'It is intended, Mr. Van Dyke, to surmount your front door, to notify the public that you are a good cobbler and an honest man; that's all.'
'Do you mean to say, Sir, that you expect Caleb Van Dyke, after living fifty years without any such bauble, to stick such a timber as that over his door, to be laughed at for his pains? Why, what would Karl Keiser say?—that old Caleb is turning Yankee in his old age. Why, Sir, the town would burst its sides with laughter, and the boys would throw all kinds of rocks and brickbats at it, and the windows too. No, Sir!'
'Will you try it, my good friend,' said Nicholas, 'if it is but for a single week? And if it does not increase your business, you may set me down for a Yankee tinker, beside expecting me to do all the fighting necessary to sustain the dignity of the establishment.'
And the result was, after a long and animated discussion, that Caleb consented that Nicholas might nail up the board that very night, that the town might be surprised the next morning with the suddenness of the apparition; for such it would be considered, as it was the only specimen of a sign-board in the village, if we except the yellow sky and blue stars of Karl Keiser. Caleb then retired to rest to be visited by curious dreams about sign-boards in general; and Nicholas could scarcely sleep at all, for the busy scenes which he imagined were already advancing in the cobbler's shop, the legitimate result of this invention of his skill.
Early next morning Caleb protruded his uncombed head from the window, and, lo! all Idleberg seemed to be gathered at his door. His first thought was that a mob of his fellow-citizens had assembled there for some nefarious purpose, but he was speedily reässured at seeing Nicholas Pelt standing in the midst of the crowd, and expounding the mysteries of the sign-board to the great delight of his astonished audience. Men, women, and children had gathered there from all parts of the town, with as much intensity of curiosity as if Caleb had caught a live elephant, and was exhibiting it gratis. There were men without their hats, and women without their bonnets, and children with little else than bountiful nature had given them. The shop-keeper was there with his yard-stick, and the smith with his sledge-hammer; and the little French tailor was there with his Sacre Dieu's and his red-hot goose, which he flourished to the infinite terror of the by-standers. But the principal figure in this motley group was no less a personage than Jonas Jones, the rival cobbler. Mr. Jones had of late grown too large for his trowsers. His prosperity had been too great for his little soul. He had cut the bench in person, leaving the drudgery of the business to the Company. By the aid of the village tailor he had become quite an exquisite, wore white kid gloves, and occasionally sported a Spanish cigar. There he was promenading before the door, with an ivory-headed cane, and an ogling-glass lifted to his eye; and every few seconds he condescended to inform the crowd that 'he was from Bosting, and the people were a set of demd fules to be making such a racket about a cobbler's sign.'
While curiosity was at the highest pitch, the uproar was increased by the sudden appearance of Hans Keiser, who came swaggering and blustering into the group, elbowing his way along until he reached the vicinity of the school-master. He who had been so diffident in the presence of the gentler sex, was now as bold as any lion need be among men. Smarting with the recollection of his recent discomfiture, he commenced addressing the assembly in a very rude, uncouth style, denouncing the sign as a Yankee contrivance, insinuating that the inventor was no better than he should be, and exhorting the good citizens of Idleberg to tear down the bauble as the only means of securing their lives and property from the occult witchcraft which he professed to believe lay at the bottom of it.
Caleb Van Dyke listened to this harangue with great attention, for it presented the subject in a new light by appealing to his hereditary superstitions; and it is not improbable that he would have suffered Hans to proceed in his meditated outrage, but for the intervention of Nicholas Pelt. Already had the sturdy young Dutchman climbed to the board and made an effort to wrench it away, when he was arrested by the stern voice of Nicholas, commanding him, as he valued his life, to desist.
Hans threw at him a look of defiance, and informed him that if he had the requisite physical strength, he might remove him; otherwise, he should remain where he was until he had torn away the board, or chose to come down of his own free will and accord. This announcement was received by the crowd with loud bravos, which however were immediately silenced when the school-master deliberately approached Hans, and grasping his leg, hurled him to the ground. Amid the flight of women and children and Mr. Jonas Jones, who declared that in consequence of being near-sighted he could see better from a distance, Hans scrambled to his feet, and aimed a blow at Nicholas that might have felled a stouter man, but for the skill with which he parried and returned it with interest. With the generous aid of the by-standers, who were ripe for a frolic, and expressed their anxiety on the subject by cries of 'Bravo!' 'Go it, Red-jacket!' 'Hurrah for Old Nick!' the combatants were on the point of getting into a regular pitched battle, with the usual adornments of bruised eyes and bleeding noses, when Caleb Van Dyke, who had just succeeded in putting on his ten breeches, rushed between them, and commanded them to desist. Another pacificator, whose presence operated equally on both parties, was the fair Ellen, who, having caught a glimpse of the fray from her window, and entertaining an indefinite idea in the general confusion that her father was on the point of being carried away by a press-gang, rushed into the street before completing her toilet, and ran to her father's side in all the beauty of her blooming cheeks and flowing ringlets, to the admiration of the company in general, and particularly of Mr. Jonas Jones, who, perched in safety on a barrel hard by, reviewed the subsiding conflict, lifted his ogling-glass, and beating his breast violently with his right hand in the region of his stomach, exclaimed, 'My heart! my eyes! what a demd foine ge-irl!'