Timothy Templeton - The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth

T >> Timothy Templeton >> The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth

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"He canted his head, as if it were thickish, gave a dignified look,
and again turned to his meditations;--'Beg pardon, but I don't know
you,' he grumbled.

"'Social's the word, John; be social, and give us an inkling of your
motive for that peculiar position you unwittingly find yourself in.'
The salutation seemed to excite his astonishment. He was a stranger to
such familiarity--rudeness, if so you may please to call it; and
turned from me, his movements assimilating to those of a turtle with a
coal of fire on his back.

"'You are who?' he returned, in a gruff voice, a scowl of contempt
invading his broad face.

"'Smooth, from Down East!' I replied,--'who do you think it is?' To
make the point more convincing, I started up Yankee Doodle, which I
whistled with the variations.

"'You are not only an intruder, but an impertinent fellow!'

"'Needn't feel disagreeable about it. Smooth--a man of standing in his
diggins, and Young America's independent delegate, has only come to
take a bird's-eye view of the way things look about this seat of war.'

"'Who the devil is Mr. Smooth? I know he has no business here!' again
grumbled the old man.

"'Don't know Solomon Smooth, eh?'

"'No, don't nor do I want to. You are always making difficulty
wherever you go, probing your nose into everybody's business. You may
be a keen fellow in commerce, but in diplomacy you are impertinent and
quite beside yourself. You better be off from here, inasmuch as I am
the biggest toad in this puddle, and mean to remain so. We are not
inclined to know anything about Mr. Smooth; so the quicker he packs
himself and his baggage up and is off from this, the better.' The
earnestness with which he said this left me no reason to doubt his
intention to remain the biggest toad of the pool.

"'Mr. Smooth, something of a man in Washington, holds a contrary
opinion, and claims a right to know the ins and outs of what is going
on outside of your dominions, as well as inside his own, and to
insinuate himself into just what it may please him,' I replied in the
measured manner of an experienced diplomatist.

"'Perhaps you have,' he interrupted, 'but if you were possessed of
ordinary modesty, you would refrain from intermeddling when you saw
what a blasted time I had to keep that great Bear, across there, from
breaking his chain and devouring everything on this side.'

"'Feeling a fellow sympathy, I thought perhaps I might lend you a hand
to do some of the whipping,--knowing how the brute professes to be a
christian of the latest pattern.' Nicholas had a strong appetite for
the Turkey, which, though sick, he would have no objection to
breakfast upon, as I have before stated; and, that his christian cubs
might share the feast, he had begun to teach them the straightforward
principles of holy orthodoxy; which said holy orthodoxy incited a
craving for blood we have not yet learned to appreciate.

"The said sick Turkey had not given the best satisfaction to the world
in his mode of reducing to poverty his flock; and, too, he was always
ready to bandy words and ostentation,--having a large supply of the
latter always on hand. He had, moreover, evinced a certain degree of
heroism; nor was he ever backward in professing his readiness to fight
somebody--if it were the unruly Bear, so much the better. The heroism
thus manifested on the part of the decaying Turk would have deserved
more praise had it not had its origin in the assurance that Uncle John
would lend a hand to do the fighting. Mark ye! John had copiously
poured forth his treasure and blood in order that this vagabond Turkey
might still live, and be saved from the Bear's all-digesting stomach,
and for which he would deny John the freedom of his city; he would
condescend only to honor him with the title of dog.

"In one sense a more generous fellow than John was not to be found on
the outside of our small world. He had been the pack-horse of Europe,
and all sorts of kings had used him for all sorts of purposes. Never
was friend used better. He was proud, and yet how submissive. Ready to
shed his blood and squander his treasure for he knew not what, he was
equally willing to submit his well-burdened back to the kicks and
cuffs of those he had saved from ignominy. Now, the very type of
endurance was he who sat poised in the puddle. 'As for the Bear,' says
John, 'he won't guarantee to be satisfied with his ordinary rations;
and if he were to plant himself in the centre of this puddle I would
very obediently have to plant myself out.' Here John folded his arms,
and, with a dignified air, ordered his beer.

"That John should keep his eye sharp to windward was natural enough;
but had this very same eye been kept to windward many years ago, much
blood and treasure had been saved in the present. It is playing false
to his national character thus long for which John now pays so
dearly. But that phantom of terror excited by the Bear's growth,
Mr. Smooth seriously thinks unworthy of being entertained by the
honorable John.

"'You need not be alarmed, Mr. Smooth,' continued John, modifying
somewhat his natural crisp: 'I am painfully sensible of our
diplomatists having played the donkey; but why should you, being far
removed from the scene of strife, nor having immediate interest in the
game, desire to burn a finger in it? Be a man of sense--watch kings
and kingcraft--go your way home in peace, and let peace be your
glorious triumph over war!' From John such advice was valuable.
Acknowledging the joys and comforts of peace, we shook hands,--I
wished John well with his fighting, and we parted. I could not
however, resist the conviction that John knew not for what he fought
so bravely, and might have maintained his position as the greatest
cock of the dunghill without sorrow to the homes of his people, and
desolation into the land of his long tried and most dependable friend.
Who can foretell the ways of a Napoleon. Oh! ambition, ambition!

CHAPTER XIV.

DONE BROWN IN DOWNING-STREET.

"Few would have supposed that when Minister Smooth left General Pierce
and his waggish cabinet he would so soon have taken a turn round the
world, and fetched up in that world of misery and wealth called
London. But the world has got very fast, and only a fast man can keep
up with it. Indeed, it were well we set about doing things fast,
instead of so thinking them over in the mind that they seem immovable
as mountains. Well, there was in London just about this time much
waste of that sort of small talk newspapers now and then deal largely
in, (editors are always kind enough to consider themselves great
warriors), concerning our very spunky Captain Ingraham, who, they
said, had Kosta safe under his guns, and would blow Austria to nobody
knew where. The whole, however, only amounted to the simplest evidence
of what there was in sympathy and the Saxon heart. To our Christian
friends would we say--none of these things moved Smooth from his
equilibrium. After all, come to the true philosophy of the thing, and
it only amounted to a broil among small bullies. And, too, did the
little skipper not take care of himself he was no Yankee, and the
whole United States would know it to his discredit.

"General Pierce, too, being a fighting President, (not a doubt could
exist since the bombardment of Greytown), would take good care of the
whole thing (perhaps send to Congress a message blazing with the
language of war). Could it turn a point to his own advantage, he
would--right or wrong--send a fleet to whip Austria, to make her
something.

"But let us turn to a subject more fruitful. London seemed like a
great waste of dingy dwellings and badly constructed palaces, the
whole sleeping under a canopy of sickly smoke. Everything wore a
sombre, heavy air--even the men seemed born to methodize on some one
object. Show-shops, beer-shops, and gin-palaces, made the very air
reek with their stifling fumes. Above all, there were great palaces
for very faint-hearted people, who thought well of themselves, and in
their prayers thanked Uncle John, at whose great cost they lived in
sumptuous idleness. As this last specimen of human nature, when
dressed in full shine, would completely outshine the most vain Pawnee
chief that ever ran wild in Arkansas, Mr. Smooth was anxious for a
peep at the curiosity. In truth, to Mr. Smooth's unpolished eye
London looked as if it might have emanated from a place called hook or
crook, and stretched along the banks of a nauseous stream spreading
its death stenches in the air, where, diffusing itself in the most
perfect of fogs, it lent cheerful aid to the trade of physicians.
Everybody affected great knowledge of system; and yet things were so
complex of past errors and ages that no system existed equal to the
requirements of the present day. The municipality was great only on
dinners and donkeyism. It had indeed a dining senate, but that august
body never was known to discuss the practical reform of anything but
turtle-soup, and that with an horrid carving of the English language.

"The beggar, (we name the worst nuisances first), the begrimed sweep,
the butcher, the hawker, the ignorant costermonger, the 'cute cabby,
the wily tradesman, who seeks favors and pockets frowns from his
distinguished clowns--the Lord, whose rank is known by his tinsel, and
the Duke, so deeply identified with flunkeyism,--all move along,
helter-skelter, helter-skelter. And then there came the small men of
smaller titles, and the commoner whose grumbling was only equalled by
his apeings. To dine with my Lord Flippington was to him something
great; nor could his airs and ostentation be well improved. The little
man of little titles, too, stood profound in his dignity: no man was
larger, nor thought he that his own little self wasn't great. To the
tailor who made him he paid money down. Of all men was he the largest
dabbler in that divine essence of things called men--the philosophy of
blood. But to keep up the dignity it not only required a great deal of
experience, but a large amount of tin in the pocket, which for the
minus thereof was it necessary to have a deal of brass in the
face. This principle, then, which is strictly in accordance with
natural philosophy, being very well developed in this worthily aged
country, makes the truly great very great of modesty; while the man of
pewter greatness--that is, great because Our Sovereign Lady said he
might take upon himself the name of Sir Simpleton Somebody! always
boiling over with the froth of his own follies. With tin in his
pocket, brass in his face, and never a forlorn _h_ in his vocabulary,
is he the fellow to do brown the 'rag and tinsel.'

"Well, Mr. Smooth felt conscious of his own importance, and that same
was something among the good British. With philosophy profound in his
long face, Mr. Smooth made his compliments to the new and very sedate
minister, who some facetious wags called the very unobsequious Jimmy
Buckanan, of Pensylvane. This worthy and very firm-fisted statesman,
who was too much of the old school ever to be President of our United
States, advised the doing of a great many things, the diplomacy of
which Mr. Smooth seriously doubted. Especially did Smooth question
his reasoning on the breeches question, the quaint originality of
which was Marcy's own. This the venerable statesman informed me in a
sly sort of way, as he invited me to go into the back place and take a
little gin and bitters in a quiet way, for he was inveterately averse
to every body watching his movements. To live in a country so ancient
of incongruities, and where not alone the weak-minded bedeck
themselves in fancy coats and flashy tassels, and indescribable
coverings of high colors, requires some resolution in the man who
mixes with it, and is pleased to make known his taste for plain
black. And here Mr. Smooth and the worthy and very promising statesman
held a very learned controversy over the fact of Marcy having gone
into the tailoring business so largely as to define the shape of coat
it was consistent to wear at court tea-parties. Smooth wanted to put
on a little bright, just to look a man of consequence, and in order
not to be behind several of his brother democrats, whose names he
views it imprudent here to insert, and seeing how he was invited to
join a dough-nut party in Downing street, while he was certain of a
card to one of Citizen Peabody's most select dinners, for Peabody was
an intimate friend and old acquaintance; but our honest and very
American plenipotentiary said it would not do, for the obvious reason
that a man's importance should depend on what was in his brains. His
very democratic secretary having come to his sense of the force of
this argument, had made a solemn promise to put on red cloth and
feathers but four times a year, one of which he stipulated should be
at the opening of the Crystal Palace, that being an occasion when all
the fine ladies were expected to be present for the purpose of
witnessing the superiority of genius over court fooleries, as well as
being singularly fascinated with the young secretary's handsome
person. The argument here was so strong that Smooth at once knocked
under; and, too, simplicity in great men being greatness itself, he
sincerely enjoined all his countrymen to let sense and not semblance
honor their country, guide their actions when abroad.

"Acting upon the principle so many of our countrymen unhappily
develop, (thinking nobody could hear of it on the other side of the
water,) Mr. Smooth chartered a donkey-cart, put his donkeys in shining
liveries, and was determined to outdo the Choctaws in making London
astonished. The most expensive tailor in Regent street did up the
external, as he had before so many of my very simple-minded
countrymen. Such a suit of toggery as it was! Alongside of me General
Scott would have looked shy, I reckon. And then, when the big cocked
hat was spread! I tell you, Uncle Sam, there as no touching Smooth--he
was half-duke, half-beadle, and the rest Pierce diplomatist. 'If a
dash ain't cut among the nobs!' thought I. The donkey turn out was a
curiosity, Smooth himself was a curiosity; and with two curiosities an
excitement was certain. My first dash was into Hyde Park, near the
entrance of which stood the brazen statue of a gladiator, raised by
fair hands, in commemoration of the Iron Duke, whose indelible deeds
they would emblazon on hardest brass. In this park, at fashionable
hours, sauntered the nice young men of the West End; that is, the
biggest snobs of the fashionable world; but Smooth took the shine out
of the whole lot, as did nearly all the rest of Mr. Pierce's little
folks. Had he, however, turned out in the flummery of some of his
contemporary snobs, and driven thus equipped into Cape Cod, a
town-meeting, to take into consideration the sending him to a place
where straight-jackets are worn, had been the result. But in London a
man may make almost any kind of a fool of himself, without applying
for a license. Indeed, the man most earnest in making an ass of
himself may do it, with the satisfaction of knowing that he has a very
large number of very respectable families for patrons. In Hyde Park
the greatest asses (a name and the needful may be necessary) have the
most followers. Longest ears are not the surest indices. After all,
my reader must excuse me for not visiting the purlieus of Downing
street just yet, having a few of Mr. Pierce's little folks to pack up
and send home to Fourney, with instructions that he give them a few
more turns on his grindstone.

CHAPTER XV.

HIS LITTLE LORDSHIP'S SHOW, AND A PEEP INTO DOWNING-STREET.

"Uncle Sam!--if, beside yourself, there exists outside of Cape Cod
another individual who would like to see Mr. Thomas Foolery move in
state most perfect, just send him over here: he must be present on
that day when the little Lord Mayor makes a great man of himself. A
great man is the Lord Mayor on that day on which he sacrifices all his
good sense to an ancient and much-beloved show, in which he permits
himself to be made the fool of the farce. No Choctaw war-train was
ever half so extravagant of colored cloth and feathers. A great day
for London loafers is it, when my Lord Mayor puts on the big chain,
and issues his mandate to the sprats, who then come up the river, to
the great joy of the poor, who have it thus in tradition. Well, Smooth
thought he would keep Lord Mayor's day, and to that end harnessed up
his team of donkeys, merely by way of contrasting it with some duke's
turn-out. Imagine, Sam, my chagrin, when one of the donkeys took it
into his head to keep Lord Mayor's day in his own obstinate way. Not a
step would he go. However, I got another donkey, and proceeded to
where the Lord Mayor was, just in time to hear him make a funny
speech, throughout which he made a sad slaughter of all the h's and
a's of the King's good English. Then he seated himself in the barge,
and had a sail on the Thames, followed by innumerable beggars,
sycophants, and costermongers. Succeeding this he marshalled his
show-folks into a string (such a string!), and with them caused his
august self to be moved to the Mansion House. Swarms of frightened
turtles were seen hurrying away in front of the cavalcade.

"Such a set of white-washed heads--heads with all outside--heads with
little inside--and heads nobody knew what they had been made for,
never before were seen displayed in one string. Strangely attractive
was the glare of tinsel--it fascinated the little souls of corpulent
men, and made small men more becomingly great. Fact was, Uncle Sam,
His Worship the Lord Mayor, whose year of greatness was death to
turtle and terrapin, so outshone Her Most Gracious Majesty (a good
little body) in confusion of brilliant brass, that the little woman
thought it incumbent to call a Cabinet Council, before which she laid
the grievance of his stealing her thunder. At this privy council
Prince Albert was permitted to be present without anything being said
by the Daily News and Morning Advertiser. His Worship had indeed
usurped all the modern appliances of flunkeydom. But the cabinet, it
was acknowledged, was very thick-headed, and her Majesty, good body,
must bear the consequences.

"Well, after the most curious caravan eyes ever rested upon, there
followed his jolly worship the Lord Mayor; he largely sat in a coach
of gingerbread, the tea-things spread outside, and the glows of
Souchong impregnating the air. They said his jolly Lordship sold real
and mixed Twankey. In this sense, however, was his Lordship more
fortunate than his predecessor, who, having ascended from the soap
business, and himself used a large amount of that article for the
purpose of washing down the wares of Threadneedle street, found his
greatest difficulty that of getting rid of the foetid scent. And then,
my Lord's h's were the things most violently handled; for otherwise he
wasn't a bad fellow, and when he rode in his coach of the olden time,
which might, by the green in mythology, have been taken for the lost
chariot of Elijah, it was a serious question whether himself or the
things that held on behind were greatest. Then these latter gents of
flunkeydom in frills had big sticks in their hands, with which they
kept the flies from my Lord's good-natured countenance. Happy fellows
were they, and, like well-stuffed mules, only wanted the long soft
ears to make them marketable. Everybody said it was a big day in
London. To have suggested that his Worship might be making an ass of
himself in this common-sense nineteenth century would have been to
render yourself a victim of hasty contempt. Smooth was just taking a
contemplative view of these things,--asking himself how many poor
wretches would lose a day's work over the nonsense; how many would get
drunk on the hallucination of the show; how many poor mechanics would
make a blue week to his Lordship's honor; and how many would find
themselves in the House of Correction to his disgrace--how many
employers would be annoyed,--how many customers would be
disappointed--and how many wives would get broken heads; when suddenly
a crowd of filthy, dejected, and ruthless beings swept along in mass,
heedless of whatever came in their way, and threatening life and limb
in the onset. Then there came such a smashing of maids' bonnets,
squeezing of milliners, and frightening of old maids, as never was
seen before; indeed, this, added to the many well-jammed ribs and
jostled beavers, seemed the most expensive part of my Lord's show.
Summing the whole thing up in a logical sort of way, Smooth made it
amount to this:--that the Lord Mayor, just mounting into greatness,
could by no means make that greatness impressive by any knowledge of
philosophy he possessed; so, to be sure that his importance had its
force upon all vulgar minds, he suffered himself made to play the part
of a monkey in a cake-shop. To this his Worship added the greater
gratification of having given amusement to nine-tenths of the city
costermongers, made idle seven-tenths of the working people, kept busy
two thousand gin-shops, filled eleven hundred chop-houses, given hard
work to five hundred policemen, who never like to be worked hard, and
made lackeydom tumultuous. And then Beadledom seemed crazed, and,
joined with the many ale-bibbers, were turned out to do good service
in the show. But, to make my Lord's train complete, there was no
knowing how many men he had to ride on horseback, how many more so
inebriated they couldn't ride, how many of a character nobody would
desire to know out of his show, and how many _ballet_ girls who ride
in circuses and so forth,--all of which latter material had faces made
deep of moonshine modesty, to suit the solemn occasion. Then my Lord
topped off the little end of his show with the soup and great
Ministers of State. And, that nothing should be left undone, the
_Times_ must have a _go in_ at it, which it did with one of Doctor
Moseley's most spicy articles, putting the whole thing into a very
comical nutshell. Quoth Sam, without the thunderer's dissecting knife
a London Lord Mayor would be the most beautiful of nobodys--that is,
so far as sense goes. Smooth, on the nicest observation, was decidedly
of the opinion that only one thing more was wanted to make the Lord
Mayor's Show complete--a pair of long soft ears emblazoned on the
Corporation coach. The reader will excuse Smooth for dwelling thus
long on little things.

"Having peeped long enough at the Lord Mayor's Show, I felt like
looking at something more solid; so to that end I turned about the
donkey-cart, whistled to the flunkeys (kept things of this kind merely
to be like other Americans when abroad), and drove into Regent street,
where I would inform General Pierce and all my firm friends a
desperate excitement was made. Then, in glowing independence, I rolled
away down Pall Mall, where the club-people--especially those of that
institution of arrogance called the Reform--seemed much astonished.
From thence I proceeded past Trafalgar square, where stood in singular
contrast the monument of the noble Nelson, and an equestrian statue of
that ignoble creature, Charles the First, the loss of whose head saved
England from disgrace. How strange, that even in this day of
intelligence and liberty-loving, it should stand a shrine before which
very respectable old gentlemen poured out their stale patriotism! At
last I found myself in Downing street--at the door of a massive and
sombre-looking mansion (No. 12) in front of which stood
methodical-looking men with grave countenances. And, too, there
sauntered moodily venerable-looking gentlemen, now and then casting
wistful glances at the time-begrimmed walls, as if they would see some
one sealed-up in the antiquated recesses of the place. Mr. Smooth's
turn-out only made a stir among them; they reckoned somebody had come!
In a free-and-easy sort of way I walked straight to the door,
maintaining my independence the while, and feeling as important as a
door-keeper in Congress. After passing the massive entrance I
encountered innumerable obstacles in the form of flunkeys, and then
passed into a dingy room of immense size, which for all the world had
the appearance of having some two or three hundred years ago served
for a barracks. 'By appointment?' inquired a human thing dressed, as
he emerged from behind a green screen situated at one corner. He
bowed, and I bowed, until he was satisfied I was somebody, 'Who would
you see?' he reiterates, adding another bow.

"'Well!' returned I, 'reckon how I'll think about that.' Then the
fellow crossed three or four times my track, as much as to
say--Stranger! you don't go in there. Presently a batch of well-to-do
individuals came snickering out of a closet, and eyed me very
suspiciously; at which I summoned all my brass, and stood fronting
them like a staring machine. 'You must say who you want to see!'
interposes the man I first confronted.

"I here took leisurely out my card, and said 'I would like to see the
Duke of Newcastle, who temporarily tied up in this establishment.' He
viewed my card with a serious hesitation; at which I turned round, and
told him I would not trouble him, but take it myself, had he had any
special objection to going a-head. They, the people, said the Duke,
did all he could with what he had to do with. If it were not possible
to see the Duke, I would like a peep at my venerable aunt Aberdeen,
who was about as well qualified to sway the destinies of discontented
England as a virgin pumpkin; and together with my ever amiable Lord
Clarendon, would set a world at war good-naturedly. These very high
functionaries, Mr. Smooth was informed, could not at present be seen
by common people, inasmuch as they were contemplating the problem:--'I
don't know what to do!' Nicholas's appetite for Turkey breakfasts had
made work too profound for the brains of Downing Street. 'Don't seem a
subject of this atmosphere,' said the stupid, significantly canting
his head, and giving a queer look out of the corner of his right
eye. 'You fellows don't seem to know me,' I interpolated, 'Citizen
Smooth--they call me Solomon Smooth, Esq., that is my name.' A door
now opened near where I was standing, and in I walked--right among the
Dukes and dough-heads. It only wanted a bold push, in the right
go-ahead sort of way, to make myself respected. Dukes were not only
flesh and blood, but owed much of their importance to the ignorance of
the people they aspired to frown upon. Dukes, Earls, and Lords, were,
at this moment, playing at very un-English games for England. They
affected to believe it right that the loyal people (I mean the simple
and vulgar, who have hitherto proved mean the simple and vulgar) who
have hitherto proved true to their noble traditions, should remain
ignorant of the game played at their expense. This, Mr. Smooth thought
too bad; however, his friend Urquhart was devising a scheme for
remedying the evil, which, did he not himself fall into evil, might do
great good to the nation in general. But Urquhart was so modest that
he never accused Lord Palmerston of anything worse than bringing about
the potato rot in Ireland. 'Hallo hallo!' a dozen voices echoed from
the table around which the all-accomplished sat:--'A rustic intruder
is upon us!' half muttered the man who followed me in. 'It's only
Solomon Smooth, Esq., from the Cape,' returned I, with a good,
wholesome laugh. Believe me, Uncle Sam, there sat round a table ten of
the most solemn-looking fellows, with faces as dreary as a wet moon in
November. Some of this unique body looked as if they had seen hard
usage and lean pay. Others were grey with thinking, instead of
moving. Be not surprised either when I say that the gravity of their
countenance left no visible room for anything else. Hard at it were
they, straining their antiquated imaginations over a secret game of
thimble-rig, which seemed of momentous importance. Only five, however,
could play at the game; and Sawny Dablerdeen, who always played on two
small pipes, and paid sundry small pipers to do a deal of blowing,
seemed in the greatest fuddle. And then there was my Lord John
Littlejohn, as crusty a little snap as ever declaimed against tyrant
in one breath, or turned a political summersault in another;--bricks
to the back-bone was he, and all for old England, though he was not
bigger than one of Betsy Perkin's well-grown cucumbers, and could be
turned to as many uses. But what there is mentally in a man must not
be judged by the measure of his body from head to foot. And, too,
there was my very amiable Lord Clarendon, who attempted to out-clever
my Lord John, inasmuch as John stated, in the fulness of his
geographical knowledge, that the passage between Havana and the
extreme southern point of Florida was not more than four hundred
miles, while my Lord Clarendon assured the House of Lords that South
Carolina was an island. Enlightened House of Lords! But, after all,
there was a harmony of sentiment between these two noble worthies that
was truly grateful to the submissive hearts of the freedom-loving
English; both could spin flattering speeches: both could play the long
and short; both could wince when foreign bull-dogs sent out their
threatening growls; and both were mighty of mouth when dealing with
little chickens. It was not to be concealed, however that Dablerdeen,
master of the board, was gifted with the unfortunate characteristic of
talking himself into an interminable difficulty.

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