Various
International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 8, August 19, 1850
"Poor dear soul," whispered Peggy, "how he suffers in surviving. Lift him up a little. Softly. Don't be afeard. We're only your good angels, like—only poor cinder-sifters—don'tee be afeard."
By various kindly attentions and maneuvers such as these poor people had been accustomed to practice on those who were taken out of the canal, the unfortunate gentleman was gradually brought to his senses. He gazed about him, as well he might—now looking in the anxious, though begrimed, faces of the three strange objects, all in their "weeds" and dust—and then up at the huge Dust-heap, over which the moon was now slowly rising.
"Land of quiet Death!" murmured he, faintly, "or land of Life, as dark and still—I have passed from one into the other; but which of ye I am now in, seems doubtful to my senses."
"Here we are, poor gentleman," cried Peggy, "here we are, all friends about you. How did'ee tumble into the canal?"
"The Earth, then, once more!" said the stranger, with a deep sigh. "I know where I am, now. I remember this great dark hill of ashes—like Death's kingdom, full of all sorts of strange things, and put to many uses."
"Where do you live?" asked old Doubleyear. "Shall we try and take you home, sir?"
The stranger shook his head mournfully. All this time, little Jem had been assiduously employed in rubbing his feet and then big hands; in doing which, the piece of dirty parchment, with the miniature-frame, dropped out of his breast-pocket. A good thought instantly struck Peggy.
"Run, Jemmy dear—run with that golden thing to Mr. Spikechin, the pawnbroker's—get something upon it directly, and buy some nice brandy—and some Godfrey's cordial—and a blanket, Jemmy—and call a coach, and get up outside on it, and make the coachee drive back here as fast as you can."
But before Jemmy could attend to this, Mr. Waterhouse, the stranger whose life they had preserved, raised himself on one elbow, and extended his hand to the miniature-frame. Directly he looked at it he raised himself higher up—turned it about once or twice—then caught up the piece of parchment, and uttering an ejaculation which no one could have distinguished either as of joy or of pain, sank back fainting.
In brief, this parchment was a portion of the title-deeds he had lost; and though it did not prove sufficient to enable him to recover his fortune, it brought his opponent to a composition, which gave him an annuity for life. Small as this was, he determined that these poor people, who had so generously saved his life at the risk of their own, should be sharers in it. Finding that what they most desired was to have a cottage in the neighborhood of the Dust-heap, built large enough for all three to live together, and keep a cow, Mr. Waterhouse paid a visit to Manchester Square, where the owner of the property resided. He told his story, as far as was needful, and proposed to purchase the field in question.
The great Dust-Contractor was much amused, and his daughter—a very accomplished young lady—was extremely interested. So the matter was speedily arranged to the satisfaction and pleasure of all parties. The acquaintance, however, did not end here. Mr. Waterhouse renewed his visits very frequently, and finally made proposals for the young lady's hand, she having already expressed her hopes of a propitious answer from her father.
"Well, Sir," said the latter, "you wish to marry my daughter, and she wishes to marry you. You are a gentleman and a scholar, but you have no money. My daughter is what you see, and she has no money. But I have; and therefore, as she likes you and I like you, I'll make you both an offer. I will give my daughter twenty thousand pounds,—or you shall have the Dust-heap. Choose!"
Mr. Waterhouse was puzzled and amused, and referred the matter entirely to the young lady. But she was for having the money, and no trouble. She said the Dust-heap might be worth much, but they did not understand the business.
"Very well," said her father, laughing, "then, there's the money."
This was the identical Dust-heap, as we know from authentic information, which was subsequently sold for forty thousand pounds, and was exported to Russia to rebuild Moscow.
[From Household Words.]
AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY
In one of the dirtiest and most gloomy streets leading to the Rue St. Denis, in Paris, there stands a tall and ancient house, the lower portion of which is a large mercer's shop. This establishment is held to be one of the very best in the neighborhood, and has for many years belonged to an individual on whom we will bestow the name of Ramin.
About ten years ago, Monsieur Ramin was a jovial red-faced man of forty, who joked his customers into purchasing his goods, flattered the pretty grisettes outrageously, and now and then gave them a Sunday treat at the barrier, as the cheapest way of securing their custom. Some people thought him a careless, good-natured fellow, and wondered how, with his off-hand ways, he contrived to make money so fast, but those who knew him well saw that he was one of those who "never lost an opportunity." Others declared that Monsieur Ramin's own definition of his character was, that he was a "bon enfant," and that "it was all luck." He shrugged his shoulders and laughed when people hinted at his deep scheming in making, and his skill in taking advantage of Excellent Opportunities.
He was sitting in his gloomy parlor one fine morning in spring, breakfasting from a dark liquid honored with the name of onion soup, glancing at the newspaper, and keeping a vigilant look on the shop through the open door, when his old servant Catharine suddenly observed:
"I suppose you know Monsieur Bonelle has come to live in the vacant apartment on the fourth floor?"
"What!" exclaimed Monsieur Ramin, in a loud key.
Catharine repeated her statement, to which her master listened in total silence.
"Well!" he said at length, in his most careless tones, "what about the old fellow?" and he once more resumed his triple occupation of reading, eating, and watching.
"Why," continued Catharine, "they say he is nearly dying, and that his housekeeper, Marguerite, vowed he could never get up stairs alive. It took two men to carry him up; and when he was at length quiet in bed, Marguerite went down to the porter's lodge, and sobbed there a whole hour, saying her poor master had the gout, the rheumatics, and a bad asthma; that though he had been got up stairs, he would never come down again alive; that if she could only get him to confess his sins and make his will, she would not mind it so much; but that when she spoke of the lawyer or the priest, he blasphemed at her like a heathen, and declared that he would live to bury her and everybody else."
Monsieur Ramin heard Catharine with great attention, forgot to finish his soup, and remained for five minutes in profound rumination, without so much as perceiving two customers who had entered the shop and were waiting to be served. When aroused, he was heard to exclaim:
"What an excellent opportunity!"
Monsieur Bonelle had been Ramin's predecessor. The succession of the latter to the shop was a mystery. No one ever knew how it was that this young and poor assistant managed to replace his patron. Some said that he had detected Monsieur Bonelle in frauds which he threatened to expose unless the business were given up to him as the price of his silence; others averred, that having drawn a prize in the lottery, he had resolved to set up a fierce opposition over the way, and that Monsieur Bonelle, having obtained a hint of his intentions, had thought it most prudent to accept the trifling sum his clerk offered, and avoid a ruinous competition. Some charitable souls—moved no doubt by Monsieur Bonelle's misfortune—endeavored to console and pump him; but all they could get from him was the bitter exclamation, "To think I should have been duped by him!" For Ramin had the art, though then a mere youth, to pass himself off on his master as an innocent provincial lad. Those who sought an explanation from the new mercer were still more unsuccessful. "My good old master," he said in his jovial way, "felt in need of repose, and so I obligingly relieved him of all business and botheration."
Years passed away; Ramin prospered, and neither thought nor heard of his "good old master." The house, of which he tenanted the lower portion, was offered for sale. He had long coveted it, and had almost concluded an agreement with the actual owner, when Monsieur Bonelle unexpectedly stepped in at the eleventh hour, and by offering a trifle more secured the bargain. The rage and mortification of Monsieur Ramin were extreme. He could not understand how Bonelle, whom he had thought ruined, had scraped up so large a sum; his lease was out, and he now felt himself at the mercy of the man he had so much injured. But either Monsieur Bonelle was free from vindictive feelings, or those feelings did not blind him to the expediency of keeping a good tenant: for though he raised the rent until Monsieur Ramin groaned inwardly, he did not refuse to renew the lease. They had met at that period, but never since.
"Well, Catharine," observed Monsieur Ramin to his old servant on the following morning, "How is that good Monsieur Bonelle getting on?"
"I dare say you feel very uneasy about him," she replied with a sneer.
Monsieur Ramin looked up and frowned.
"Catharine," said he, dryly, "you will have the goodness, in the first place, not to make impertinent remarks: in the second place, you will oblige me by going up stairs to inquire after the health of Monsieur Bonelle, and say that I sent you."
Catharine grumbled, and obeyed. Her master was in the shop, when she returned in a few minutes, and delivered with evident satisfaction the following gracious message:
"Monsieur Bonelle desires his compliments to you, and declines to state how he is; he will also thank you to attend to your own shop, and not to trouble yourself about his health."
"How does he look?" asked Monsieur Ramin, with perfect composure.
"I caught a glimpse of him, and he appears to me to be rapidly preparing for the good offices of the undertaker."
Monsieur Ramin smiled, rubbed his hands, and joked merrily with a dark-eyed grisette, who was cheapening some ribbon for her cap. That girl made an excellent bargain that day.
Toward dusk the mercer left the shop to the care of his attendant, and softly stole up to the fourth story. In answer to his gentle ring, a little old woman opened the door, and giving him a rapid look, said briefly:
"Monsieur is inexorable: he won't see any doctor whatever."
She was going to shut the door in his face, when Ramin quickly interposed, under his breath, with "I am not a doctor."
She looked at him from head to foot.
"Are you a lawyer?"
"Nothing of the sort, my good lady."
"Well then, are you a priest?"
"I may almost say, quite the reverse."
"Indeed, you must go away, Master sees no one."
Once more she would have shut the door, but Ramin prevented her.
"My good lady," said he in his most insinuating tones, "it is true I am neither a lawyer, a doctor, nor a priest. I am an old friend, a very old friend of your excellent master; I have come to see good Monsieur Bonelle in his present affliction."
Marguerite did not answer, but allowed him to enter, and closed the door behind him. He was going to pass from the narrow and gloomy ante-chamber into an inner room—whence now proceeded a sound of loud coughing—when the old woman laid her hand on his arm, and raising herself on tip-toe, to reach his ear, whispered:
"For Heaven's sake, sir, since you are his friend, do talk to him: do tell him to make his will, and hint something about a soul to be saved, and all that sort of thing: do, sir!"
Monsieur Ramin nodded and winked in a way that said "I will." He proved however his prudence by not speaking aloud; for a voice from within sharply exclaimed,
"Marguerite, you are talking to some one! Marguerite! I will see neither doctor nor lawyer; and if any meddling priest dare—"
"It is only an old friend, sir;" interrupted Marguerite, opening the inner door.
Her master, on looking up, perceived the red face of Monsieur Ramin peeping over the old woman's shoulder, and irefully cried out:
"How dare you bring that fellow here? And you, sir, how dare you come?"
"My good old friend, there are feelings," said Ramin, spreading his fingers over the left pocket of his waistcoat—"there are feelings," he repeated, "that cannot be subdued. One such feeling brought me here. The fact is, I am a good-natured easy fellow, and I never bear malice. I never forget an old friend, but love to forget old differences when I find one party in affliction."
He drew a chair forward as he spoke, and composedly seated himself opposite to his late master.
Monsieur Bonelle was a thin old man, with a pale sharp face and keen features. At first he eyed his visitor from the depths of his vast arm-chair; but, as if not, satisfied with this distant view, he bent forward, and laying both hands on his thin knees, he looked up into Ramin's face with a fixed and piercing gaze. He had not, however, the power of disconcerting his guest.
"What did you come here for?" he at length asked.
"Merely to have the extreme satisfaction of seeing how you are, my good old friend. Nothing more."
"Well, look at me—and then go."
Nothing could be so discouraging: but this was an Excellent Opportunity, and when Monsieur Ramin had an excellent opportunity in view, his pertinacity was invincible. Being now resolved to stay, it was not in Monsieur Bonelle's power to banish him. At the same time he had tact enough to render his presence agreeable. He knew that his coarse and boisterous wit had often delighted Monsieur Bonelle of old, and he now exerted himself so successfully as to betray the old man two or three times into hearty laughter. "Ramin," said he at length, laying his thin hand on the arm of his guest, and peering with his keen glance into the mercer's purple face, "you are a funny fellow, but I know you; you cannot make me believe you have called just to see how I am, and to amuse me. Come, be candid for once; what do you want?"
Ramin threw himself back in his chair, and laughed blandly, as much as to say, "Can you suspect me?"
"I have no shop now out of which you can wheedle me," continued the old man; "and surely you are not such a fool as to come to me for money."
"Money!" repeated the draper, as if his host had mentioned something he never dreamt of. "Oh, no!"
Ramin saw it would not do to broach the subject he had really come about, too abruptly, now that suspicion seemed so wide awake—the opportunity had not arrived.
"There is something up, Ramin, I know; I see it in the twinkle of your eye; but you can't deceive me again."
"Deceive you?" said the jolly schemer, shaking his head reverentially. "Deceive a man of your penetration and depth? Impossible! The bare supposition is flattery. My dear friend," he continued, soothingly, "I did not dream of such a thing. The fact is, Bonelle, though they call me a jovial, careless, rattling dog, I have a conscience; and, somehow, I have never felt quite easy about the way in which I became your successor down-stairs. It was rather sharp practice, I admit."
Bonelle seemed to relent.
"Now for it," said the Opportunity-hunter to himself—"By-the-bye," (speaking aloud,) "this house must be a great trouble to you in your present weak state? Two of your lodgers have lately gone away without paying—a great nuisance, especially to an invalid."
"I tell you I'm as sound as a colt."
"At all events, the whole concern must be a great bother to you. If I were you, I would sell the house."
"And if I were you," returned the landlord, dryly, "I would buy it—"
"Precisely," interrupted the tenant, eagerly.
"That is, if you could get it. Pooh! I knew you were after something. Will you give eighty thousand francs for it?" abruptly asked Monsieur Bonelle.
"Eighty thousand francs!" echoed Ramin. "Do you take me for Louis Philippe or the Bank of France!"
"Then we'll say no more about it—are you not afraid of leaving your shop so long?"
Ramin returned to the charge, heedless of the hint to depart. "The fact is, my good old friend, ready money is not my strong point just now. But if you wish very much to be relieved of the concern, what say you to a life annuity? I could manage that."
Monsieur Bonelle gave a short, dry, church-yard cough, and looked as if his life were not worth an hour's purchase. "You think yourself immensely clever, I dare say," he said. "They have persuaded you that I am dying. Stuff! I shall bury you yet."
The mercer glanced at the thin fragile frame, and exclaimed to himself, "Deluded old gentleman!" "My dear Bonelle," he continued, aloud, "I know well the strength of your admirable constitution: but allow me to observe that you neglect yourself too much. Now, suppose a good sensible doctor—"
"Will you pay him?" interrogated Bonelle, sharply.
"Most willingly," replied Ramin, with an eagerness that made the old man smile. "As to the annuity, since the subject annoys you, we will talk of it some other time."
"After you have heard the doctor's report," sneered Bonelle.
The mercer gave him a stealthy glance, which the old man's keen look immediately detected. Neither could repress a smile: these good souls understood one another perfectly, and Ramin saw that this was not the Excellent Opportunity he desired, and departed.
The next day Ramin sent a neighboring medical man, and heard it was his opinion that if Bonelle held on for three months longer, it would be a miracle. Delightful news!
Several days elapsed, and although very anxious, Ramin assumed a careless air, and did not call upon his landlord, or take any notice of him. At the end of the week old Marguerite entered the shop to make a trifling purchase.
"And how are we getting on up-stairs?" negligently asked Monsieur Ramin.
"Worse and worse, my good sir," she sighed. "We have rheumatic pains which often make us use expressions the reverse of Christian-like, and yet nothing can induce us to see either the lawyer or the priest; the gout is getting nearer to our stomach every day, and still we go on talking about the strength of our constitution. Oh, sir, if you have any influence with us, do, pray do, tell us how wicked it is to die without making one's will or confessing one's sins."
"I shall go up this very evening," ambiguously replied Monsieur Ramin.
He kept his promise, and found Monsieur Bonelle in bed, groaning with pain, and in the worst of tempers.
"What poisoning doctor did you send?" he asked, with an ireful glance; "I want no doctor, I am not ill; I will not follow his prescription; he forbade me to eat; I will eat."
"He is a very clever man," said the visitor. "He told me that never in the whole course of his experience has he met with what he called so much 'resisting power' as exists in your frame. He asked me if you were not of a long-lived race."
"That is as people may judge," replied Monsieur Bonelle. "All I can say is, that my grandfather died at ninety, and my father at eighty-six."
"The doctor owned that you had a wonderfully strong constitution."
"Who said I hadn't?" exclaimed the invalid feebly.
"You may rely on it, you would preserve your health better if you had not the trouble of these vexatious lodgers. Have you thought about the life annuity?" said Ramin as carelessly as he could, considering how near the matter was to his hopes and wishes.
"Why, I have scruples," returned Bonelle, coughing. "I do not wish to take you in. My longevity would be the ruin of you."
"To meet that difficulty," quickly replied the mercer, "we can reduce the interest."
"But I must have high interest," placidly returned Monsieur Bonelle.
Ramin, on hearing this, burst into a loud fit of laughter, called Monsieur Bonelle a sly old fox, gave him a poke in the ribs, which made the old man cough for five minutes, and then proposed that they should talk it over some other day. The mercer left Monsieur Bonelle in the act of protesting that he felt as strong as a man of forty.
Monsieur Ramin felt in no hurry to conclude the proposed agreement. "The later one begins to pay, the better," he said, as he descended the stairs.
Days passed on, and the negotiation made no way. It struck the observant tradesman that all was not right. Old Marguerite several times refused to admit him, declaring her master was asleep: there was something mysterious and forbidding in her manner that seemed to Monsieur Ramin very ominous. At length a sudden thought occurred to him: the housekeeper—wishing to become her master's heir—had heard his scheme and opposed it. On the very day that he arrived at this conclusion, he met a lawyer, with whom he had formerly had some transactions, coming down the staircase. The sight sent a chill through the mercer's commercial heart, and a presentiment—one of those presentiments that seldom deceive—told him it was too late. He had, however, the fortitude to abstain from visiting Monsieur Bonelle until evening came; when he went up, resolved to see him in spite of all Marguerite might urge. The door was half-open, and the old housekeeper stood talking on the landing to a middle-aged man in a dark cassock.
"It is all over! The old witch has got the priests at him," thought Ramin, inwardly groaning at his own folly in allowing himself to be forestalled.
"You cannot see Monsieur to-night," sharply said Marguerite, as he attempted to pass.
"Alas! is my excellent friend so very ill?" asked Ramin, in a mournful tone.
"Sir," eagerly said the clergyman, catching him by the button of his coat, "if you are indeed the friend of that unhappy man, do seek to bring him into a more suitable frame of mind. I have seen many dying men, but never so much obstinacy, never such infatuated belief in the duration of life."
"Then you think he really is dying," asked Ramin; and, in spite of the melancholy accent he endeavored to assume, there was something so peculiar in his tone, that the priest looked at him very fixedly as he slowly replied,
"Yes, air, I think he is."
"Ah!" was all Monsieur Ramin said; and as the clergyman had now relaxed his hold of the button, Ramin passed in spite of the remonstrances of Marguerite, who rushed after the priest. He found Monsieur Bonelle in bed and in a towering rage.
"Oh! Ramin, my friend," he groaned, "never take a housekeeper, and never let her know you have any property. They are harpies, Ramin,—harpies! such a day as I have had; first, the lawyer, who comes to write down 'my last testamentary dispositions,' as he calls them; then the priest, who gently hints that I am a dying man. Oh, what a day!"
"And did you make your will, my excellent friend?" softly asked Monsieur Ramin, with a keen look.
"Make my will?" indignantly exclaimed the old man; "make my will? what do you mean, sir? do you mean to say I am dying?"
"Heaven forbid!" piously ejaculated Ramin.
"Then why do you ask me if I had been making my will?" angrily resumed the old man. He then began to be extremely abusive.
When money was in the way, Monsieur Ramin, though otherwise of a violent temper, had the meekness of a lamb. He bore the treatment of his host with the meekest patience, and having first locked the door so as to make sure that Marguerite would not interrupt them, he watched Monsieur Bonelle attentively, and satisfied himself that the Excellent Opportunity he had been ardently longing for had arrived: "He is going fast," he thought; "and unless I settle the agreement to-night, and get it drawn up and signed to-morrow, it will be too late."
"My dear friend," he at length said aloud, on perceiving that the old gentleman had fairly exhausted himself and was lying panting on his back, "you are indeed a lamentable instance of the lengths to which the greedy lust of lucre will carry our poor human nature. It is really distressing to see Marguerite, a faithful, attached servant, suddenly converted into a tormenting harpy by the prospect of a legacy! Lawyers and priests flock around you like birds of prey, drawn hither by the scent of gold! Oh, the miseries of having delicate health combined with a sound constitution and large property!"
"Ramin," groaned the old man, looking inquiringly into his visitor's face, "you are again going to talk to me about that annuity—I know you are!"
"My excellent friend, it is merely to deliver you from a painful position."
"I am sure, Ramin, you think in your soul I am dying," whimpered Monsieur Bonelle.
"Absurd, my dear sir. Dying? I will prove to you that you have never been in better health. In the first place you feel no pain."
"Excepting from rheumatism," groaned Monsieur Bonelle.
"Rheumatism! who ever died of rheumatism? and if that be all—"
"No, it is not all," interrupted the old man with great irritability; "what would you say to the gout getting higher and higher up every day?"
"The gout is rather disagreeable, but if there is nothing else—"
"Yes, there is something else," sharply said Monsieur Bonelle. "There is an asthma that will scarcely let me breathe, and a racking pain in my head that does not allow me a moment's ease. But if you think I am dying, Ramin, you are quite mistaken."
"No doubt, my dear friend, no doubt; but in the meanwhile suppose we talk of this annuity. Shall we say one thousand francs a year."
"What!" asked Bonelle, looking at him very fixedly.
"My dear friend, I mistook; I meant two thousand francs per annum," hurriedly rejoined Ramin.
Monsieur Bonelle closed his eyes, and appeared to fall into a gentle slumber. The mercer coughed; the sick man never moved.
"Monsieur Bonelle."
No reply.
"My excellent friend."
Utter silence.
"Are you asleep?"
A long pause.
"Well, then, what do you say to three thousand?"
Monsieur Bonelle opened his eyes.
"Ramin," said he, sententiously, "you are a fool; the house brings me in four thousand as it is."
This was quite false, and the mercer knew it; but he had his own reasons for wishing to seem to believe it true.
"Good Heavens!" said he, with an air of great innocence, "who could have thought it, and the lodgers constantly running away. Four thousand? Well, then, you shall have four thousand."
Monsieur Bonelle shut his eyes once more, and murmured "The mere rental—nonsense!" He then folded his hands on his breast, and appeared to compose himself to sleep.
"Oh, what a sharp man of business he is!" Ramin said, admiringly: but for once omnipotent flattery failed in its effect: "So acute!" continued he, with a stealthy glance at the old man, who remained perfectly unmoved.
"I see you will insist upon making it the other five hundred francs."
Monsieur Ramin said this as if five thousand five hundred francs had already been mentioned, and was the very summit of Monsieur Bonelle's ambition. But the ruse failed in its effect; the sick man never so much as stirred.
"But, my dear friend," urged Monsieur Ramin in a tone of feeling remonstrance, "there is such a thing as being too sharp, too acute. How can you expect that I shall give you more when your constitution is so good, and you are to be such a long liver?"
"Yes, but I may be carried off one of these days," quietly observed the old man, evidently wishing to turn the chance of his own death to account.
"Indeed, and I hope so," muttered the mercer, who was getting very ill-tempered.
"You see," soothingly continued Bonelle, "you are so good a man of business, Ramin, that you will double the actual value of the house in no time. I am a quiet, easy person, indifferent to money; otherwise this house would now bring me in eight thousand at the very least."
"Eight thousand!" indignantly exclaimed the mercer. "Monsieur Bonelle, you have no conscience. Come now, my dear friend, do be reasonable. Six thousand francs a year (I don't mind saying six) is really a very handsome income for a man of your quiet habits. Come, be reasonable." But Monsieur Bonelle turned a deaf ear to reason, and closed his eyes once more. What between opening and shutting them for the next quarter of an hour, he at length induced Monsieur Ramin to offer him seven thousand francs.
"Very well, Ramin, agreed," he quietly said; "you have made an unconscionable bargain." To this succeeded a violent fit of coughing.
As Ramin unlocked the door to leave, he found old Marguerite, who had been listening all the time, ready to assail him with a torrent of whispered abuse for duping her "poor dear innocent old master into such a bargain." The mercer bore it all very patiently: he could make all allowances for her excited feelings, and only rubbed his hands and bade her a jovial good evening.
The agreement was signed on the following day, to the indignation of old Marguerite, and the mutual satisfaction of the parties concerned.
Every one admired the luck and shrewdness of Ramin, for the old man every day was reported worse; and it was clear to all that the first quarter of the annuity would never be paid. Marguerite, in her wrath, told the story as a grievance to every one; people listened, shook their heads, and pronounced Monsieur Ramin to be a deuced clever fellow.