One Of Them

For the first few days of the voyage Layton thought of nothing but Clara and her history, till his mind grew actually confused with conflicting guesses about her. “I must tell Quackinboss everything. I must ask his aid to read this mystery, or it will drive me mad,” said he, at last. “He has seen her, too, and liked her.” She was the one solitary figure he had met with at the Villa which seemed to have made a deep impression upon him; and over and over again the American had alluded to the “‘little gal’ with the long eyelashes, who sang so sweetly.”

It was not very easy to catch the Colonel in an unoccupied moment. Ever since the voyage began he was full of engagements. He was an old Transatlantic voyager, deep in all the arts and appliances by which such journeys are rendered agreeable. Such men turn up everywhere. On the Cunard line they organize the whist-parties, the polka on the poop-deck, the sweepstakes on the ship’s log, and the cod-fishing on the banks. On the overland route it is they who direct where tents are to be pitched, kids roasted, and Arabs horsewhipped. By a sort of common accord a degree of command is conceded to them, and their authority is admitted without dispute. Now and then a rival will contest the crown, and by his party divide the state; but the community is large enough for such schism, which, after all, is rarely a serious one. The Pretender, in the present case, had come on board by the small vessel which took the pilot away, – a circumstance not without suspicion, and, of course, certain of obtaining its share of disparaging comments, not the less that the gentleman’s pretensions were considerable, and his manners imposing. In fact, to use a vulgarism very expressive of the man, “he took on” immensely. He was very indignant at not finding his servant expecting him, and actually out of himself on discovering that a whole stateroom had not been engaged for his accommodation. With all these disappointing circumstances, it was curious enough how soon he reconciled himself to his condition, submitting with great good-humor to all the privations of ordinary mortals; and when, on the third or fourth day of the voyage, he deigned to say that he had drunk worse Madeira, and that the clam soup was really worthy of his approval, his popularity was at once assured. It was really pleasant to witness such condescension, and so, indeed, every one seemed to feel it. All but one, and that one was Quackinboss, who, from the first moment, had conceived a strong dislike against the new arrival, a sentiment he took no pains to conceal or disguise.

“He’s too p’lite, – he ‘s too civil by half, sir, – especially with the women folk,” said Quackinboss; “they ain’t wholesome when they are so tarnation sweet. As Senator Byles says, ‘Bunkum won’t make pie-crust, though it ‘ll serve to butter a man up.’ Them’s my own sentiments too, sir, and I don’t like that stranger.”

“What can it signify to you, Colonel?” said Layton. “Why need you trouble your head about who or what he is?”

“I ‘ll be bound he’s one of them as pays his debts with the topsail sheet, sir. He’s run. I ‘m as sartain o’ that fact as if I seen it. Whenever I see a party as won’t play whist under five-guinea points, or drink anything cheaper than Moët at four dollars a bottle, I say look arter that chap, Shaver, and you’ll see it’s another man’s money pays for him.”

“But, after all,” remonstrated Layton, “surely you have nothing to do with him?”

“Well, sir, I ‘m not downright convinced on that score. He’s a-come from Florence; he knows all about the Heathcotes and Mrs. Morris, and the other folk there; and he has either swindled them, or they ‘ve been a-roguing some others. That’s my platform, sir, and I’ll not change one plank of it.”

“Come, come,” said Layton, laughingly, “for the first time in your life you have suffered a prejudice to override your shrewd good sense. The man is a snob, and no more.”

“Well, sir, I ‘d like to ask, could you say worse of him? Ain’t a snob a fellow as wants to be taken for better bred or richer or cleverer or more influential than he really is? Ain’t he a cheat? Ain’t he one as says, ‘I ain’t like that poor publican yonder, I ‘m another guess sort of crittur, and sit in quite another sort of place?’ Jest now, picture to your own mind how pleasant the world would be if one-fourth, or even one-tenth, of its inhabitants was fellows of that stamp!”

It was only after two or three turns on the deck that Layton could subdue the Colonel’s indignation sufficiently to make him listen to him with calm and attention. With a very brief preamble he read Clara’s letter for him, concluding all with the few lines inscribed “My Secret.” “It is about this I want your advice, dear friend,” said he. “Tell me frankly what you think of it all.”

Quackinboss was always pleased when asked his advice upon matters which at first blush might seem out of the range of his usual experiences. It seemed such a tribute to his general knowledge of life, that it was a very graceful species of flattery, so that he was really delighted by this proof of Layton’s confidence in his acuteness and his delicacy, and in the exact proportion of the satisfaction he felt was he disposed to be diffuse and long-winded.

“This ain’t an easy case, sir,” began he; “this ain’t one of those measures where a man may say, ‘There’s the right and there’s the wrong of it;’ and it takes a man like Shaver Quackinboss – a man as has seen snakes with all manner o’ spots on ‘em – to know what’s best to be done.”

“So I thought,” mildly broke in Layton, – “so I thought.”

“There’s chaps in this world,” continued he, “never sees a difficulty nowhere; they ‘d whittle a hickory stick with the same blade as a piece of larch timber, sir; ay, and worse, too, never know how they gapped their knife for the doin’ it! You ‘d not believe it, perhaps, but the wiliest cove ever I seen in life was an old chief of the Mandans, Aï-ha-ha-tha, and his rule was, when you ‘re on a trail, track it step by step; never take short cuts. Let us read the girl’s letter again.” And he did so carefully, painstakingly, folding it up afterwards with slow deliberation, while he reflected over the contents.

“I ‘in a-thinkin’,” said he, at last, – “I ‘m a-thinkin’ how we might utilize that stranger there, the fellow as is come from Florence, and who may possibly have heard something of this girl’s history. He don’t take to me; nor, for the matter o’ that, do I to him. But that don’t signify; there’s one platform brings all manner of folk together, – it’s the great leveller in this world, – Play. Ay, sir, your English lord has no objection to even Uncle Sam’s dollars, though he ‘d be riled con-siderable if you asked him to sit down to meals with him. I ‘ll jest let this crittur plunder me a bit; I’ll flatter him with the notion that he’s too sharp and too spry for the Yankee. He’s always goin’ about asking every one, ‘Can’t they make a game o’ brag?’ Well, I ‘ll go in, sir. He shall have his game, and I’ll have mine.”

Layton did not certainly feel much confidence in the plan of campaign thus struck out; but seeing the pleasure Quackinboss felt in the display of his acuteness, he offered no objection to the project.

“Yes, sir,” continued Quackinboss, as though reflecting aloud, “once these sort of critturs think a man a flat, they let out all about how sharp they are themselves; they can’t help it; it’s part of their shallow natur’ to be boastful. Let us see, now, what it is we want to find out: first of all, the widow, who she is and whence she came; then, how she chanced to have the gal with her, and who the gal herself is, where she was raised, and by whom; and, last of all, what is’t they done with her, how they ‘ve fixed her. Ay, sir,” mused he, after a pause, “as Senator Byles says, ‘if I don’t draw the badger, I ‘d beg the honorable gentleman to b’lieve that his own claws ain’t sharp enough to do it!’ There’s the very crittur himself, now, a-smokin’,” cried he; “I’ll jest go and ask him for a weed.” And, so saying, Quackinboss crossed the deck and joined the stranger.

CHAPTER XL. QUACKINBOSSIANA

On the morning on which the great steamer glided within the tranquil waters of Long Island, Quackinboss appeared at Layton’s berth, to announce the fact, as well as report progress with the stranger. “I was right, sir,” said he; “he’s been and burnt his fingers on ‘Change; that’s the reason he’s here. The crittur was in the share-market, and got his soup too hot! You Britishers seem to have the bright notion that, when you’ve been done at home, you ‘ll be quite sharp enough to do us here, and so, whenever you make a grand smash in Leadenhall Street, it’s only coming over to Broadway! Well, now, sir, that’s considerable of a mistake; we understand smashing too, – ay, and better than folk in the old country. Look you here, sir; if I mean to lose my ship on the banks, or in an ice-drift, or any other way, I don’t go and have her built of strong oak plank and well-seasoned timber, copper-fastened, and the rest of it; but I run her up with light pine, and cheap fixin’s everywhere. She not only goes to pieces the quicker, but there ain’t none of her found to tell where it happened, and how. That’s how it comes we founder, and there ‘s no noise made about it; while one of your chaps goes bumpin’ on the rocks for weeks, with fellows up in the riggin’, and life-boats takin’ ‘em off, and such-like, till the town talks of nothing else, and all the newspapers are filled with pathetic incidents, so that the very fellows that calked her seams or wove her canvas are held up to public reprobation. That’s how you do it, sir, and that’s where you ‘re wrong. When a man builds a cardhouse, he don’t want iron fastenings. I’ve explained all to that crittur there, and he seems to take it in wonderful.” “Who is he – what is he?” asked Layton.

“His name’s Trover; firm, Trover, Twist, and Co., Frankfort and Florence, bankers, general merchants, rag exporters, commission agents, doing a bit in the picture line and marble for the American market, and sole agents for the sale of Huxley’s tonic balsam. That’s how he is,” said the Colonel, reading the description from his note-book.

“I never heard of him before.”

“He knows you, though, – knew you the moment he came aboard; said you was tutor to a lord in Italy, and that he cashed you circular notes on Stanbridge and Sawley. These fellows forget nobody.”

“What does he know of the Heathcotes?”

“Pretty nigh everything. He knows that the old Baronet would be for makin’ a fortune out of his ward’s money, and has gone and lost a good slice of it, and that the widow has been doin’ a bit of business in the share-market, in the same profitable fashion, – not but she’s a rare wide-awake ‘un, and sees into the ‘exchanges’ clear enough. As to the gal, he thinks she sold her – ”

“Sold her! What do you mean?” cried Layton, in a voice of horror.

“Jest this, that one of those theatrical fellows as buys singing-people, and gets ‘em taught, – it’s all piping-bullfinch work with ‘em, – has been and taken her away; most probably cheap, too, for Trover said she was n’t nowise a rare article; she had a will of her own, and was as likely to say ‘I won’t,’ as ‘I will.’”

“Good heavens! And are things like this suffered, – are they endured in the age we live in?”

“Yes, sir. You’ve got all your British sympathies very full about negroes and ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ you ‘re wonderful strong about slavery and our tyrants down South, and you ‘ve something like fifty thousand born ladies, called governesses, treated worse than housemaids, and some ten thousand others condemned to what I won’t speak of, that they may amuse you in your theatres. I can tell you, sir, that the Legrees that walk St. James’s Street and Piccadilly are jest as black-hearted as the fellows in Georgia or Alabama, though they carry gold-headed walking-sticks instead of cow-hides.”

“But sold her!” reiterated Layton. “Do you mean to say that Clara has been given over to one of these people to prepare her for the stage?”

“Yes, sir; he says his name’s Stocmar, – a real gentleman, he calls him, with a house at Brompton, and a small yacht at Cowes. They ‘ve rather good notions about enjoying themselves, these theatre fellows. They get a very good footing in West End life, too, by supplying countesses to the nobility.”

“No, no!” cried Layton, angrily; “you carry your prejudices against birth and class beyond reason and justice too.”

“Well, I suspect not, sir,” said Quackinboss, slowly. “Not to say that I was n’t revilin’, but rather a-praisin’ ‘em, for the supply of so much beauty to the best face-market in all Europe. If I were to say what’s the finest prerogatives of one of your lords, I know which I ‘d name, sir, and it would n’t be wearin’ a blue ribbon, and sittin’ on a carved oak bench in what you call the Upper House of Parliament.”

“But Clara – what of Clara?” cried Layton, impatiently.

“He suspects that she’s at Milan, a sort of female college they have there, where they take degrees in singin’ and dancin’. All I hope is that the poor child won’t learn any of their confounded lazy Italian notions. There’s no people can prosper, sir, when their philosophy consists in Come si fa? Come si fa? means it’s no use to work, it’s no good to strive; the only thing to do in life is to lie down in the shade and suck oranges. That’s the real reason they like Popery, sir, because they can even go to heaven without trouble, by paying another man to do the prayin’ for ‘em. It ain’t much trouble to hire a saint, when it only costs lighting a candle to him. And to tell me that’s a nation wants liberty and free institutions! No man wants liberty, sir, that won’t work for his bread; no man really cares for freedom till he’s ready to earn his livin’, for this good reason, that the love of liberty must grow out of personal independence, as you’ll see, sir, when you take a walk yonder.” And he pointed to the tall steeples of New York as he spoke. But Layton cared little for the discussion of such a theme; his thoughts had another and a very different direction.

“Poor Clara!” muttered he. “How is she to be rescued from such a destiny?”

“I’d say by the energy and determination of the man who cares for her,” said Quackinboss, boldly. “Come si fa? won’t save her, that’s certain.”

“Can you learn anything of the poor child’s history from this man, or does he know it?”

“Well, sir,” drawled out the Colonel, “that ain’t so easy to say. Whether a man has a partic’lar piece of knowledge in his head, or whether a quartz rock has a streak of gold inside of it, is things only to be learned in the one way, – by hammering, – ay, sir, by hammering! Now, it strikes me this Trover don’t like hammering; first of all, the sight of you here has made him suspicious – ”

“Not impossible is it that he may have seen you also, Colonel,” broke in Layton.

“Well, sir,” said the other, drawing himself proudly up, “and if he had, what of it? You don’t fancy that we are like the Britishers? You don’t imagine that when we appear in Eu-rope that every one turns round and whispers, ‘That’s a gentleman from the United States’? No, sir, it is the remarkable gift of our people to be cosmopolite. We pass for Russian, French, Spanish, or Italian, jest as we like, not from our skill in language, which we do not all possess, so much as a certain easy imitation of the nat-ive that comes nat’ral to us. Even our Western people, sir, with very remarkable features of their own, have this property; and you may put a man from Kentucky down on the Boulevard de Gand to-morrow, and no one will be able to say he warn’t a born Frenchman!”

“I certainly have not made that observation hitherto,” said Layton, dryly.

“Possibly not, sir, because your national pride is offended by our never imitating you! No, sir, we never do that!”

“But won’t you own that you might find as worthy models in England as in France or Italy?”

“Not for us, sir, – not for us. Besides, we find ourselves at home on the Continent; we don’t with you. The Frenchman is never taxing us with every little peculiarity of accent or diction; he ‘s not always criticising our ways where they differ from his own. Now, your people do, and, do what we may, sir, they will look on us as what the Chinese call ‘second chop.’ Now, to my thinking, we are first chop, sir, and you are the tea after second watering.”

They were now rapidly approaching the only territory in which an unpleasant feeling was possible between them. Each knew and felt this, and yet, with a sort of national stubbornness, neither liked to be the one to recede first. As for Layton, bound as he was by a debt of deep gratitude to the American, he chafed under the thought of sacrificing even a particle of his country’s honor to the accident of his own condition, and with a burning cheek and flashing eye he began, —

“There can be no discussion on the matter. Between England and America there can no more be a question as to supremacy – ”

“There, don’t say it; stop there,” said Quackinboss, mildly. “Don’t let us get warm about it. I may like to sit in a rockin’-chair and smoke my weed in the parlor; you may prefer to read the ‘Times’ at the drawing-room fire; but if we both agree to go out into the street together, sir, we can whip all cre-ation.”

And he seized Layton’s hand, and wrung it with an honest warmth that there was no mistaking.

“And now as to this Mr. Trover,” said Layton, after a few minutes. “Are we likely to learn anything from him?”

“Well, sir,” said the Colonel, lazily, “I ‘m on his track, and I know his footmarks so well now that I ‘ll be sure to detect him if I see him again. He ‘s a-goin’ South, and so are we. He’s a-looking out for land; that’s exactly what we’re arter!”