CHAPTER V.

AN INVENTORY OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN'S EFFECTS, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF MR. SNIGGLES, HIS LANDLORD.

My chambers were but meanly furnished, and this--But it needs not I should acquaint the reader with the divers proofs that rose every moment to convince me Mr. I. D. Dawkins, though a dandy, was not a rich one. Before I had rummaged an hour among his chattels, I discovered enough to set me into a cold shiver, and almost make me repent having taken possession of his body. I found lying upon his table no less than thirty-seven folded papers--the tribute doubtless of the two days of his absence--of which, eight were either billetsdoux or mere cards of invitation to ladies' parties, and twenty-nine were letters from tailors, shoemakers, &c., all of them requesting payment of money owed, and most of them as ferocious in spirit as they were original in style and grammar. In an old trunk, which I ransacked, as well as every chest of drawers and closet in the rooms (the keys were ready at hand in my pocket), I discovered a bushel or two of bills--I suppose there may have been a thousand of them, for they were of all dates--not one of which had a receipt to it.

But, to make amends for this evil, I found Mr. I. D. Dawkins's wardrobe in pretty good condition, except in the article of shirts; of which I discovered but six, and those none of the best. However, there were three dozen good dickeys, and a great abundance of loose collars and wristbands; with which, I perceived, I might do without shirts altogether.

But what gave me most pleasure, and indeed quite consoled me under the feelings of disappointment and doubt that had begun to rise, was a marvellous great quantity of love-letters, locks of hair, finger-rings, odd gloves, &c., that I found scattered about; each, as was apparent, the tribute or spoil of some admiring fair. "Aha!" said I, "I am a devil of a fellow among the girls: who can resist me?" The idea of being a favourite among the women, and the prospect I had of shooting conquests among them, right and left, were infinitely agreeable. "Ged and demmee," said I, "I will look about me now, and fix for life. I will pick out the finest creature I can find who has a fortune, and marry her; and then, I say, demm all tailors and other people. I will marry a wife, eged!"

It was doubly remarkable I should make such a resolution, having had but lately such a lesson of the joys of matrimony. But I found myself fast growing another man. I still retained a lively recollection of Mrs. Higginson, but fancy pictured an angel in the anticipated Mrs. Dawkins. Dim visions--which seemed to be made up as much of crude recollections as of half-formed anticipations--dim visions of lovely eyes and noses floated over my brain; I sank into a soft, elysium-like revery; when I suddenly heard a voice, somewhat tremulous and feeble, but rude as the screech of a strawberry-woman in spring, saying,

"Sir, I say, sir, Mr. Dawkins, I shall trouble you, I say, for the amount of that 'ere small account."

The accents were more horrible to my soul than the grating of a dentist's file upon the tenderest of grinders. I looked up from my feet, which I had been admiring, and beheld a visage somewhat iracund and savage, but so vulgar and plebeian in all its lineaments, that my fear was changed into contempt.

"And I say, sare! whoever you ah," said I, looking the fellow to the soul, "what do you want he-ah? who ah you?"

At these questions the man looked petrified; he opened his mouth till I thought his under jaw would drop off, and stared at me in dumb amazement. I had some hopes he was about to fall down in a fit. I am not naturally of a bloodthirsty turn; but I knew he was a dun, and such persons one always wishes the devil would snatch up. But he recovered his tongue, and, to do him justice, I must confess he used it with a spirit I did not look for in such a mean, shrivelled-up body as he had.

"Don't go for to insult me," said the Goth, gritting his teeth, and spluttering his words through them as through a watering-pot; "I'll let you know who I am. I'll have my money, or I'll have the worth on it out on you; for I won't be cheated no more for nothing. And as for what I'm doing here, I'll let you know as how I'm master in my own house; and, as Mrs. Sniggles says--"

"Sniggles!" said I, recollecting that the rascal was my landlord and creditor. I started up, and seizing the enraged little man by the hand, I begged his pardon.

"Really, my dear soul," said I, "I was in a brown study, and I didn't know you. Pray how d'ye do? how is Mrs. Sniggles? You must know I have hardly yet got over my unfortunate fall into the water. Really, sah, I was almost drowned, and I had the misfortune to lose my pocketbook."

"None on your gammon on me!" said Mr. Sniggles, looking as intrepid as ever; "for I don't believe none on it; and I don't believe you're no gentleman neither, or you wouldn't keep me out of my money. You see, Mr. Dawkins, do you see, you've had my rooms five months, and I ha'n't seen the colour on your money over once; it's all promise and no pay. And so, as I was saying, I won't be diddled no longer, or I'll see the end of it; for, as Mrs. Sniggles says, we can't afford to be diddled for nothing."

"Come, Sniggles," said I, "don't be in a passion; I'll pay you. What's the amount?"

"Seventeen weeks on the second story, seven dollars a week--monstrous cheap at that, considerin' there's breakfast in--one hundred and nineteen dollars--and taking off the ten dollars you paid me, as per account, one hundred and nine dollars; four weeks on the third story, at five dollars and a half (and good rooms too), twenty-two dollars; and adding the ten dollars I paid the shoe-maker, and the five dollars sixty cents I loaned you to pay the fine at the mayor's office, for smashing the lamp, makes jest a hundred and forty-one dollars sixty cents, no halves nor quarters, precise; and the sooner you shows me the money the better."

"A confounded long bill that, Sniggles," said I; "but I don't dispute it; and the moment my uncle comes to town--"

The mean, avaricious fellow had begun to look happy, as he conned over the hateful particulars of his account, which he held in his hand; but no sooner had the words "my uncle" left my lips, than he began to jump up and down, pulling his hair, gritting his teeth, and shaking his fists like a mad-man; and to my astonishment the contemptible fellow waxed profane, and actually cursed me and my uncle too. His oaths, as may be supposed, only made him appear more low-lived and vulgar than before; for cursing and swearing are the hardest things to do _genteelly_ that I know: there are but few persons in the world who can produce an oath with any thing like elegance; it is the truest criterion of gentility, and in consequence I would recommend no person to attempt one who is not confident of his high breeding.

My landlord, Mr. Sniggles, fell to cursing and swearing, and insulted me very grossly; first, by affecting to believe that no such person as my uncle existed; secondly, by threatening to turn me out of his house; and thirdly, by assuring me he would have his account in an attorney's hands before I was an hour older. It was in vain I exhorted him to moderate his passion, and strove to wheedle him into a better humour; I had forgotten (or rather I did not yet know) the true secret of his character, which was cowardice, by addressing my arguments to which I might have readily brought him to reason. But, in truth, I was frightened myself; how I was to pay a bill of a hundred and forty-one dollars sixty cents was a thing only to be guessed at; and the prospect of taking up my lodgings in the debtors' apartments up Arch-street, was as vinegar and wormwood to my imagination.

The more I strove to sooth the wrath of Mr. Sniggles, the more ferocious he became; until at last he did nothing but dance round and round me, like a little dog barking at a big one that is tied to a post, crying out all the time, frantic with despair and fury, "Pay me what you owe me! pay this here bill here! pay me my money, or I'll have you in jail!" with other expressions equally foolish and insulting.