waste basket unopened. I went to one of these parties, only one, I give you my honor as a gentleman, and after Twigsmith and his horrid wife had almost wrung my hand off, I was presented to a young female, to whom Nature had been tolerably kind, but who was most shamefully dressed. In fact her dress couldn't have cost over a thousand dollars—one of my chambermaids going to a Teutonia ball is better got up. This young person asked me 'how I liked the Germania?' Taking it for granted that such a badly dressed young woman must be a school teacher, with perhaps classical tastes, I replied that it was one of the most pleasing compositions of Tacitus, and that I occasionally read it of a morning. 'Oh, it's not very taciturn,' she replied; 'I mean the band.' 'Very true,' said I, 'he says agmen, which you translate band very happily, though I might possibly say 'body' in a familiar reading.' 'Oh dear,' she replied, blushing, 'I'm sure I don't know what kind of men they are, nor anything about their bodies, but they certainly seem very respectable, and they play elegantly; oh, don't you think so?' 'I am glad you are pleased so easily,' I answered; 'Tacitus describes their performances as indeed fearful, and calculated to strike horror into the hearts of their enemies. But,' continued I, endeavoring to make my retreat, for I began to think I was in company with an inmate of a private lunatic hospital, 'they were devoted to the ladies.' 'Indeed they are,' said she,'and the harpist is so gallant, and gets so many nice bouquets.' It then flashed across my mind that she meant the Germania musicians. 'They might do passably well, madame,' said I, 'for a quadrille party at a country inn, but for a dress ball or a dinner you would need three of them rolled into one.' 'Oh, you gentlemen are so hard to please,' she replied; and catching sight of the Koh-i-noor on my little finger, she began to smile so sweetly that I fled at once.
It was at that party that I perspired. I had heard doctors talk about perspiration, and I had seen waiters at a dinner with little drops on their faces, but I supposed it was the effect of a spatter, or that some champagne had flown into their eyes, or something of that sort. But at this party I happened to pass a mirror, and did it the honor to look into it. I saw there the best dressed man in America, but his face was flushed, and there were drops on it. This is fearful, thought I; I took my mouchoir and gently removed them. They dampened the delicate fabric, and I shook with agitation. The large doors were open, and after a struggle of an hour and three quarters, I reached them, and promising the hostess to send my valet in the morning to make my respects, which the present exigency would not allow me to stay to accomplish, I was rapidly whirled homeward. I can hardly pen the details, but on the removal of my linen, it was found—can I go on?—tumbled, and here and there the snowy lawn confessed a small damp spot, or fleck of moisture. Remorse and terror seized me. Medical attendance was called, and I passed the night in a bath of attar of roses delicately medicated with aqua pura. Of course, I have never again appeared at a party.
People haven't right ideas of entertainment. What entertainment is it to stand all the evening in a set of sixteen-by-twenty parlors, jammed in among all sorts of strange persons, and stranger perfumes, deafened with a hubbub of senseless talk, and finally be led down to feed at a long table where the sherry is hot, and the partridges are cold? Very probably some boy or other across the table lets off a champagne cork into your eyes, and the fattest men in the room will tread on your toes. One might describe such scenes of torture at length, but the recital of human follies and miseries is not agreeable to my sensibilities.
I dare say the reader might find himself gratified at one of my little fètes. The editors of this journal attend them regularly, and have done me the honor to approve of them. You enter on Twelfth avenue; a modest door just off Nine-and-a-half street opens quietly, and you are ushered by a polite gentleman—one of our city bank presidents, who takes this means to increase his income—into an attiring room. Here you are dressed by the most accomplished Schneider of the age, in your own selections from an unequalled repertoire of sartorial chef d'ouvres, and your old clothes are sent home in an omnibus.