A day came for cleaning my windows, and, as it rained heavily, I could not give the old woman a clear stage by going out for a couple of hours, but told her to clean away and be as lively as she could, while I sat there and wrote. Lodgers, she told me, as she polished up the brightening panes, came and went week after week, so fast that she forgot one when another came, and never knew any of their names. She had an eye for character, though, and told me the peculiarities of some of them in a quaint way, nailing her sentences, now and then, with odd, hard words, put in independently of the general text.
"And who lives in the room just under mine? Somebody who raises plants,
I see,—unless the green things on the balcony belong to the house."
"A gentleman as keeps emself quite to emself. Lonesome and friendless, I reckon, for he looks but poorly. Plants out queer sasses in boxes all the time, and some of 'em on the balcoany itself. Guess he makes kinder tea of 'em, or root-drink. Decoctifies."
"And who in the room opposite, on this floor?"
"Empty now. Two dark-featured little gentlemen had it for a fortnight,— Jews, I reckon,—and as like one another as two spots of dirt on this 'ere pane of glass. Spoke a hard-biled kind of tongue, and was furriners, I guess. Polyanders."
The vacant room would just suit De Vonville, who had arrived a few days before from abroad. I told him of it, and he came in the next day, bag and baggage, a portion of which latter was curious and uncommon.
De Vonville, with whom I had lived in lodgings two or three years previously, was a Belgian and a savant, and a man of rare companionable qualities besides. Professionally, I believe, he called himself a naturalist. He had already roamed over the greater part of America, North and South, investigating the mysteries of Nature, especially of the animal kingdom, and contributing, as he went, many specimens of rare animals to the principal collections of Europe. His latest adventures took him through Africa and the East, whence he brought to New York a number of living creatures of many species, all of which, however, he had shipped for Havre before I met him, with the exception of two or three of the least disreputable kinds, which he meant to keep about him as pets. The most valued of these treasures were a small animal called a Mangouste, and a cage containing a family of white mice.
These white mice were greatly prized by De Vonville, on account of the rare manner in which they were marked, their paws and muzzles being of a perfect jet black. They were quite tame and familiar; but, on the approach of a cat, or any other cause for alarm, the whole family would concentrate their energies in a very remarkable way into one piercing squeak.
The Mangouste, an animal somewhat resembling a ferret, but more nearly allied to the Nilotic ichneumon of Egypt, was a marvellously lithe and active little creature, perfectly tame, and coming as readily as a dog to his name, "Mungo," except when overfed, when he would sleep sometimes for hours, rolled up at the bottom of his cage, or in some dark corner of the room. There were personal reminiscences connected with Mungo which rendered him particularly valuable to De Vonville, whom he had often saved from the stings of the noxious vermin to be encountered by those who dwell in tents. His instinct was for creeping things, though he looked as if he could have dined contentedly on a brace of white mice. One piece of mischief he committed, during the few days he was allowed to run about the rooms: he gnawed holes at the bottom of all the doors, through which he could let himself in and out. He used to lie in the sun, on my table, as I sat reading; and was generally companionable and trustworthy, notwithstanding his insidious look.
Seeing the interest I took in his small menagerie, De Vonville begged me to undertake the superintendence of it, on his being called away for a brief tour to Baltimore and elsewhere, in pursuance of an engagement to deliver a course of traveller's tales. Numerous were the directions I had from him as to the diet and general treatment most congenial to the constitutions of white mice; and there was implicit confidence expressed, that, for safety, the Mangouste should be kept strictly confined to his cage. There were parrots to be looked after, also, including an extremely vituperative old macaw, any verbal communication with whom laid the advancing party open to all manner of insult and objurgation.