These animals are generally great scandal-mongers, and always dangerous, sweet-voiced but adder-tongued, their modus operandi is to poison the ear of the person addressed, against any other individual, hoping thereby to elevate their own characters upon the slaughtered heap. Let no woman suffer such pestilent breath to be a second time breathed within her hearing.
Jasper, though indefatigable as you may well suppose, met with strange adventure during his wife-hunt. Pretty women, after short experience, he avoided utterly, for he found that they were usually too extravagant in their expectations with regard to personnel, and as Jasper could not, by any stretch of his imagination, fancy that he ranked in the category of Fredericks and Augustuses, he endeavored to make up the deficiency by a liberal display of wealth-prefiguring ornament, a kind of strong-box index, which he shrewdly suspected might tempt some ambitious innocent to investigate the contents thereof.
Perhaps it would be as well, at this period, as our hero is gotten up at no small expense, to give a rough pen-and-ink outline of his appearance. In the first place, he was twenty-eight years old, by his own account; as he could scarcely be expected to know exactly himself, it’s not to be wondered at that he and the parish register differed a few years; but that was of little consequence, for he had an accommodating peasant-colored complexion, which, as it made him look at least forty, will no doubt return the compliment by making him look no more at sixty; his hair was about as indefinite, being a factitious auburn, a dry, wiry red, something like the end of a fox’s brush in hot weather, crisp and tangible, like fine copper-shavings; one could not help fancying that if he shook his head, each individual hair would jar audibly against the other. The whole arrangement gave one an idea of intense heat, and an involuntary hope that the poor fellow had but a sprinkle of hydrocephalus, he was of undecided height also, varying from five feet four-and-a-half to five feet four-and-three-quarters, at the option of his boot-maker; but the most remarkable features, if we may use the expression, in his conformation, were his hands, which were gaunt and bony, of a tanned-leathery consistence, and of a streaky, mottled, castile-soap color, covered with a straggling crop of light, sandy hair, and ornamented with several wedding-rings—evidences of broken-hearts, which some men are fond of displaying as certificates of gallantry. Dressed in irreproachable black, and capped and jeweled in the most orthodox style, it may be imagined that Jasper was an object of no small solicitude to the “anxious mothers of slenderly-portioned daughters;” he certainly had an air bien riche, if not distingué—and that’s the marketable materiel after all.
Months were unprofitably spent, and Jasper was beginning to think the time irretrievably lost, when an occurrence of some little interest varied the cateraceous-drinkability of hotel monotony. The Blodgerses arrived, en route to the fashionable ruralities.
Now the Blodgerses were extensive people in their way. They were originated somewhere in Pennsylvania, and affected the tone of the far south; traveled with huge trunks, two lap-dogs, a parrot, and a liveried African. The head of the family was a pursy, important, chairman-of-an-election-committee-looking man, with a superabundance of excessively white shirt-frill, and a great deal too much watch-chain; the latter appendage he invariably swung round as he conversed, its momentum indicating the state of his temper during an argument; let him speak upon uninteresting topics—literature, for instance, or any of the useless arts—you notice but a gentle apathetic oscillation, but let him get upon the tariff; let him hurl denunciations against his political enemies, or eulogize his particular presidential candidate, and round it goes with astonishing velocity.
Blodgers had been a grocer, or something of the kind, and having, during a life of assiduous saving and scraping, accumulated a very large sum, now flung himself with extraordinary abandon upon the full stream of gentility—and, to say the truth, most uncomfortable he found it; for many a time would he acknowledge to his wife that “This flying about from steam-car to steamboat, was far more fatiguing, and not quite so profitable as quietly serving out lump sugar.” Then would Mrs. B. indignantly check such compromising thoughts, for she was a person of great pretension, had had a slight acquaintance with Mrs. Judge Pinning, and once visited by accident Mrs. General Jollikins, so felt herself bound to talk of “society.” “They don’t do this in our set;” or, “it’s not the etiquette in society;” and such like sidewinded hints of her position, formed the staple of her conversations. As for the heiress to the wealthy grocer’s store, there was an indescribable something in her air and manner which plainly indicated, “I am worth looking after!” She talked loudly, stared mutely through a magnificent Parisian double-glass, and in fact broke through all the recognized rules of good breeding with that insolent familiarity which but poorly imitates the nonchalant ease of the really distingué.
No description of deportment could have made so great an impression on Jasper. She looked ingots, she spoke specie, and her prestige was altogether redolent of roleaux. He was struck, but the stricken deer took the precaution to investigate realities before he advanced a step toward acquaintanceship. Now, thought he, if she but happen to have some ten or fifteen thousand, she’d be just the wife for me. The result was satisfactory. He discovered that a larger sum was settled to be her marriage-portion—and so laid vigorous siege instanter.
Now Araminta Blodgers, although decidedly unqualified to grace the pages of the book of beauty, had a strange predilection for “nice young men;” so that at first Jasper met with decided, and not over-delicately expressed, opposition. But he was not a man to retire from the first repulse; he persevered, and finally so deceived the sympathetic Araminta into the belief of his ardent affection, that, one fine summer evening, she sighed forth an avowal that she and her expectations were at his disposal.
Fresh from this successful attack upon the heiress’ susceptibilities, with a feathery heart, Jasper snapped his fingers at love, and danced down the corridor of the hotel, to the infinite wonderment of the waiters. Either from force of habit, or as a means of tempering the exuberance of his spirits, he plunged into the mysteries of the guest-book, where, alas! for Araminta Blodgers, and for true love! the first name he saw was that of Mrs. Skinnington, the rich widow from his own immediate neighborhood; she whom he had sedulously church-ogled from the opposite pew every Sunday, astonished at the vastness of his presumption; she, the bona fide and sole possessor of nearly half his native town. Here was the shadow of a shade of opportunity. She was alone. Jasper hesitated. Araminta’s fortune was ample, but when there was a chance of more, it wasn’t enough! Finally, he determined to wait the first interview with the widow, and be regulated by her manner.
They met at dinner, and she was singularly gracious. The fact is, those eye-assaults had told a little; and I’m sorry to say, for the character of the sex, that the widow, in case the siege should be renewed, had predetermined on capitulation.