A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others | Page 5

yo' vest. It is part of a special importation presented to Mrs. Slocomb's father by the captain of one of his ships.--Anthony, go down into the wine-cellar, the inner cellar, Anthony, and bring me a bottle of that old madeira of '37--stop, Anthony; make it '39. I think, judge, it is a little dryer.' Well, Anthony bowed, and left the room, and in a few moments he came back, set a lighted candle on the mantel, and, leanin' over my chair, said in a loud whisper: 'De cellar am locked, suh, and I'm 'feard Mis' Slocomb dun tuk de key.'
"'Well, s'pose she has,' I said; 'put yo' knee against it, and fo'ce the do'.' I knew my man, suh. Anthony never moved a muscle.
"Here the judge called out, 'Why, major, I couldn't think of'--
"'Now, yo' Honor,' said I, 'please don't say a word. This is my affair. The lock is not of the slightest consequence.'
"In a few minutes back comes Anthony, solemn as an owl. 'Major,' said he, 'I done did all I c'u'd, an' dere ain't no way 'cept breakin' down de do'. Las' time I done dat, Mis' Slocomb neber forgib me fer a week.'
"The judge jumped up. 'Major, I won't have you breakin' yo' locks and annoyin' Mrs. Slocomb.'
"'Yo' Honor,' I said, 'please take yo' seat. I'm d----d if you shan't taste that wine, if I have to blow out the cellar walls.'
"'I tell you, major,' replied the judge in a very emphatic tone and with some slight anger I thought, 'I ought not to drink yo' high-flavored madeira; my doctor told me only last week I must stop that kind of thing. If yo' servant will go upstairs and get a bottle of whiskey out of my bag, it's just what I ought to drink.'
"Now I want to tell you, colonel, that at that time I hadn't had a bottle of any kind of wine in my cellar for five years." Here the major closed one eye, and laid his forefinger against his nose.
"'Of co'se, yo' Honor,' I said, 'when you put it on a matter of yo' health I am helpless; that paralyzes my hospitality; I have not a word to say. Anthony, go upstairs and get the bottle.' And we drank the judge's whiskey! Now see the devotion and loyalty of that old negro servant, see his shrewdness! Do you think this marsh-crane of Jack's"--
Here Jefferson threw open the door, ushering in half a dozen gentlemen, and among them the rightful host, just returned after a week's absence,--cutting off the major's outburst, and producing another equally explosive:--
"Why, Jack!"
Before the two men grasp hands I must, in all justice to the major, say that he not only had a sincere admiration for Jack's surroundings, but also for Jack himself, and that while he had not the slightest compunction in sharing or, for that matter, monopolizing his hospitality, he would have been equally generous in return had it been possible for him to revive the old days, and to afford a menage equally lavish.
It is needless for me to make a like statement for Jack. One half the major's age, trained to practical business life from boyhood, frank, spontaneous, every inch a man, kindly natured, and, for one so young, a deep student, of men as well as of books, it was not to be wondered at that not only the major but that every one else who knew him loved him. The major really interested him enormously. He represented a type which was new to him, and which it delighted him to study. The major's heartiness, his magnificent disregard for meum and tuum, his unique and picturesque mendacity, his grandiloquent manners at times, studied, as he knew, from some example of the old regime, whom he either consciously or unconsciously imitated, his peculiar devotion to the memory of his late wife,--all appealed to Jack's sense of humor, and to his enjoyment of anything out of the common. Under all this he saw, too, away down in the major's heart, beneath these several layers, a substratum of true kindness and tenderness.
This kindness, I know, pleased Jack best of all.
So when the major sprang up in delight, calling out, "Why, Jack!" it was with very genuine, although quite opposite individual, sympathies, that the two men shook hands. It was beautiful, too, to see the major welcome Jack to his own apartments, dragging up the most comfortable chair in the room, forcing him into it, and tucking a cushion under his head, or ringing up Jefferson every few moments for some new luxury. These he would catch away from that perfectly trained servant's tray, serving them himself, rattling on all the time as to how sorry he was that he did not know the exact hour at which