CHAPTER IV.

IN WHICH SHEPPARD LEE HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH A LADY, WHO TELLS HIM A SECRET.

"In and mount," said Tickle: "I see Jem Puddle in the street yonder, and I have an idea I can borrow fifty dollars of him. I will drop round on you by-and-by."

So saying, Tickle started off and left me at the door of my lodgings. I had a sort of confused recollection of the place, though I had never seen it before in my life;--the dingy bricks and weather-stained marble, the rickety old iron railing on the steps, and the ugly, worn-out brass plate, with the "J. SNIGGLES" engraved thereon, rose on my memory like old acquaintances who had grown out of it. The house might have been a fashionable one in its day; nay, for the matter of that, it was not so humble in appearance but that a gentleman might have lived in it, if too poor to inhabit a better; and though out of the world, being in a street called Eighth, it was within hail of Chestnut: nevertheless, it was but a poor place compared with my late dwelling, _my_ house, in Chestnut; the recollection of which, together with the reflection that I entered this only as a lodger, somewhat abated the transport of my joy. "Ah!" thought I, "what a pity, in giving up John H. Higginson's gout and wife, I had also to give up his house and money!" But the recollection of the two first-named possessions was fresh upon me, and I ceased to murmur.

I ascended the steps and rang the bell, somewhat faintly, I must acknowledge; for though I had my friend Tickle's assurance, and a confused consciousness of my own, that I was at the right place, there was a certain strangeness in it, naturally arising from my situation, that made me hesitate. The door, however, opened, and the reception that followed convinced me I was not intruding where I was not known.

The door was opened by a bouncing Irish wench, of some twenty-five years or thereabouts, with hair as yellow as a broom-whisk, and shoulders twice as broad as my own; besides which, she was not handsome; she had staring gray eyes, brick-coloured cheeks, a nose that looked up at her forehead, and a mouth not so ugly as spacious.

I was about to pass by this fair apparition with no further notice than a nod, which I made somewhat instinctively; but I was not fated to get off so easily. No sooner did she lay eyes upon me than she set up a squeak, "Oh, hubbuboo! and is it _you_, Misther Dawkins, dear?" and threw her great beef-steak arms round my neck.

An embrace from a creature of her attractions I could have easily dispensed with; yet I might have been affected by her joy at seeing me return alive from the bottom of the river, it was so truly natural and exuberant, had she not been in a great hurry to qualify it. "Oh, murder, dear!" she cried, "and I'm glad; for they said, bad luck till'em, the vagabones! you was drownded, dear, and was after chating me out iv my money for the washin' and mindin'!"

"The washing and mending?" thought I. "Do I patronise such a tasty body as this? and do I owe her money?"

But while I muttered thus within, the girl, giving me another hug that I thought would have made my shoulders change place with one another, roared out, in continuation,--

"Och, throth, but the man must drown dape that chates Nora Magee of her own! Musha, hinny darlint, jist pit yer finger into yer pocket and pull me out the tin dollars and seventy cents that you owe me."

"Certainly, Nora," said I; "and Succuba let me go. But, ged now, Nora," I cried, for well I knew my pockets were as empty as the promises I intended to make her, and I was driven by a sort of instinct upon the proper course for pacifying the harpy,--a course, I suppose, that I,--that is, my prototype, the true Dawkins,--had often practised before;--I say, "Nora, don't talk of dollars and cents; for I intend to pay you in eagles and half-eagles some of these days, when my uncle comes; and besides, Nora, you jade you, I intend to give you a buss into the bargain, as, ged, I believe I will _now_."

And with that I returned the compliment she had paid me, took the great creature by the neck, and (yea, faith, and I presume I should have done the same thing with my tailor, if he could have been managed the same way) absolutely kissed her.

"Och! blessings on yer pritty face!" said she, looking pleased and disappointed together, but wiping her mouth as if to prepare for a second salute, "and that's the way you bamboozles me wid your uncles and your thricks upon a poor cratur's modesty! But, oh, Misther Dawkins, dear, ye'r lookin' sick and pokey; and so I'll not be after throubling you; and I hopes your uncle will be soon in Phillydelphy; for there's our ould Sniggles, the hungry ould nagur (that I should be saying so of the master o' the house, that gives me a dollar a week and a new bonnet at Christmas!) he's been rampin', and roarin', and swearin' like a Turk, my heavy hathred on him, he'll be havin' you up before the constables and squires for the dirty rint-money, the ould divil! that you owe him."

"The rent-money?" thought I; and I began to have a sort of feeling about me, I do not know what, but it was not agreeable. I clapped my hand into my pocket; there was a pocketbook there, but I had examined it before, and there was nothing in it. My mind began to misgive me a little; it was apparent the worthy I. D. Dawkins had not yielded me his body without leaving me some of his debts to pay: and as to what means of discharging them he might have bequeathed, I was yet in the dark.

I ascended to my rooms, of which I discovered I had a brace; but I was in some dudgeon to find them in the third story. "Very odd," said I to myself, "that I should be a fashionable man and a dandy, and live in a third story!" My instincts had gone nigh, as I climbed the stairs, to carry me into a chamber on the first floor; but, "Arrah, now, hinny," said Nora, "you'd be after forgetting you agreed to give up the best chambers till yer uncle comes to town--bad luck to him for keeping me so long out iv my tin dollars!"

"This uncle of mine," thought I, "will settle all pothers." But who he was, or what sort of claim I had upon him, I knew no more than the man in the moon. My associations acted but slowly and imperfectly, and when I strove to look back upon the past history of my new body, I felt like a man who has clapped upon his nose his grandmother's spectacles, through which he can behold objects indeed, but all so confused, distorted, and mystified, that they serve only to bewilder his vision. Thus I beheld, when I made the effort, a jumble of events and persons crowded together on my memory, but without being able to seize upon any one and examine it to my satisfaction. I had an uncle, it seemed, but I could not recall any thing like a recollection of having ever seen him. "But time," thought I, "will set these things right."