Nature had been very profuse in bestowing her favors upon Mr. Frank Gadsby. In the first place she had given him a very elegant person, tall and of manly proportions; secondly, a pair of large, dark-hazel eyes, which could beam with tenderness or become fixed in the “fine frenzy” of despair, as best suited the pleasure of their owner. Above them she had placed a broad, white forehead, and adorned it with waving hair, of a dark, glossy brown. Next, a splendid set of teeth attested her skill and favor; and, to complete the tout ensemble, whiskers and moustache were unsurpassable.
“Well,” said Fortune, rather ruffled, “if Nature has been so prodigal, he shall have none of my assistance—not he! Let him make his way through the world by his good looks, if he can. I will seek out some ordinary looking fellow, whom nature has neglected, and with my golden smiles atone for the want of those attractions which soonest win the favor of the fair.”
And thus, under the ban of Fortune, Frank Gadsby left college.
He professed to study the law as a means of winning the favor of the goddess, and had a small backroom, up three flights of stairs, furnished with a table and two chairs, on which table several voluminous law-books very quietly reposed, being seldom forced to open their oracular jaws to give forth their sage opinions. This was his study. But the person who should expect to find him there, I am sorry to say, would have a fruitless visit, and drag up those steep stairs for nothing. He would be much more likely to meet him promenading Chestnut street, gallanting some beautiful young girl up and down its thronged pavé—or at the Art Union, with an eye upon the living beauties there congregated, not upon the pictures which adorn its walls.
And yet I would not wish to convey an erroneous opinion, in thus hinting at the usual whereabouts of Mr. Gadsby. If he did not study, it was not for the want of talents or aptness; for he possessed a fine mind, and only needed some impetus to call forth those brilliant traits which were concealed beneath an exterior so vain and trifling—for vain he certainly was, and trifling I think I can prove beyond dispute. The fact is, being a general favorite with the ladies, he was inclined to push his advantage a little too far; or, in other words, Frank Gadsby was a coquet—a male coquet, of the first magnitude—insinuating, plausible, soft-voiced, and, in the words of Spencer,
“When needed he could weep and pray,
And when he listed he could fawn and flatter,
Now smiling smoothly, like to summer’s day,
Now glooming sadly so to cloke the matter.”
But although, like the fickle zephyr, he wooed with light dalliance every fair flower of beauty which came across his path, he yet managed to retain his heart safe in his own lordly bosom, and Frank Gadsby, the charmer, alone possessed that love sworn to so many.