“Not at all, sir. We know the names of two or three of the most genteel families in each of the large cities, and if the strangers are city people, some one finds out whether they know any of those. If they don’t, we set them down for nobodies. If they are not from the cities, we find out what they do at home, and if they are professional, or live on their means, we know that they are exclusive; if not we keep clear of them. Tarry-town is considered a very proud place.”
“Has your town a large population to select from?”
“Considerable—eight hundred or so. Though it is not a county-town, we have four lawyers, two of them, however, don’t practice, owning farms around the town; my brother is one of the two others. And we have three physicians, Mrs. Allanby’s friend being the lady of one of them. The botanic doctor we don’t count.”
“Do your rules of admission and rejection apply farther than to native Americans? If a foreigner, like myself for instance, were to go among you, how is it likely he would be received?”
“Of course according to his standing in his own country,” replied Miss Esther Ann, with imperturbable self-importance; “we understand very well how people are divided off in foreign countries, for we read a great deal. There’s my sister, she positively swallows every novel she can lay her hands on, and it is surprising what a knowledge she has of the world and fashionable life. She says she would know a nobleman at a glance by his distingué air, (pronounced a la Anglaise;) maw doesn’t encourage her in it—like most elderly persons, maw has very old-fashioned notions; she tells her it teaches her to look too high.”
“And I am to infer that, according to the code of Tarry-town, you would hesitate to admit foreigners, unless they should be noblemen?” persisted Mr. Aylmere.
“Certainly, or grandees, or gentry, I believe the English call them. We have it on the best authority that no others are noticed in the large cities—that is, by the first people—and what is not good enough for them is not good enough for us. We think ourselves on a par with any city people, and, when we go to a city, nothing ought to satisfy us but the first. Birds of a feather ought always to flock together, in my opinion, and I’m sure, that after taking the lead in Tarry-town, if ever I went to Europe, I should make myself very choice of my associates. Europeans have the same right when they come here. Those that are aristocracy at home have a right to be aristocracy every where else, and no others, and those that are not, and push themselves forward, are no better than impostors.”
“Then I am afraid I should stand a chance to be tabooed at Tarry-town,” said Mr. Aylmere, “for I am an English merchant.”
During the progress of this conversation, Mrs. Dilberry, with a loud, though wheezing voice, was panting through a long harangue to Mrs. Aylmere, and two other ladies, in whose midst she had anchored herself.
“I expected a great deal of pleasure in shopping when I came to the city,” said she, “but it’s precious little I’m likely to have, for shopping without making bargains is but a dry business. We tried it yesterday and this morning, my daughters and me, and plague a thing could we find that was any thing to signify cheaper than in the stores at Tarry-town. I told the girls that I now believed what the man said in the newspapers, that people in the city all live by cheating one another. One would think that as they live at head-quarters, some of them could now and then pick up things for little or nothing and sell them at half-price, but it seems they are all leagued together to get whatever they can. We went from one end of a street to the other, and every place they had pretty much the same goods, and asked the same prices, unless it was here and there where they put up every thing monstrously high, just to come down little by little on being jewed, and then they never got lower than their next door neighbors. I was talking about it to one of the boarders at the hotel, old Mrs. Scrooge, a very sharp, sensible woman—some of you ladies know her, I dare say. She let me into a secret about shopping, that is well worth knowing. She says it is bad policy for people to go shopping with their best bib and tucker on, for if they look as if they are well off in the world, it’s a sure way to be taken advantage of, and that when she starts off among the stores, she always puts on a calico gown and a black straw bonnet which she keeps for that and for funerals.”