Chapter 2

So we were; and, much as stuck-up people pretend to look down at the place, I frequently am. Not only so, but I always see that class largely represented there when I do go. To be sure, they always make believe that they only come to amuse the children, or because their country cousins visit them; and never fail to refer to the vulgar set one finds there, and the fact of the animals smelling like anything but Jockey Club; yet I notice that after they've been in the hall three minutes they're as much interested as any of the people they come to poh-poh, and only put on the high-bred air when they fancy some of their own class are looking at them. I boldly acknowledge that I go because I like it. I am especially happy, to be sure, if I have a child along to go into ecstasies and give me a chance, by asking questions, for the exhibition of that fund of information which is said to be one of my chief charms in the social circle, and on several occasions has led that portion of the public immediately about the Happy Family into the erroneous impression that I was Mr. Barnum explaining his five hundred thousand curiosities. On the present occasion we found several visitors of the better class in the room devoted to the Aquarium. Among these was a young lady, apparently about nineteen, in a tight-fitting basque of black velvet, which showed her elegant figure to fine advantage, a skirt of garnet silk, looped up over a pretty Balmoral, and the daintiest imaginable pair of kid walking-boots. Her height was a trifle over the medium, her eyes, a soft expressive brown, shaded by masses of hair which exactly matched their color, and, at that rat-and-miceless day, fell in such graceful abandon as to show at once that nature was the only maid who crimped their waves into them. Her complexion was rosy with health and sympathetic enjoyment; her mouth was faultless, her nose sensitive, her manners full of refinement, and her voice musical as a wood-robin's, when she spoke to the little boy of six at her side, to whom she was revealing the palace of the great show-king. Billy and I were flattening our noses against the abode of the balloon-fish and determining whether he looked most like a horse-chestnut burr or a ripe cucumber, when his eyes and my own simultaneously fell on the child and lady. In a moment, to Billy the balloon-fish was as though he had not been.

“That's a pretty little boy!” said I. And then I asked Billy one of those senseless routine questions which must make children look at us, regarding the scope of our intellects very much as we look at Bushmen.

“How would you like to play with him?”

“Him!” replied Billy scornfully, “that's his first pair of boots; see him pull up his little breeches to show the red tops to them! But, crackey! isn't _she_ a smasher!”

After that we visited the wax figures and the sleepy snakes, the learned seal, and the glass-blowers. Whenever we passed from one room into another, Billy could be caught looking anxiously to see if the pretty girl and child were coming, too.

Time fails me to describe how Billy was lost in the astonishment at the Lightning Calculator--wanted me to beg the secret of that prodigy for him to do his sums by--finally thought he had discovered it, and resolved to keep his arm whirling all the time he studied his arithmetic lesson the next morning. Equally inadequate is it to relate in full how he became so confused among the waxworks that he pinched the solemnest showman's legs to see if he was real, and perplexed the beautiful Circassian to the verge of idiocy by telling her he had read all about the way they sold girls like her in his geography.

We had reached the stairs to that subterranean chamber in which the Behemoth of Holy Writ was wallowing about without a thought of the dignity which one expects from a canonical character. Billy had always languished upon his memories of this diverting beast, and I stood ready to see him plunge headlong the moment that he read the signboard at the head of the stairs. When he paused and hesitated there, not seeming at all anxious to go down till he saw the pretty girl and the child following after--a sudden intuition flashed across me. Could it be possible that Billy was caught in that vortex which whirled me down at ten years--a little boy's first love?

We were lingering about the elliptical basin, and catching occasional glimpses between bubbles of a vivified hair trunk of monstrous compass, whose knobby lid opened at one end and showed a red morocco lining, when the pretty girl, in leaning over to point out the rising monster, dropped into the water one of her little gloves, and the swash made by the hippopotamus drifted it close under Billy's hand. Either in play, or as a mere coincidence, the animal followed it. The other children about the tank screamed and started back as he bumped his nose against the side; but Billy manfully bent down and grabbed the glove, not an inch from one of his big tusks, then marched around the tank and presented it to the lady with a chivalry of manner in one of his years quite surprising.

“That's a real nice boy--you said so, didn't you, Lottie? And I wish he'd come and play with me,” said the little fellow by the young lady's side, as Billy turned away, gracefully thanked, to come back to me with his cheeks roseate with blushes.

As he heard this, Billy sidled along the edge of the tank for a moment, then faced about and said:

“P'rhaps I will some day--where do you live?”

“I live on East Seventeenth Street with papa--and Lottie stays there too now--she's my cousin: where d'you live?”

“Oh, I live close by--right on that big green square where I guess the nurse takes you once in a while,” said Billy patronizingly. Then, looking up pluckily at the young lady, he added, “I never saw you out there.”

“No, Jimmy's papa has only been in his new house a little while, and I've just come to visit him.”

“Say, will you come and play with me some time?” chimed in the inextinguishable Jimmy. “I've got a cooking stove--for real fire--and blocks and a ball with a string.”

Billy, who belonged to a club for the practice of the great American game, and was what A. Ward would call the most superior battest among the I. G. B. B. C, or “Infant Giants,” smiled from that altitude upon Jimmy, but promised to go and play with him the next Saturday afternoon.

Late that evening, after we had got home and dined, as I sat in my room over Pickwick, with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the door told of Daniel. I called “Come in!” and, entering with a slow dejected air, he sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained silent, though occasionally looking up as if about to speak, then dropping his head again to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down Dickens, and spoke myself.

“You don't seem well to-night, Daniel?”

“I don't feel very well, uncle.”

“What's the matter, my boy?”

“Oh--ah--I don't know. That is, I wish I knew how to tell you.”

I studied him for a few moments with kindly curiosity, then answered: “Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you. Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you are not harassed by any economical considerations, for you've all the money you want; and I know that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are scholarly. This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms--listlessness, general dejection, and all--to three causes: Dyspepsia, religious conflicts, love. Now is your digestion awry?”

“No, sir, good as usual. I'm not melancholy on religion and--”

“You don't tell me you're in love?”

“Well--yes--I suppose that's about it, Uncle Teddy.”

I took a long breath to recover from my astonishment at this unimaginable revelation, then said:

“Is your feeling returned?”

“I really don't know, uncle. I don't believe it is. I don't see how it can be. I never did anything to make her love me. What is there in me to love! I've borne enough for her--that is, nothing that could do her any good--though I've endured on her account, I may say, anguish. So, look at it any way you please, I neither am, do, nor suffer anything that can get a woman's love.”

“Oh, you man of learning! Even in love you tote your grammar along with you, and arrange a divine passion under the active, passive, and neuter!”

Daniel smiled faintly.

“You've no idea, Uncle Teddy, that you are twitting on facts; but you hit the truth there; indeed you do. If she were a Greek or Latin woman I could talk Anacreon or Horace to her. If women only understood the philosophy of the flowers as well as they do the poetry--”

“Thank God they don't, Daniel!” sighed out I devoutly.

“Never mind--in that case I could entrance her for hours, talking about the grounds of difference between Linnaeus and Jussieu. Women like the star business, they say--and I could tell her where all the constellations are; but sure as I tried to get off any sentiment about them, I'd break down and make myself ridiculous. But what earthly chance would the greatest philosopher that ever lived have with the woman he loved, if he depended for her favor on his ability to analyze her bouquet or tell her when she might look out for the next occultation of Orion? I can't talk bread and butter. I can't do anything that makes a man even tolerable to a woman!”

“I hope you don't mean that nothing but bread and butter talk is tolerable to a woman!”

“No; but it's necessary to some extent--at any rate the ability is--in order to succeed in society; and it is in society men first meet and strike women. And Uncle Teddy! I'm such a fish out of water in society!--such a dreadful floundering fish! When I see her dancing gracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows, like little Jack Mankyn, 'who don't know twelve times,' can dance to her perfect admiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners--and all sorts of men without an idea in their heads have that--while I turn all colors when I speak to her, and am clumsy; and abrupt, and abstracted, and bad at repartee--Uncle Teddy! sometimes (though it seems so ungrateful to father and mother, who have spent such pains for me)--sometimes, do you know, it seems to me as if I'd exchange all I've ever learned for the power to make a good appearance before her!”

“Daniel, my boy, it's too much a matter of reflection with you! A woman is not to be taken by laying plans. If you love the lady (whose name I don't ask you because I know you'll tell me as soon as you think best), you must seek her companionship until you're well enough acquainted with her to have her regard you as something different from the men whom she meets merely in society, and judge your qualities by another standard than that she applies to them. If she's a sensible girl (and God forbid you should marry her otherwise!) she knows that people can't always be dancing, or holding fans, or running after orange ice. If she's a girl capable of appreciating your best points (and woe to you if you marry a girl who can't!), she'll find them out upon closer intimacy, and once found they'll a hundred times outweigh all brilliant advantages kept in the showcase of fellows who have nothing on the shelves. When this comes about, you will pop the question unconsciously, and, to adopt Milton, she will drop into your lap, 'gathered--not harshly plucked.'”

“I know that's sensible, Uncle Teddy, and I'll try. Let me tell you the sacredest of secrets--regularly every day of my life I send her a little poem fastened round the prettiest bouquet I can get at Hanfts.”

“Does she know who sends them?”

“She can't have any idea. The German boy that takes them knows not a word of English except her name and address. You'll forgive me, Uncle, for not mentioning her name yet? You see she may despise or hate me some day when she knows who it is that has paid her these attentions; and then I'd like to be able to feel that at least I've never hurt her by any absurd connection with myself.”

“Forgive you? Nonsense! The feeling does your heart infinite credit, though a little counsel with your head would show you that your only absurdity is self-depreciation.”

Daniel bade me good-night. As I put out my cigar and went to bed, my mind reverted to the dauntless little Hotspur who had spent the afternoon with me, and reversed his mother's wish, thinking: “Oh, if Daniel were more like Billy!”

It was always Billy's habit to come and sit with me while I smoked my after-breakfast cigar, but the next morning did not see him enter my room till St. George's hands pointed to a quarter of nine.

“Well, Billy Boy Blue, come blow your horn; what haystack have you been under till this time of day? We shan't have a minute to look over our spelling together, and I know a boy is going in for promotion next week. Have you had your breakfast and taken care of Crab?”

“Yes, sir, but I didn't feel like getting up this morning.”

“Are you sick?”

“No-o-o--it isn't that; but you'll laugh at me if I tell you.”

“Indeed, I won't, Billy!”

“Well”--his voice dropped to a whisper and he stole close to my side--“I had such a nice dream about _her_ just the last thing before the bell rang; and when I woke up I felt so queer--so kinder good and kinder bad--and I wanted to see her so much, that if I hadn't been a big boy, I believe I should have blubbered. I tried ever so much to go to sleep and see her again; but the more I tried the more I couldn't. After all, I had to get up without it, though I didn't want any breakfast, and only ate two buckwheat cakes, when I always eat six, you know, Uncle Teddy. Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes, dear, so you couldn't get it out of me if you were to shake me upside down like a savings-bank.”

“Oh, ain't you mean! That was when I was small I did that. I'll tell you the secret, though--that girl and I are going to get married. I mean to ask her the first chance I get. Oh, isn't she a smasher!”

“My dear Billy, shan't you wait a little while to see if you always like her as well as you do now? Then, too, you'll be older.”

“I'm old enough, Uncle Teddy, and I love her dearly. I am as old as the Kings of France used to be when they got married--I read it in Abbott's history. But there's the clock striking nine! I must run or I shall get a tardy mark and perhaps she'll want to see my certificate some time.”

So saying, he kissed me on the cheek and set off for school as fast as his legs could carry him. Oh, Love, omnivorous Love, that sparest neither the dotard leaning on his staff nor the boy with pantaloons buttoning on his jacket--omnipotent Love, that, after parents and teachers have failed, in one instant can make Billy try to become a good boy!

With both of my nephews hopelessly enamored and myself the confidant of both, I had my hands full. Daniel was generally dejected and distrustful; Billy buoyant and jolly. Daniel found it impossible to overcome his bashfulness, was spontaneous only in sonnets, brilliant only in bouquets. Billy was always coming to me with pleasant news, told in his slangy New York boy vernacular. One day he would exclaim: “Oh, I'm getting on prime! I got such a smile off her this morning as I went by the window!” Another day he wanted counsel how to get a valentine to her--because it was too big to shove in a lamppost and she might catch him if he left it on the steps, rang the bell, and ran away. Daniel wrote his own valentine, but, despite its originality, that document gave him no such comfort as Billy got from twenty-five cents' worth of embossed paper, pink cupids, and doggerel.

Finally Billy announced to me that he had been to play with Jimmy and got introduced to his girl.

Shortly after this Lu gave what they call “a little company”--not a party, but a reunion of forty or fifty people with whom the family were well acquainted, several of them living in our immediate neighborhood. There was a goodly proportion of young fold and there was to be dancing; but the music was limited to a single piano played by the German exile usual on such occasions, and the refreshments did not rise to the splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise with fashionable gayety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of introducing Daniel to the _beau monde_--a push given the timid eaglet by the maternal bird, with a soft tree-top between him and the vast expanse of society. How simple was the entertainment may be inferred from the fact that Lu felt somewhat discomposed when she got a note from one of her guests asking leave to bring along her niece who was making her a few weeks' visit. As a matter of course, however, she returned answer to bring the young lady and welcome.

Daniel's dressing-room having been given up to the gentlemen, I invited him to make his toilet in mine, and indeed, wanting him to create a favorable impression, became his valet _pro tem_., tying his cravat and teasing the divinity-student look out of his side hair. My little dandy Billy came in for another share of attention, and when I managed to button his jacket for him so that it showed his shirt studs “like a man's,” Count d'Orsay could not have felt a greater sense of his sufficiency for all the demands of the gay world.

When we reached the parlor we found Pa and Ma Lovegrove already receiving. About a score of guests had arrived. Most of them were old married couples which, after paying their devoirs, fell in two like unriveted scissors, the gentlemen finding a new pivot in pa and the ladies in ma, where they mildly opened and shut upon such questions as severally concerned them, such as “The way gold closed” and “How the children were.”

Besides the old married people there were several old young men, of distinctly hopeless and unmarried aspect, who, having nothing in common with the other class, nor sufficient energy of character to band themselves for mutual protection, hovered dejectedly about the arch pillars or appeared to be considering whether on the whole it would not be feasible and best to sit down on the centre-table. These subsisted upon such crumbs of comfort as Lu could get an occasional chance to throw them by rapid sorties of conversation--became galvanically active the moment they were punched up and fell flat the moment the punching was remitted. I did all I could for them, but, having Daniel in tow, dared not sail too near the edge of the Doldrums, lest he should drop into sympathetic stagnation and be taken preternaturally bashful with his sails all aback, just as I wanted to carry him gallantly into action with some clipper-built cruiser of a nice young lady. Finally, Lu bethought herself of that last plank of drowning conversationalists, the photograph album. All the dejected young men made for it at once, some reaching it just as they were about to sink for the last time, but all getting a grip on it somehow and staying there, in company with other people's babies whom they didn't know, and celebrities whom they knew to death, until, one by one, they either stranded upon a motherly dowager by the Fire-Place Shoals, or were rescued from the Sofa Reef by some gallant wrecker of a strong-minded young lady, with a view of taking salvage out of them in the German.

Besides these, were already arrived a dozen nice little boys and girls who had been invited to make it pleasant for Billy. I had to remind him of the fact that they were his guests, for, in comparison with the queen of his affections, they were in danger of being despised by him as small fry.

The younger ladies and gentlemen--those who had fascinations to disport or were in the habit of disporting what they considered such--were probably still at home consulting the looking-glass until that oracle should announce the auspicious moment for their setting forth.

Daniel was in conversation with a perfect godsend of a girl who understood Latin and had taken up Greek.

Billy was taking a moment's vacation from his boys and girls, busy with “Old Maid” in the extension room, and whispering, with his hand in mine, “Oh, don't I wish _she_ were here!” when a fresh invoice of ladies, just unpacked from the dressing-room, in all the airy elegance of evening costume, floated through the door. I heard Lu say:

“Ah, Mrs. Rumbullion! happy to see your niece, too. How do you do, Miss Pilgrim?”

At this last word Billy jumped as if he had been shot, and the bevy of ladies opening about Sister Lu disclosed the charming face and figure of the pretty girl we had met at Barnum's.

Billy's countenance rapidly changed from astonishment to joy.

“Isn't that splendid, Uncle Teddy? Just as I was wishing it! It's just like the fairy books!” and, rushing up to the party of new-comers, “My dear Lottie!” cried he, “if I had only known you were coming I'd have come after you!”

As he caught her by the hand, I was pleased to see her soft eyes brighten with gratification at his enthusiasm, but my sister Lu looked on, naturally with astonishment in every feature.

“Why Billy!” said she, “you ought not to call a strange young lady '_Lottie?_ Miss Pilgrim, you must excuse my wild boy--”

“And you must excuse my mother, Lottie,” said Billy, affectionately patting Miss Pilgrim's rose kid, “for calling you a strange young lady. You are not strange at all--you're just as nice a girl as there is.”

“There are no excuses necessary,” said Miss Pilgrim, with a bewitching little laugh. “Billy and I know each other intimately well, Mrs. Lovegrove, and I confess that when I heard the lady Aunt had been invited to visit was his mother, I felt all the more willing to infringe on etiquette this evening, by coming where I had no previous introduction.”

“Don't you care!” said Billy encouragingly, “I'll introduce you to every one of our family; I know 'em if you don't.”

At this moment I came up as Billy's reinforcement, and, fearing lest, in his enthusiasm, he might forget the canon of society which introduced a gentleman to a lady, not a lady to him, I ventured to suggest it delicately by saying, “Billy, will you grant me the favor of a presentation to Miss Pilgrim?”

“In a minute, Uncle Teddy,” answered Billy, considerably lowering his voice. “The older people first;” and after this reproof I was left to wait in the cold until he had gone through the ceremony of introducing to the young lady his father and his mother.

Billy, who had now assumed entire guardianship of Miss Pilgrim, with an air of great dignity intrusted her to my care, and left us promenading while he went in search of Daniel. I, myself, looked in vain for that youth, whom I had not seen since the entrance of the last comers. Miss Pilgrim and I found a congenial common ground in Billy, whom she spoke of as one of the most delightfully original boys she had ever met; in fact, altogether the most fascinating young gentleman she had seen in New York society. You may be sure it wasn't Billy's left ear which burned when I made my responses.

In five minutes he reappeared to announce, in a tone of disappointment, that he could find Daniel nowhere. He could see a light through his keyhole, but the door was locked and he could get no admittance. Just then Lu came up to present a certain--no, an uncertain--young man of the fleet stranded on parlor furniture earlier in the evening. To Lu's great astonishment, Miss Pilgrim asked Billy's permission to leave him. It was granted with all the courtesy of a _preux chevalier_, on the condition, readily assented to, that she should dance one Lancers with him during the evening.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Lu, after Billy had gone back like a superior being, to assist at the childish amusement of his contemporaries, “would anybody ever suppose that was our Billy?”

“I should, my dear sister,” said I, with proud satisfaction; “but you remember I always was just to Billy.”