“I think you might have called it store, stranger,” said my friend; but as by this time I had taken up a book from the counter and begun to read, he went away to call his “boss,” as he termed him.
A moment after, from a little dingy den behind, came out a neat, dapper little man, with a very straight-cut, snuff colored coat, fastened with a hook and eye high up upon the chest, in order to permit the liberal extension of a very smart flowered waistcoat, and a stomach, somewhat too large in its proportions, shaped like the back of a mandolin. Energy, activity, and acuteness, were in all his movements and sparkled in his bright black eye; and, roused by his step, I could perceive that as he approached, he scanned me from head to foot with a rapidity truly marvelous. Before I knew what I was about he was shaking hands with me, and before I could ask for my books, he was asking me innumerable questions—who I was—where I came from—what my name was—what was my profession—how old I was—whether I intended to stay long in Boston, and—what I thought of America.
I was strongly inclined to laugh, but I was out of the habit of laughing now, and I answered gravely:
“Order in all things, if you please, sir. Are you what this person calls the ‘boss,’ or what I should call the master of this shop—or store?”
“Oh, never mind him,” replied the new comer. “He is from another state, and doesn’t half understand English. It’s only in Bost’n I guess that there’s any thing like English to be found in all the universal world. I’m the master of this store, sir, and a very pretty little considerable quantity of literature you will find therein, I guess.”
“Well then, to reply to your questions,” I said, “I am a stranger in this city. I come from a distant part of the world. My name is my own, for any thing I know to the contrary. I am of any profession that suits me at the moment. I am somewhere between twenty and thirty, I have no notion how long I shall stay in Boston, and having only seen two square miles of America, I do not think the taster is decisive of the cheese.—Now, sir, will you have the goodness to tell me about the books I want.”
“Capital, capital, capital!” cried my new friend. “I guess such answers would pose half the men in Congress. We Yankees are terrible question askers it must be acknowledged. It’s a way we have, and not a bad way either; for if we get an answer, we are all the better for it, and if we get none, we can do very well without it. Now, sir, you’re just the man we want: I can see that in a minute. We haven’t had any thing new in Bost’n for six months—that is, since the giantess, and the horse with three tails. They did very well, but we want something literary now, and if you chose to come out with a lecture, or a book, or a pamphlet, or a sermon against the Trinity, or something very racy upon democracy and federalism—take which side you will; it’s all the same to me—or even in defense of the old country, showing that we are all rebels and traitors and ought to have been hanged long ago, it’s sure to answer—it will sell, sir,—it will pay—it will bring in the dollars.”
There was something so perfectly good-humored in my new friend, that I could not be at all cross, even though I might not quite enter into his notions. I was obliged to inform him, however, that I had never given lectures, written books, pamphlets, or sermons. That I was not an Englishman. That I was not well acquainted with American history, and had no idea whether his friends and himself deserved to be hanged or not—though I confessed I rather thought not.
He was very pertinacious, however, and suggested a dozen different courses of acting for me, being in truth at that moment in desperate need himself of a stranger to supply the place of a literary man who had absconded, and knowing the dire need in which the city of Boston stood of some “new thing,” to fill the yawning void left by the giantess and the horse with three tails. I began to fancy, as he went on, that amongst all the pearls he was throwing before me, I might find one which suited my own purpose, and at length it was determined that I should write a little book for him, which he would immediately bring out in what he guessed was the very best possible style. Our arrangements were soon made, though, as I found afterward, he agreed to pay me about one-third of the sum which I ought to have received. That book, however, not only served to put a small sum into my pocket, but also to spread my fame, and to occupy my thoughts. I was very glad of the latter; for the moment I sat down by myself in my inn, I fell into sad reveries, and I wished very much to let time do his work of consoling by those slow and almost insensible steps through which he best effects his objects. The subject, the treatment, was all discussed in less than half an hour; for my friend, the bookseller, had very definite ideas, and knew to a nicety what would sell, and what would not. While we were still talking over these things, several gentlemen entered the shop, to whom the bookseller—now in possession of my name—introduced me as the celebrated Monsieur De Lacy. Thus I obtained occupation for the next six weeks, and acquaintance with some of the pleasantest persons I ever met with in my life; and the next morning I saw announcement in the public prints that Monsieur De Lacy, the well known Vendeean chief had arrived in Boston, followed by an apocripha twice as long as the book of Tobit, regarding the bloody battles I had fought, and the victories I had obtained in a district within which I had never set my foot. All this was based upon a deep scar on my cheek, which I had received from the heel of an Austrian soldier, as I lay upon the ground in the streets of Zurich.
Although I smiled, while reading this account, the idea of being or having been, one of the actors in the great and extraordinary struggle in La Vendee was very pleasant to me. I thought of it a good deal, and although I had fancied some weeks before that America was the country, of all others, to afford me a peaceful and happy refuge, I now began to long for a return to Europe, to take part in the active scenes which were going on in my native land.