Trumps | Page 2

Gray rolled his neck
in his white cravat, crossed his legs, and shook his black-gaitered shoe,
and beamed, and smiled, and blew his nose, and hum'd, and ha'd, and
said, "Ah, yes!" "Ah, indeed?" "Quite so!" and held his tongue.
Mr. Savory Gray minded his own business; but his business did not
mind him. There came a sudden crash--one of the commercial
earthquakes that shake fortunes to their foundations and scatter failure
on every side. One day he sat in his office consoling his friend Jowlson,
who had been ruined. Mr. Jowlson was terribly agitated--credit
gone--fortune wrecked--no prospects--"O wife and children!" he cried,
rocking to and fro as he sat.
"My dear Jowlson, you must not give way in this manner. You must
control your feelings. Have we not always been taught," said Mr. Gray,
as a clerk brought in a letter, the seal of which the merchant broke
leisurely, and then skimmed the contents as he continued, "that riches
have wings and--my God!" he ejaculated, springing up, "I am a ruined
man!"
So he was. Every thing was gone. Those pretty riches that chirped and
sang to him as he fed them; they had all spread their bright plumage,
like a troop of singing birds--have we not always been taught that they
might, Mr. Jowlson?--and had flown away.
To undertake business anew was out of the question. His friends said,
"Poor Gray! what shall be done?"
The friendly merchants pondered and pondered. The worthy Jowlson,
who had meanwhile engaged as book-keeper upon a salary of seven
hundred dollars a year--one of the rare prizes--was busy enough for his
friend, consulting, wondering, planning. Mr. Gray could not preach,
nor practice medicine, nor surgery, nor law, because men must be
instructed in those professions; and people will not trust a suit of a

thousand dollars, or a sore throat, or a broken thumb, in the hands of a
man who has not fitted himself carefully for the responsibility. He
could not make boots, nor build houses, nor shoe horses, nor lay stone
wall, nor bake bread, nor bind books. Men must be educated to be
shoemakers, carpenters, blacksmiths, bakers, masons, or book-binders.
What could be done? Nobody suggested an insurance office, or an
agency for diamond mines on Newport beach; for, although it was the
era of good feeling, those ingenious infirmaries for commercial invalids
were not yet invented.
"I have it!" cried Jowlson, one day, rushing in, out of breath, among
several gentlemen who were holding a council about their friend
Gray--that is, who had met in a bank parlor, and were talking about his
prospects--"I have it! and how dull we all are! What shall he do? Why,
keep a school, to be sure!--a school!--a school! Take children, and be a
parent to them!"
"How dull we all were!" cried the gentlemen in chorus. "A school is the
very thing! A school it shall be!" And a school it was.
Upon the main street of the pleasant village of Delafield Savory Gray,
Esq., hired a large house, with an avenue of young lindens in front, a
garden on one side, and a spacious play-ground in the rear. The pretty
pond was not far away, with its sloping shores and neat villas, and a
distant spire upon the opposite bank--the whole like the vignette of an
English pastoral poem. Here the merchant turned from importing
pongees to inculcating principles. His old friends sent some of their
children to the new school, and persuaded their friends to send others.
Some of his former correspondents in other parts of the world, not
entirely satisfied with the Asian and East Indian systems of education,
shipped their sons to Mr. Gray. The good man was glad to see them. He
was not very learned, and therefore could not communicate knowledge.
But he did his best, and tried very hard to be respected. The boys did
not learn any thing; but they had plenty of good beef, and Mr. Gray
played practical jokes upon them; and on Sundays they all went to hear
Dr. Peewee preach.

CHAPTER II.
HOPE WAYNE.
When there was a report that Mr. Savory Gray was coming to Delafield
to establish a school for boys, Dr. Peewee, the minister of the village,
called to communicate the news to Mr. Christopher Burt, his oldest and
richest parishioner, at Pine wood, his country seat. When Mr. Burt
heard the news, he foresaw trouble without end; for his orphan
grand-daughter, Hope Wayne, who lived with him, was nearly eighteen
years old; and it had been his fixed resolution that she should be
protected from the wicked world of youth that is always going up and
down in the earth seeking whom it may marry. If incessant care, and
invention, and management could secure it, she should