第7章

It's a pity,--it's a pity,--said the little man;--it 's the place to be born in.But if you can't fix it so as to be born here, you can come and live here.Old Ben Franklin, the father of American science and the American Union, was n't ashamed to be born here.Jim Otis, the father of American Independence, bothered about in the Cape Cod marshes awhile, but he came to Boston as soon as he got big enough.

Joe Warren, the first bloody ruffed-shirt of the Revolution, was as good as born here.Parson Charming strolled along this way from Newport, and stayed here.Pity old Sam Hopkins hadn't come, too;--we'd have made a man of him,--poor, dear, good old Christian heathen!

There he lies, as peaceful as a young baby, in the old burying-ground! I've stood on the slab many a time.Meant well,--meant well.Juggernaut.Parson Charming put a little oil on one linchpin, and slipped it out so softly, the first thing they knew about it was the wheel of that side was down.T' other fellow's at work now, but he makes more noise about it.When the linchpin comes out on his side, there'll be a jerk, I tell you! Some think it will spoil the old cart, and they pretend to say that there are valuable things in it which may get hurt.Hope not,--hope not.But this is the great Macadamizing place,--always cracking up something.

Cracking up Boston folks,--said the gentleman with the diamond-pin, whom, for convenience' sake, I shall hereafter call the Koh-i-noor.

The little man turned round mechanically towards him, as Maelzel's Turk used to turn, carrying his head slowly and horizontally, as if it went by cogwheels.--Cracking up all sorts of things,--native and foreign vermin included,--said the little man.

This remark was thought by some of us to have a hidden personal application, and to afford a fair opening for a lively rejoinder, if the Koh-i-noor had been so disposed.The little man uttered it with the distinct wooden calmness with which the ingenious Turk used to exclaim, E-chec! so that it must have been heard.The party supposed to be interested in the remark was, however, carrying a large knife-bladeful of something to his mouth just then, which, no doubt, interfered with the reply he would have made.

--My friend who used to board here was accustomed sometimes, in a pleasant way, to call himself the Autocrat of the table,--meaning, Isuppose, that he had it all his own way among the boarders.I think our small boarder here is like to prove a refractory subject, if Iundertake to use the sceptre my friend meant to bequeath me, too magisterially.I won't deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I have been in company with gentlemen who preferred listening, I have been guilty of the same kind of usurpation which my friend openly justified.But I maintain, that I, the Professor, am a good listener.If a man can tell me a fact which subtends an appreciable angle in the horizon of thought, I am as receptive as the contribution-box in a congregation of colored brethren.If, when Iam exposing my intellectual dry-goods, a man will begin a good story, I will have them all in, and my shutters up, before he has got to the fifth "says he," and listen like a three-years' child, as the author of the "Old Sailor" says.I had rather hear one of those grand elemental laughs from either of our two Georges, (fictitious names, Sir or Madam,) glisten to one of those old playbills of our College days, in which "Tom and Jerry" ("Thomas and Jeremiah," as the old Greek Professor was said to call it) was announced to be brought on the stage with whole force of the Faculty, read by our Frederick, (no such person, of course,) than say the best things I might by any chance find myself capable of saying.Of course, if I come across a real thinker, a suggestive, acute, illuminating, informing talker, Ienjoy the luxury of sitting still for a while as much as another.

Nobody talks much that does n't say unwise things,--things he did not mean to say; as no person plays much without striking a false note sometimes.Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of thought.I can't answer for what will turn up.If I could, it would n't be talking, but "speaking my piece." Better, I think, the hearty abandonment of one's self to the suggestions of the moment at the risk of an occasional slip of the tongue, perceived the instant it escapes, but just one syllable too late, than the royal reputation of never saying a foolish thing.

--What shall I do with this little man?--There is only one thing to do,--and that is to let him talk when he will.The day of the "Autocrat's" monologues is over.

--My friend,--said I to the young fellow whom, as I have said, the boarders call "John,"--My friend,--I said, one morning, after breakfast,--can you give me any information respecting the deformed person who sits at the other end of the table?

What! the Sculpin?--said the young fellow.

The diminutive person, with angular curvature of the spine,--I said,--and double talipes varus,--I beg your pardon,--with two club-feet.

Is that long word what you call it when a fellah walks so?--said the young man, making his fists revolve round an imaginary axis, as you may have seen youth of tender age and limited pugilistic knowledge, when they show how they would punish an adversary, themselves protected by this rotating guard,--the middle knuckle, meantime, thumb-supported, fiercely prominent, death-threatening.

It is,--said I.--But would you have the kindness to tell me if you know anything about this deformed person?

About the Sculpin?--said the young fellow.

My good friend,--said I,--I am sure, by your countenance, you would not hurt the feelings of one who has been hardly enough treated by Nature to be spared by his fellows.Even in speaking of him to others, I could wish that you might not employ a term which implies contempt for what should inspire only pity.

A fellah 's no business to be so crooked,--said the young man called John.