his langage was so fayer & pertynante,
yt semeth unto manys herying not only the worde,
but veryly the thyng.
Caxton’s Book of Curtesye.
In the party of which our travelers found themselves members, was Duff Brown, the great railroad contractor2, and subsequently a well-known member of Congress; a bluff3, jovial4 Bost’n man, thick-set, close shaven, with a heavy jaw5 and a low forehead—a very pleasant man if you were not in his way. He had government contracts also, custom houses and dry docks, from Portland to New Orleans, and managed to get out of congress, in appropriations6, about weight for weight of gold for the stone furnished.
Associated with him, and also of this party, was Rodney Schaick, a sleek7 New York broker8, a man as prominent in the church as in the stock exchange, dainty in his dress, smooth of speech, the necessary complement9 of Duff Brown in any enterprise that needed assurance and adroitness10.
It would be difficult to find a pleasanter traveling party, one that shook off more readily the artificial restraints of Puritanic strictness, and took the world with good-natured allowance. Money was plenty for every attainable11 luxury, and there seemed to be no doubt that its supply would continue, and that fortunes were about to be made without a great deal of toil12. Even Philip soon caught the prevailing13 spirit; Barry did not need any inoculation14, he always talked in six figures. It was as natural for the dear boy to be rich as it is for most people to be poor.
The elders of the party were not long in discovering the fact, which almost all travelers to the west soon find out; that the water was poor. It must have been by a lucky premonition of this that they all had brandy flasks15 with which to qualify the water of the country; and it was no doubt from an uneasy feeling of the danger of being poisoned that they kept experimenting, mixing a little of the dangerous and changing fluid, as they passed along, with the contents of the flasks, thus saving their lives hour by hour. Philip learned afterwards that temperance and the strict observance of Sunday and a certain gravity of deportment are geographical17 habits, which people do not usually carry with them away from home.
Our travelers stopped in Chicago long enough to see that they could make their fortunes there in two week’s time, but it did not seem worth while; the west was more attractive; the further one went the wider the opportunities opened.
They took railroad to Alton and the steamboat from there to St. Louis, for the change and to have a glimpse of the river.
“Isn’t this jolly?” cried Henry, dancing out of the barber’s room, and coming down the deck with a one, two, three step, shaven, curled and perfumed after his usual exquisite18 fashion.
“What’s jolly?” asked Philip, looking out upon the dreary19 and monotonous20 waste through which the shaking steamboat was coughing its way.
“Why, the whole thing; it’s immense I can tell you. I wouldn’t give that to be guaranteed a hundred thousand cold cash in a year’s time.”
“Where’s Mr. Brown?”
“He is in the saloon, playing poker21 with Schaick and that long haired party with the striped trousers, who scrambled22 aboard when the stage plank23 was half hauled in, and the big Delegate to Congress from out west.”
“That’s a fine looking fellow, that delegate, with his glossy24, black whiskers; looks like a Washington man; I shouldn’t think he’d be at poker.”
“Oh, its only five cent ante, just to make it interesting, the Delegate said.”
“But I shouldn’t think a representative in Congress would play poker any way in a public steamboat.”
“Nonsense, you’ve got to pass the time. I tried a hand myself, but those old fellows are too many for me. The Delegate knows all the points. I’d bet a hundred dollars he will ante his way right into the United States Senate when his territory comes in. He’s got the cheek for it.”
“He has the grave and thoughtful manner of expectoration of a public man, for one thing,” added Philip.
“Harry25,” said Philip, after a pause, “what have you got on those big boots for; do you expect to wade26 ashore27?”
“I’m breaking ’em in.”
The fact was Harry had got himself up in what he thought a proper costume for a new country, and was in appearance a sort of compromise between a dandy of Broadway and a backwoodsman. Harry, with blue eyes, fresh complexion28, silken whiskers and curly chestnut29 hair, was as handsome as a fashion plate. He wore this morning a soft hat, a short cutaway coat, an open vest displaying immaculate linen30, a leathern belt round his waist, and top-boots of soft leather, well polished, that came above his knees and required a string attached to his belt to keep them up. The light hearted fellow gloried in these shining encasements of his well shaped legs, and told Philip that they were a perfect protection against prairie rattle-snakes, which never strike above the knee.
The landscape still wore an almost wintry appearance when our travelers left Chicago. It was a genial31 spring day when they landed at St. Louis; the birds were singing, the blossoms of peach trees in city garden plots, made the air sweet, and in the roar and tumult32 on the long river levee they found an excitement that accorded with their own hopeful anticipations33.
The party went to the Southern Hotel, where the great Duff Brown was very well known, and indeed was a man of so much importance that even the office clerk was respectful to him. He might have respected in him also a certain vulgar swagger and insolence34 of money, which the clerk greatly admired.
The young fellows liked the house and liked the city; it seemed to them a mighty35 free and hospitable36 town. Coming from the East they were struck with many peculiarities37. Everybody smoked in the streets, for one thing, they noticed; everybody “took a drink” in an open manner whenever he wished to do so or was asked, as if the habit needed no concealment38 or apology. In the evening when they walked about they found people sitting on the door-steps of their dwellings39, in a manner not usual in a northern city; in front of some of the hotels and saloons the side walks were filled with chairs and benches—Paris fashion, said Harry—upon which people lounged in these warm spring evenings, smoking, always smoking; and the clink of glasses and of billiard balls was in the air. It was delightful40.
Harry at once found on landing that his back-woods custom would not be needed in St. Louis, and that, in fact, he had need of all the resources of his wardrobe to keep even with the young swells41 of the town. But this did not much matter, for Harry was always superior to his clothes. As they were likely to be detained some time in the city, Harry told Philip that he was going to improve his time. And he did. It was an encouragement to any industrious42 man to see this young fellow rise, carefully dress himself, eat his breakfast deliberately43, smoke his cigar tranquilly44, and then repair to his room, to what he called his work, with a grave and occupied manner, but with perfect cheerfulness.
Harry would take off his coat, remove his cravat45, roll up his shirt-sleeves, give his curly hair the right touch before the glass, get out his book on engineering, his boxes of instruments, his drawing paper, his profile paper, open the book of logarithms, mix his India ink, sharpen his pencils, light a cigar, and sit down at the table to “lay out a line,” with the most grave notion that he was mastering the details of engineering. He would spend half a day in these preparations without ever working out a problem or having the faintest conception of the use of lines or logarithms. And when he had finished, he had the most cheerful confidence that he had done a good day’s work.
It made no difference, however, whether Harry was in his room in a hotel or in a tent, Philip soon found, he was just the same. In camp he would get himself up in the most elaborate toilet at his command, polish his long boots to the top, lay out his work before him, and spend an hour or longer, if anybody was looking at him, humming airs, knitting his brows, and “working” at engineering; and if a crowd of gaping46 rustics47 were looking on all the while it was perfectly48 satisfactory to him.
“You see,” he says to Philip one morning at the hotel when he was thus engaged, “I want to get the theory of this thing, so that I can have a check on the engineers.”
“Not many times, if the court knows herself. There’s better game. Brown and Schaick have, or will have, the control for the whole line of the Salt Lick Pacific Extension, forty thousand dollars a mile over the prairie, with extra for hard-pan—and it’ll be pretty much all hardpan I can tell you; besides every alternate section of land on this line. There’s millions in the job. I’m to have the sub-contract for the first fifty miles, and you can bet it’s a soft thing.”
“I’ll tell you what you do, Philip,” continued Larry, in a burst of generosity50, “if I don’t get you into my contract, you’ll be with the engineers, and you jest stick a stake at the first ground marked for a depot51, buy the land of the farmer before he knows where the depot will be, and we’ll turn a hundred or so on that. I’ll advance the money for the payments, and you can sell the lots. Schaick is going to let me have ten thousand just for a flyer in such operations.”
“But that’s a good deal of money.”
“Wait till you are used to handling money. I didn’t come out here for a bagatelle52. My uncle wanted me to stay East and go in on the Mobile custom house, work up the Washington end of it; he said there was a fortune in it for a smart young fellow, but I preferred to take the chances out here. Did I tell you I had an offer from Bobbett and Fanshaw to go into their office as confidential53 clerk on a salary of ten thousand?”
“Why didn’t you take it?” asked Philip, to whom a salary of two thousand would have seemed wealth, before he started on this journey.
“Take it? I’d rather operate on my own hook;” said Harry, in his most airy manner.
A few evenings after their arrival at the Southern, Philip and Harry made the acquaintance of a very agreeable gentleman, whom they had frequently seen before about the hotel corridors, and passed a casual word with. He had the air of a man of business, and was evidently a person of importance.
The precipitating54 of this casual intercourse55 into the more substantial form of an acquaintanceship was the work of the gentleman himself, and occurred in this wise. Meeting the two friends in the lobby one evening, he asked them to give him the time, and added:
“Excuse me, gentlemen—strangers in St. Louis? Ah, yes-yes. From the East, perhaps? Ah; just so, just so. Eastern born myself—Virginia. Sellers is my name—Beriah Sellers.
“Ah! by the way—New York, did you say? That reminds me; just met some gentlemen from your State, a week or two ago—very prominent gentlemen—in public life they are; you must know them, without doubt. Let me see—let me see. Curious those names have escaped me. I know they were from your State, because I remember afterward16 my old friend Governor Shackleby said to me—fine man, is the Governor—one of the finest men our country has produced—said he, ‘Colonel, how did you like those New York gentlemen?—not many such men in the world,—Colonel Sellers,’ said the Governor—yes, it was New York he said—I remember it distinctly. I can’t recall those names, somehow. But no matter. Stopping here, gentlemen—stopping at the Southern?”
In shaping their reply in their minds, the title “Mr.” had a place in it; but when their turn had arrived to speak, the title “Colonel” came from their lips instead.
“Yes, yes, the Southern is fair. I myself go to the Planter’s, old, aristocratic house. We Southern gentlemen don’t change our ways, you know. I always make it my home there when I run down from Hawkeye—my plantation57 is in Hawkeye, a little up in the country. You should know the Planter’s.”
Philip and Harry both said they should like to see a hotel that had been so famous in its day—a cheerful hostelrie, Philip said it must have been where duels58 were fought there across the dining-room table.
And the three strolled along the streets, the Colonel talking all the way in the most liberal and friendly manner, and with a frank open-heartedness that inspired confidence.
“Yes, born East myself, raised all along, know the West—a great country, gentlemen. The place for a young fellow of spirit to pick up a fortune, simply pick it up, it’s lying round loose here. Not a day that I don’t put aside an opportunity; too busy to look into it. Management of my own property takes my time. First visit? Looking for an opening?”
“Yes, looking around,” replied Harry.
“Ah, here we are. You’d rather sit here in front than go to my apartments? So had I. An opening eh?”
The Colonel’s eyes twinkled. “Ah, just so. The country is opening up, all we want is capital to develop it. Slap down the rails and bring the land into market. The richest land on God Almighty’s footstool is lying right out there. If I had my capital free I could plant it for millions.”
“I suppose your capital is largely in your plantation?” asked Philip.
“Well, partly, sir, partly. I’m down here now with reference to a little operation—a little side thing merely. By the way gentlemen, excuse the liberty, but it’s about my usual time”—
The Colonel paused, but as no movement of his acquaintances followed this plain remark, he added, in an explanatory manner,
“I’m rather particular about the exact time—have to be in this climate.”
Even this open declaration of his hospitable intention not being understood the Colonel politely said,
“Gentlemen, will you take something?”
Col. Sellers led the way to a saloon on Fourth street under the hotel, and the young gentlemen fell into the custom of the country.
“Not that,” said the Colonel to the bar-keeper, who shoved along the counter a bottle of apparently61 corn-whiskey, as if he had done it before on the same order; “not that,” with a wave of the hand. “That Otard if you please. Yes. Never take an inferior liquor, gentlemen, not in the evening, in this climate. There. That’s the stuff. My respects!”
The hospitable gentleman, having disposed of his liquor, remarking that it was not quite the thing—“when a man has his own cellar to go to, he is apt to get a little fastidious about his liquors”—called for cigars. But the brand offered did not suit him; he motioned the box away, and asked for some particular Havana’s, those in separate wrappers.
“I always smoke this sort, gentlemen; they are a little more expensive, but you’ll learn, in this climate, that you’d better not economize62 on poor cigars.”
Having imparted this valuable piece of information, the Colonel lighted the fragrant63 cigar with satisfaction, and then carelessly put his fingers into his right vest pocket. That movement being without result, with a shade of disappointment on his face, he felt in his left vest pocket. Not finding anything there, he looked up with a serious and annoyed air, anxiously slapped his right pantaloon’s pocket, and then his left, and exclaimed,
“By George, that’s annoying. By George, that’s mortifying64. Never had anything of that kind happen to me before. I’ve left my pocket-book. Hold! Here’s a bill, after all. No, thunder, it’s a receipt.”
“Allow me,” said Philip, seeing how seriously the Colonel was annoyed, and taking out his purse.
The Colonel protested he couldn’t think of it, and muttered something to the barkeeper about “hanging it up,” but the vender65 of exhilaration made no sign, and Philip had the privilege of paying the costly66 shot; Col. Sellers profusely67 apologizing and claiming the right “next time, next time.”
As soon as Beriah Sellers had bade his friends good night and seen them depart, he did not retire apartments in the Planter’s, but took his way to his lodgings68 with a friend in a distant part of the city.
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1
entente
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| n.协定；有协定关系的各国 | |
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contractor
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| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
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bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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appropriations
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| n.挪用（appropriation的复数形式） | |
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sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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broker
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| n.中间人，经纪人；v.作为中间人来安排 | |
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complement
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| n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足 | |
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adroitness
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attainable
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| a.可达到的，可获得的 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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inoculation
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| n.接芽；预防接种 | |
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flasks
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| n.瓶，长颈瓶， 烧瓶( flask的名词复数 ) | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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anticipations
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| 预期( anticipation的名词复数 )； 预测； （信托财产收益的）预支； 预期的事物 | |
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insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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cravat
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| n.领巾，领结；v.使穿有领结的服装，使结领结 | |
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gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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rustics
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| n.有农村或村民特色的( rustic的名词复数 )；粗野的；不雅的；用粗糙的木材或树枝制作的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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50
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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51
depot
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| n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站 | |
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52
bagatelle
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| n.琐事；小曲儿 | |
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53
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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54
precipitating
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| adj.急落的，猛冲的v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的现在分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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duels
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| n.两男子的决斗( duel的名词复数 )；竞争，斗争 | |
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uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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economize
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| v.节约，节省 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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mortifying
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| adj.抑制的，苦修的v.使受辱( mortify的现在分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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65
vender
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| n.小贩 | |
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66
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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profusely
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| ad.abundantly | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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