"What do you think of that sample of mixed tobacco I gave you to try?" asked the wild boarder of another, whom Mrs. Silvernail used to speak of with fear and doubt. "When heated, it readily sublimes in the form of a dense white vapor," said Mr. Arcubus, confidently, "disagreeably affecting the nose and eyes."
"I hope you are not going to bring another dog into the house, Mr. Puglock," remonstrated Mrs. Silvernail, addressing the wild boarder, to whose conversation she had been lending a sharp ear. "Re'lly now, I must restrict the number of dogs; we have three here already, I believe."
"There is a strong analogy between the virus injected into wounds made by the teeth of a rabid dog and that found in the poison-apparatus of venomous snakes," brought in Mr. Arcubus, diving his fork truculently into a ripe tomato.
This last observation of Mr. Arcubus, together with the fact that the blade of his knife had manifestly turned black, while all the other blades at table were as bright as silver, decided me. I packed up my portmanteau and writing-case that evening, and, having settled with my wondering landlady, to whom I accounted for my sudden departure by pleading expediency as to important affairs, took leave of that estimable widow, and drove away to a distant hotel, from which I sallied forth early next morning to look for lodgings,—furnished lodgings for single gentlemen, without board,—for against boarding-houses I had set my face forever.
A peculiar feature of life in lodgings in New York, as in other large cities, is the incomparable solitude attainable in that blessed state of deliverance from promiscuous "board." One may dwell for a twelvemonth in lodgings for single gentlemen, without incurring the obligation of knowing by sight, or even by name, the lodger who occupies the very room opposite to his, on the same landing. Fifty lodgers may have successively lived in those "apartments" during the twelve months, on the same terms of perfect isolation from one who would rather mind his own business than make any inquiries regarding theirs. And so it is, that, of all the stage-pieces which have achieved popularity in our day, none is more faithful to the facts than the often-repeated one of "Box and Cox"; yet, but for the exigencies of the drama, which, of course, has for its principal object the development of a plot, there would have been no necessity whatever for bringing Box on a footing of acquaintance with Cox,—still less for attributing to either of them an idea of his landlady's name.
For several months I lived contentedly in the house selected by me, up one pair of stairs, in a room looking out into a busy street,—a street so narrow, that the trees at one side of it, whenever a reviving breeze brought with it a subject for greeting and congratulation, shook hands in quite a friendly manner with those at the other. To illustrate the isolation of a residence in these lodgings, I may as well state, that, during all the time of my sojourn there, I never arrived at the knowledge of my landlady's name. It was not graven upon the house-door, and, as a knowledge of it was of no immediate consequence to any of my occupations, nor likely to be, I never asked about it from the old woman who kept the rooms in order, and to whom I seldom spoke, except upon the weekly occasion of handing to her the amount due to the landlady, with whom I never had any interview after the day I agreed with her for the lodgings. I believe there was a landlord,—if that be the proper term to apply to a man who is the husband of a landlady, and nothing else. From my window I once observed a man who might have been the landlord, a man of subdued appearance, accompanying the lady of the house to church. Subsequently, as I came in one evening rather earlier than usual, the same person was leaning against the railings by the hall-door, smoking a cigar. He greeted me as I passed in, addressing me in an interrogative manner with one word, the only one I ever heard him utter,—
"Owasyerelthbin?"
To which, as I supposed him to be a foreigner, unacquainted with the
English tongue, I replied at random in the only word of German of which
I happen to be master,—
"Yaw!"
And this was the only communication I ever had with people of the house, excepting occasional conversations with the dust-colored old woman who cleaned the windows and swept the floors; while, with regard to a dozen or two of lodgers who succeeded each other from time to time in the other disposable rooms of the house, I never saw one of them, nor was acquainted with them otherwise than by footstep,—and that rather infelicitously at one time, in the case of something which went either upon crutches or wooden legs, and which occupied the room immediately over mine. This was in charming contrast with life at Mrs. Silvernail's, in its freedom from parables, and from the uncared-for society of Miss Rocket's guests; likewise from that of the serious and vicious boarders, and above all of the poisonous young man.