第 三十二 章 · DOWLEY'S HUMILIATION

DOWLEY'S HUMILIATION

Well, when that cargo arrived toward sunset, Saturday afternoon,

I had my hands full to keep the Marcos from fainting. They were

sure Jones and I were ruined past help, and they blamed themselves

as accessories to this bankruptcy. You see, in addition to the

dinner-materials, which called for a sufficiently round sum,

I had bought a lot of extras for the future comfort of the family:

for instance, a big lot of wheat, a delicacy as rare to the tables

of their class as was ice-cream to a hermit's; also a sizeable

deal dinner-table; also two entire pounds of salt, which was

another piece of extravagance in those people's eyes; also crockery,

stools, the clothes, a small cask of beer, and so on. I instructed

the Marcos to keep quiet about this sumptuousness, so as to give

me a chance to surprise the guests and show off a little. Concerning

the new clothes, the simple couple were like children; they were up

and down, all night, to see if it wasn't nearly daylight, so that

they could put them on, and they were into them at last as much

as an hour before dawn was due. Then their pleasure--not to say

delirium--was so fresh and novel and inspiring that the sight of it

paid me well for the interruptions which my sleep had suffered.

The king had slept just as usual--like the dead. The Marcos could

not thank him for their clothes, that being forbidden; but they

tried every way they could think of to make him see how grateful

they were. Which all went for nothing: he didn't notice any change.

It turned out to be one of those rich and rare fall days which is

just a June day toned down to a degree where it is heaven to be

out of doors. Toward noon the guests arrived, and we assembled

under a great tree and were soon as sociable as old acquaintances.

Even the king's reserve melted a little, though it was some little

trouble to him to adjust himself to the name of Jones along at

first. I had asked him to try to not forget that he was a farmer;

but I had also considered it prudent to ask him to let the thing

stand at that, and not elaborate it any. Because he was just the

kind of person you could depend on to spoil a little thing like

that if you didn't warn him, his tongue was so handy, and his

spirit so willing, and his information so uncertain.

Dowley was in fine feather, and I early got him started, and then

adroitly worked him around onto his own history for a text and

himself for a hero, and then it was good to sit there and hear him

hum. Self-made man, you know. They know how to talk. They do

deserve more credit than any other breed of men, yes, that is true;

and they are among the very first to find it out, too. He told how

he had begun life an orphan lad without money and without friends

able to help him; how he had lived as the slaves of the meanest

master lived; how his day's work was from sixteen to eighteen hours

long, and yielded him only enough black bread to keep him in a

half-fed condition; how his faithful endeavors finally attracted

the attention of a good blacksmith, who came near knocking him

dead with kindness by suddenly offering, when he was totally

unprepared, to take him as his bound apprentice for nine years

and give him board and clothes and teach him the trade--or “mystery”

as Dowley called it. That was his first great rise, his first

gorgeous stroke of fortune; and you saw that he couldn't yet speak

of it without a sort of eloquent wonder and delight that such a

gilded promotion should have fallen to the lot of a common human

being. He got no new clothing during his apprenticeship, but on

his graduation day his master tricked him out in spang-new tow-linens

and made him feel unspeakably rich and fine.

“I remember me of that day!” the wheelwright sang out, with

enthusiasm.

“And I likewise!” cried the mason. “I would not believe they

were thine own; in faith I could not.”

“Nor other!” shouted Dowley, with sparkling eyes. “I was like

to lose my character, the neighbors wending I had mayhap been

stealing. It was a great day, a great day; one forgetteth not

days like that.”

Yes, and his master was a fine man, and prosperous, and always

had a great feast of meat twice in the year, and with it white

bread, true wheaten bread; in fact, lived like a lord, so to speak.

And in time Dowley succeeded to the business and married the daughter.

“And now consider what is come to pass,” said he, impressively.

“Two times in every month there is fresh meat upon my table.”

He made a pause here, to let that fact sink home, then added

--“and eight times salt meat.”

“It is even true,” said the wheelwright, with bated breath.

“I know it of mine own knowledge,” said the mason, in the same

reverent fashion.

“On my table appeareth white bread every Sunday in the year,”

added the master smith, with solemnity. “I leave it to your own

consciences, friends, if this is not also true?”

“By my head, yes,” cried the mason.

“I can testify it--and I do,” said the wheelwright.

“And as to furniture, ye shall say yourselves what mine equipment

is.” He waved his hand in fine gesture of granting frank and

unhampered freedom of speech, and added: “Speak as ye are moved;

speak as ye would speak; an I were not here.”

“Ye have five stools, and of the sweetest workmanship at that, albeit

your family is but three,” said the wheelwright, with deep respect.

“And six wooden goblets, and six platters of wood and two of pewter

to eat and drink from withal,” said the mason, impressively. “And

I say it as knowing God is my judge, and we tarry not here alway,

but must answer at the last day for the things said in the body,

be they false or be they sooth.”

“Now ye know what manner of man I am, brother Jones,” said the

smith, with a fine and friendly condescension, “and doubtless ye

would look to find me a man jealous of his due of respect and

but sparing of outgo to strangers till their rating and quality be

assured, but trouble yourself not, as concerning that; wit ye well

ye shall find me a man that regardeth not these matters but is

willing to receive any he as his fellow and equal that carrieth

a right heart in his body, be his worldly estate howsoever modest.

And in token of it, here is my hand; and I say with my own mouth

we are equals--equals”--and he smiled around on the company with

the satisfaction of a god who is doing the handsome and gracious

thing and is quite well aware of it.

The king took the hand with a poorly disguised reluctance, and

let go of it as willingly as a lady lets go of a fish; all of which

had a good effect, for it was mistaken for an embarrassment natural

to one who was being called upon by greatness.

The dame brought out the table now, and set it under the tree.

It caused a visible stir of surprise, it being brand new and a

sumptuous article of deal. But the surprise rose higher still

when the dame, with a body oozing easy indifference at every pore,

but eyes that gave it all away by absolutely flaming with vanity,

slowly unfolded an actual simon-pure tablecloth and spread it.

That was a notch above even the blacksmith's domestic grandeurs,

and it hit him hard; you could see it. But Marco was in Paradise;

you could see that, too. Then the dame brought two fine new

stools--whew! that was a sensation; it was visible in the eyes of

every guest. Then she brought two more--as calmly as she could.

Sensation again--with awed murmurs. Again she brought two

--walking on air, she was so proud. The guests were petrified, and

the mason muttered:

“There is that about earthly pomps which doth ever move to reverence.”

As the dame turned away, Marco couldn't help slapping on the climax

while the thing was hot; so he said with what was meant for a

languid composure but was a poor imitation of it:

“These suffice; leave the rest.”

So there were more yet! It was a fine effect. I couldn't have

played the hand better myself.

From this out, the madam piled up the surprises with a rush that

fired the general astonishment up to a hundred and fifty in the

shade, and at the same time paralyzed expression of it down to

gasped “Oh's” and “Ah's,” and mute upliftings of hands and eyes.

She fetched crockery--new, and plenty of it; new wooden goblets

and other table furniture; and beer, fish, chicken, a goose, eggs,

roast beef, roast mutton, a ham, a small roast pig, and a wealth

of genuine white wheaten bread. Take it by and large, that spread

laid everything far and away in the shade that ever that crowd had

seen before. And while they sat there just simply stupefied with

wonder and awe, I sort of waved my hand as if by accident, and

the storekeeper's son emerged from space and said he had come

to collect.

“That's all right,” I said, indifferently. “What is the amount?

give us the items.”

Then he read off this bill, while those three amazed men listened,

and serene waves of satisfaction rolled over my soul and alternate

waves of terror and admiration surged over Marco's:

2 pounds salt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

8 dozen pints beer, in the wood . . . . . 800

3 bushels wheat . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,700

2 pounds fish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

3 hens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

1 goose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

3 dozen eggs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

1 roast of beef . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

1 roast of mutton . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

1 ham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800

1 sucking pig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500

2 crockery dinner sets . . . . . . . . . 6,000

2 men's suits and underwear . . . . . . . 2,800

1 stuff and 1 linsey-woolsey gown

and underwear . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,600

8 wooden goblets . . . . . . . . . . . . 800

Various table furniture . . . . . . . . .10,000

1 deal table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,000

8 stools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,000

2 miller guns, loaded . . . . . . . . . . 3,000

He ceased. There was a pale and awful silence. Not a limb stirred.

Not a nostril betrayed the passage of breath.

“Is that all?” I asked, in a voice of the most perfect calmness.

“All, fair sir, save that certain matters of light moment are

placed together under a head hight sundries. If it would like

you, I will sepa--”

“It is of no consequence,” I said, accompanying the words with

a gesture of the most utter indifference; “give me the grand

total, please.”

The clerk leaned against the tree to stay himself, and said:

“Thirty-nine thousand one hundred and fifty milrays!”

The wheelwright fell off his stool, the others grabbed the table

to save themselves, and there was a deep and general ejaculation of:

“God be with us in the day of disaster!”

The clerk hastened to say:

“My father chargeth me to say he cannot honorably require you

to pay it all at this time, and therefore only prayeth you--”

I paid no more heed than if it were the idle breeze, but, with an

air of indifference amounting almost to weariness, got out my money

and tossed four dollars on to the table. Ah, you should have seen

them stare!

The clerk was astonished and charmed. He asked me to retain

one of the dollars as security, until he could go to town and

--I interrupted:

“What, and fetch back nine cents? Nonsense! Take the whole.

Keep the change.”

There was an amazed murmur to this effect:

“Verily this being is _made_ of money! He throweth it away even

as if it were dirt.”

The blacksmith was a crushed man.

The clerk took his money and reeled away drunk with fortune. I said

to Marco and his wife:

“Good folk, here is a little trifle for you”--handing the miller-guns

as if it were a matter of no consequence, though each of them

contained fifteen cents in solid cash; and while the poor creatures

went to pieces with astonishment and gratitude, I turned to the

others and said as calmly as one would ask the time of day:

“Well, if we are all ready, I judge the dinner is. Come, fall to.”

Ah, well, it was immense; yes, it was a daisy. I don't know that

I ever put a situation together better, or got happier spectacular

effects out of the materials available. The blacksmith--well, he

was simply mashed. Land! I wouldn't have felt what that man was

feeling, for anything in the world. Here he had been blowing and

bragging about his grand meat-feast twice a year, and his fresh

meat twice a month, and his salt meat twice a week, and his white

bread every Sunday the year round--all for a family of three; the

entire cost for the year not above 69.2.6 (sixty-nine cents, two

mills and six milrays), and all of a sudden here comes along a man

who slashes out nearly four dollars on a single blow-out; and not

only that, but acts as if it made him tired to handle such small

sums. Yes, Dowley was a good deal wilted, and shrunk-up and

collapsed; he had the aspect of a bladder-balloon that's been

stepped on by a cow.