Of this class there are many branches; but the one with which I have to deal at present is to be studied to most advantage by visiting some pier of the great river-frontage of New York, to which excursion-boats rush emulously at appointed hours, crossing and jostling each other with proper respect for their individual rights as free commoners of the well-tilled waters. Here, as, with audacious disregard of the chance-medley of smashed guards and obliterated paddle-boxes, the great water-wagons graze wheels upon the ripple-paved turnpike of the river, the steamboat-runner, squalidly red from the effects of last night's carouse, and reeking sensibly of the alcoholic "morning call," may be recognized by the native manner in which he makes the pier peculiarly his own,—by the inflammatory character—which unremitting dissipation has imparted to the inhaling apparatus of his unclassical features,—by the filthy splendor of his linen, which a low-buttoning waistcoat, gorgeous and dirty likewise, unbosoms disadvantageously to the gaze of the beholder,—by the invariable "diamond" pin, of gift-book style, with which the juncture of the first-mentioned integument is effected, if not adorned,—and, above all, by the massive guards and guy-chains with which his watch is hitched on to the belaying arrangements of Chatham Street garments, the original texture and tint of which have long been superseded by predominant grease. Hand and elbow with the professional city-rowdy the steamboat-runner is ever to be found: at the cribs, where the second-rate men of the "fancy" hold their secret meetings; clinging about the doors of the Court of Sessions, where, as eavesdroppers,—for they are known to the door-keeper, and rejected from the friendship of that stern officer,—they strive, with ear at keyhole, to catch a word or two which may give them a clue to the probable fate of "Jim," who is in the dock there, on his trial for homicide or some such light peccadillo; loitering round the dog-pit institutions, where the quadrupeds look so amazingly like men and the men like quadrupeds,—especially in that one where the eye of taste may be gratified by the supernatural symmetry of the stuffed bull-terriers in glass cases, the enormity of which specimens is accounted for by the gentlemanly proprietor, who tells us that "the man as stuffed 'em never stuffed anythink else afore, only howls."

I suppose it must have been the tacit acknowledgment of some superiority by me inappreciable, that accorded to one individual of the small assemblage of roughs under notice a decidedly influential position among the congenial spirits hovering around. The superior blanchness of this person's linen would seem to indicate that his association with mere runners was but occasional and for commercial ends. Also might that conclusion have been deduced from the immaculacy of his cream-white Panama hat. That was a jaunty article, with upturned brim, the pride of which was discernible in the very simplicity with which it sat, unadulterated by band or trimmings, upon the closely cropped, mole-colored head of the wearer. Thirty dollars, at least, must have been its marketable value. Instead of being fitted with chain-tackle, the watch of this superior person maintained its connection with the open air by means of a broad watered ribbon plummeted straight down his leg with a seal hardly inferior in size to a deep-sea lead. This daring recurrence to first principles is much to be observed, of late, among the choice spirits of the so-called "sporting" fraternity of New York.

This man, as I supposed, and as I subsequently heard from my friend Locus, of the police, who came upon the pier, was not a runner now, but had risen from that respectable rank by large exercise of the virtues so intimately associated with it. In attributing an exalted position to him I was right. He was the keeper of a house of entertainment for emigrants in one of the down-town tributaries to Broadway, where tickets could also be had for California and most other parts of the world, at an advance of not more than one-third on the rates charged at the regular steamboat-offices. Considering the respectability of this person's occupation, I was surprised when Locus referred to him, familiarly, as "Flashy Joe," adding that he was widely known, if not respected, and that he would, probably, be entitled some day to have his portrait placed in a gallery of which he, Locus, knew, but into which my aesthetic researches have not hitherto led me.

There was another noticeable character in the rough part of the heterogeneous crowd. This man, while on a footing of the greatest intimacy with the runners, was far inferior to them in the matter of dress. Locus, in reply to my queries, informed me that he was a professional oyster-opener; but, judging from his appearance in general, I should have guessed that he was a professional oyster-catcher also,—a human dredge, employed chiefly at the bottom of the sea. A perfect Hercules in build, "Lobster Bob," as Locus called him, made his appearance on the wharf with two enormous creels of oysters, one balanced on each hip, with the careless ease of unconscious strength, His costume consisted solely of a ragged blue cotton shirt and trousers, immense knobby cowskin boots white with age, and a mouldy drab felt hat. The button-less blue shirt flapped widely open from his brawny chest; and his shirt-sleeves, rolled up to the shoulder, gave full display to a pair of arms of a mould not usually to be found outside the prize-ring, and but seldom within the sanctuary of that magic circle. As if in compensation for the merely nominal allowance of costume tolerated by this crustacean professor, his chest and arms were entirely covered with a wild arabesque of tattoo-work, in blue and red. Many and original artists must have been employed in the embellishment of Robert's tawny hide. The one to whose sense of the fitness of things was intrusted the illustration of his right arm had seized boldly upon the oval protuberance of the biceps, a few skilfully disposed dots and dashes upon which had converted it into a face which was no bad reproduction of Bob's own. On the broad flexors of his sun-bronzed fore-arm there blazed a grand device which might have puzzled a whole college of heralds to interpret,—a combination of eagles and banners and shields, coruscating with stars and radiant with stripes. But more suggestive than any of these shams was the stern reality of a purple scar which ran round the back of his neck, from ear to ear. More than one man must have been hurt, when that scar was made.

Notwithstanding the bull-dog projection of this formidable giant's lower jaw, there sometimes beamed on his face that good-natured expression often observable in men whose unusual muscular development places them on a footing of physical superiority to those with whom they shoulder along the road of life. When the runners "chaffed" him, nevertheless, it was in a mild way, and with manifest respect for his muscle,—a sentiment in no way diminished when he suddenly clutched one of the least cautious among them by the nape of the neck, and held him out at arm's-length, for some seconds, over the drowny water that kept lazily licking at the green moss on the old stakes of the rickety pier.

Even unto the Prince of Darkness, saith proverbial philosophy, let us concede his due. If, then, a single ray of good illuminates at some happy moment the dark spirit of these roughs, let it be recorded with that bare, unfledged truth which is so much better a bird than uncandor with the finest of feathers upon him.

Feeling his way into the circle with a stick, there came a poor blind man, of diminutive stature, squeezing beneath his left arm a suffocating accordion, which, every now and then, as he stumbled against the uneven planks of the wharf, gave a querulous squeak, doleful in its cadence as the feeble quavers evoked by Mr. William Davidge, comedian, from the asthmatic clarionet of Jem Bags, in the farce of the "Wandering Minstrel."

"Come, b'hoys!" cried Lobster Bob, "let's have a squeeze of music from Billy, afore the boat comes up"; and, plumping down one of his creels in the middle of the crowd, he lifted up the musician, and seated him upon the rough, cold oysters,—a throne fitter, certainly, for a follower of Neptune than a votary of Apollo. One of the roughs danced an ungraceful measure to the music of the accordion, mimicking, as he did so, the queer contortions into which the musician twisted his features in perfect harmony with his woful strains. All of them were gentle to the blind man, though, as if his darkness had brought to them a ray of light; and presently one of them takes off the musician's cap, drops into it a silver dime, and goes the rounds of the throng with many jocose appeals in favor of the owner, to whom he presently returns it in a condition of silver lining analogous to, but more substantial than that of the poet's cloud.

But now the poor music of the accordion was quite extinguished by the bellowing of the brazen horns of the "cotillon band" on the deck of our expected steamer, as she rounded to from the upper piers at which she had been taking in excursionists. This caused a stir in the crowd under the awning, many of whom were fathers of families taking their wives and children out for a rare holiday. The smallest babies had not been left at home, but were there in all their primary scarletude, set off by the whitest of lace-frilled caps trimmed with the bluest of ribbons. And now came the time for these small choristers to take up the "wondrous tale"; for the big horns had ceased to wrangle, and the crushing and rushing of the crowd woke up infancy to a sense of its wrongs and a consciousness of the necessity for action.

There were some nice-looking girls around, neatly dressed, too, though by no means in their Sunday-best; for la petite New-Yorkaise is aware of the mishaps to be encountered by those who venture far out to sea in ships. They had sweethearts with them, for the most part, or brothers, or cousins, mayhap: but they were sadly neglected by these protectors, as we stood under the awning on the pier; for the male mind was full of fishing, and the male hands were employed in making up tackle with a most unscientific kind of skill.

And now the final rush came, as the steamer made fast alongside the outermost of the boats already lying at the pier, across the decks of which our heterogeneous crowd began to make its way with as little scrambling as possible, on account of the petticoat-hoops, which are capital monitors in a turmoil. Women swayed their babies like balancing-poles, as they tottered along the gangway-plank. Men tried to secure themselves from being brushed into eternity by the powerful sweep of skirts. My own personal reminiscence of this transit from the wharf to the gallant bark of our choice is melancholy and vague, being marked chiefly to memory by the complicated curse bestowed upon me by a hideous old Irish-woman, whose oranges I accidentally upset in the crowd, and by whom I was subsequently derided with buffo song and scurrilous dance as long as the steamer remained within hearing and sight.

Away we are steaming down the bay, at last, a motley party of men, women, and children of all sizes and sorts: husbands, wives, milliners and their lovers; young men who have brought no young women with them, because they have come for fishing and fishing only; and advanced fathers, who, making a virtue of having brought out wife and child for a holiday, now leave them a good deal to take care of themselves, and devote all their energies to being pleasant as remotely from them as circumstances will allow. Roughs, to the number of a dozen or so, mostly steamboat-runners and their congeners, are of the party, headed by Flashy Joe. Lobster Bob has set up his oyster-plank in a central situation. Venders of unfresh-looking refreshments have established themselves on board; and the bar-keeper, near the forecastle, is preparing himself for the worst.

By-and-by I noticed a good-looking specimen of Young New York on board, and was introduced to him by a cigar. He was a handsome boy, with dark, oval face, and Arabian eyes. The silky black line that just marked the curve of his upper lip gave promise of a splendid moustache; his closely crisped black hair was but just visible below the rim of his jaunty straw hat, the band of which was a tasselled cord of crimson silk; while his lithe figure was suggested rather than displayed by the waving lines of his loose brown jacket with tapering gigot sleeves. His low-cut shirt-collar and narrow silken neck-tie were in the style called "English," as quite decidedly, also, were his cross-barred trousers of balloony build; nor, although thus flinging himself for diversion into the vortex of the lower crowd, had he foregone the luxury of tan-colored kid gloves and patent-leather shoes. He was a bright boy, and precocious as a lady-killer; for, already, before we had left far behind us the pleasant slopes of Bay Ridge, with its peeping villa-parapets of brown and white, and its umbrageous masses of chromatic green, he had evidently engaged the affections of an espiegle little straw-bonnet-maker, who did her hair something like his own, in a close-curled crop, and had her pretty little person safely shut up in a high-necked dress.

That young lady had a suitor with her, who was clearly not a sweetheart, however, by a good deal, but merely a follower tolerated for the day, and on the score of convenience only. He was a tall, gaunt, pale young man, with long hands and feet, slouching shoulders and narrow chest, and a strange, indescribable nullity of expression dwelling upon his features. He did not appear to be encouraged much by little Straw-Goods, whose mind was probably occupied with prospective possibilities of being led out to the festive dance by Young New York. Altogether, he was an unsatisfactory-looking young man, his unfinished look reminding one of raw material, though it would have been hard to say for what.

But the band had now ceased mellowing out the favorite medley which begins with "Casta Diva" and runs over into the lovely cadences of "Gentle Annie"; and the abrupt transition from that mournful strain to a light cotillon air warned four hundred holiday-people that the festive dance was about to begin on the wide floor between the engine-room and the saloon. Cotillons are a leading pastime among the people; and as the water was pretty smooth down the bay, and a splendid breeze rushed aft between-decks, many laughing girls and well-dressed matronly women now made their appearance on the floor. Dancing without noise is a luxury as yet uncalled for. Dancers must have music, we know,—and what is music, but wild noise caught and trained? But these cotillons were unnecessarily boisterous, on account of the roughs, who, looked upon as outsiders by the better-behaved portion of the throng, got up a wild war-step of their own on the skirts of the legitimate dance, dishonestly appropriating to their coarse movements the music intended for it alone, as they stamped and shouted, and wheeled round with a ludicrous affectation of grace, in the space between the dancers and the bulkheads of the deck. One of these roughs, a drunken, young fellow of wiry build, whose hair, face, eyes, nose, ears, and hands were all of the color of tomato-catchup, might have made an excellent low comedian, had destiny led him upon the "boards." He had just been complaining to his companions that his hand had been refused for the dance by a girl at whom he pointed the red finger of wrath,—a pale, but very interesting seamstress, who was whirling about with a much decenter young man than the red one is ever likely to be. And then he nobly took his revenge by the clever, but unprincipled way in which he caricatured the rather remarkable dancing of the young man who was the object of his hate, and whose style of movement it would not be consistent with this writer's duty to deny was amenable to severity, and must, in any society, have subjected him who indulged in it to the scorn of the flouter and the contempt of all high-minded men.

All through the dance, it was a thing to be remembered, how superior in deportment the women were to the men. Probably it was from a natural instinct for grace, and abhorrence of the ludicrous, that they merely skimmed through the figures, without any of the demonstrations displayed by their beaux. It was pleasant to look at the nice little straw-goods damsel with the boyish hair, and to mark the contrast between her kitten glidings and the premeditated atrocities of Raw Material, as he wove and unwove his ungainly legs before her, in a manner appalling to witness. She had only a common palm-leaf fan, I remarked,—worth, probably, about two cents. But Young New York, as he waited patiently for the deadly ocean-malady to fall upon Raw Material, who was unquestionably a subject for it, and was drinking, besides, drew tightly up his tan-colored gloves, and, twirling with finger and thumb the air just about where it must some day be displaced by the future tendrils of the coming moustache, affirmed upon oath his intention of presenting her with a fan more worthy of her well-kept little hand, ere kind Fortune could have time to drop another excursion-ticket into her work-basket.

Should the solemn question arise as to how I knew that one of these young women was in the straw-bonnet line, another a milliner, a third a dress-maker, and so forth, I will answer it by stating that the left forefinger of the seamstress, long since vulcanized into a little file, furnishes the infallible sign which indicates the class. To the practised eye, the varieties are known by many a token: by the smart little close-grained cereal bonnet which little Straw-Goods put away before she came into the dance; by the spicy creation of silk and ribbons which roosts demurely, like a cedar-bird, on the back hair of the pale girl, who is a milliner; by the superior manner in which the hoops are disguised in the structure surrounding that blonde young wife with the pink baby, who is a dressmaker. Let the lofty read studiously the signs that in the heavens are portentous of storm or of shine; I, who am of commoner clay, must content myself with deciphering those that are of earth.

But a "sea-change" was upon us. Last night there was a tornado of rain and thunder and wind, and the effects of the latter were now perceptible, as we began to rock through the ground-swell off Sandy Hook, and down past the twin light-houses on the high, sunny ridges of Neversink. The music ceased, the dancers deserted the 'tween-decks floor, and, as the rocking of the boat increased, there arose in the direction of the ladies' cabin audible suggestions of woe.

And now the twin beacon-towers of Neversink were far, far behind, having taken a position with regard to us which may be described, in military phrase, as an echelon movement upon our flank, and we went surging through a fleet of little green fishing-boats, manned each by a single fisherman in a red shirt, whose two horny hands appeared to be a couple too few for the hauling in of the violet and silver porgies, with which the well of his little green craft was alive and flapping. In the middle of this fleet we rounded to, the anchor was let go, and we were hard and fast upon the Fishing-Banks.

The first thing done, on these excursions, by those who come to fish,—which includes nearly all the men,—is to establish a claim somewhere along the railing of the steamer, by attaching to it a strong whip-cord fishing-line, with a leaden sinker and hook of moderate size,—the latter lashed on, in most instances, with a disregard for art which must be intensely disgusting to any man whose piscatorial memories are associated with the wily salmon and the epicurean trout. Triangular tin boxes are brought along by the fishermen to hold their bait, which consists of soft clams, liberally sprinkled with salt to keep them in a wholesome condition for the afternoon take. Attaching a line to any part of the rail or combings, or to any projecting point of the boat, establishes the droit de peche at that particular spot,—a right respected with such rigorous etiquette, that the owner may then go his way with confidence, to inspect the resources of the bar, or join the gay throng of dancers between-decks.

There must be something singularly fascinating in this curious pastime of fishing with a hand-line from the jumping-off places of a steamboat or pier. Doubtless it is from a defective sympathetic organization that the writer of these pages does not himself "seem to see it." Nevertheless, I look upon the illusion with a respect almost bordering upon fear, although not quite in that spirit of veneration which moves illogical savages to fall down and worship the stranger lunatic whom chance has led to their odorous residences. Dwelling one summer on the New Jersey shore, I used to loiter, day after day, upon a deserted wharf, at the end of which was ever to be seen a broad-beamed fisherman, sitting upon an uncomfortably wooden chair, from which he dabbled perpetually with his whip-cord line in the shallow water that washed the slimy face-timbers of the wharf. There he sat, day after day, and all day, and, for aught I know, all through the summer-night, a big-timbered, sea-worthy man, reading contentedly a daily paper of local growth, and pulling up never a better bit of sea-luck than the puny, mean-spirited fishling called by unscientific persons the burgall. I would at any time have freely given ten cents for the privilege of overhauling old broad-beam's carpet-bag, which he always placed before him on the string-piece, with a view, I suppose, of frustrating anything like a guerrilla plunder-movement upon his widely extended rear. Ay, there must be something strangely entrancing in dragging the shoal waters with a hand-line, for unsuspicious, easily duped members of the acanthopterygian tribe of fishes,—under which alarming denomination come, I believe, nearly all the finny fellows to be met with on these sand-banks, from the bluefish to the burgall. Only think how stuck up they would be above the lowly mollusks of the same waters, if they knew themselves as Acanthopterygii, and were aware that their great-grandfather was an Acanthopteryx before them, and so away back in the age of waters that once were over all! "Very ancient and fish-like" is their genealogy, to be sure!

In the far-away days, when Neversink was, but the twin beacon-towers that now watch upon its heights were not,—when Sandy Hook was a hook only, and not a telegraph-station, from which the first glimpse of an inward-bound argosy is winked by lightning right in at the window of the down-town office where Mercator sits jingling the coins in his trousers' pockets,—in those days, the only excursion-boats that rocked upon the ground-swell over the pale, sandy reaches of the Fishing-Banks were the tiny barklets that shot out on calm days from the sweeping coves, with their tawny tarred-and-feathered crews: for of such grotesque result of the decorative art of Lynch doth ever remind me the noble Indian warrior in his plumes and paint. Unfitted, by the circumscribed character of their sea-craft, their tackle, and their skill, for pushing their enterprise out into the deeper water, where the shark might haply say to the horse-mackerel,—"Come, old horse, let you and me hook ourselves on, and take these foolish tawny fellows and their brown cockle-shell down into the under-tow,"—they supplied their primitive wants by enticing from the shallows the beautiful, sunny-scaled shoal-fish, well named by ichthyologists Argyrops, the "silver-eyed." But the poor Indian, who knew no Greek,—poor old savage, lament for him with a scholarly eheu!—called this shiner of the sea, in his own barbarous lingo, Scuppaug. Can any master of Indian dialects tell us whether that word, too, means "him of the silver eye"? If it does, revoke, O student, your shrill eheu for the Greekless and untrousered savage of the canoe, suppress your feelings, and go steadily into rhabdomancy with several divining-rods, in search of the Pierian spring which must surely exist somewhere among the guttural districts of the Ojibbeway tongue.

And here there is diversion for philologist as well as fisherman; for while the latter is catching the fish, the former may seize on the fact, that in this word, Scuppaug, is to be found the origin of the two separate names by which Argyrops, the silver-eyed, is miscalled in local vernacular. True to the national proclivity for clipping names, the fishermen of Rhode Island appeal to him by the first syllable only of his Indian one,—for in the waters thereabout he is talked of by the familiar abbreviation, Scup. But to the excursionists and fishermen of New York he is known only as Porgy, or Paugie, a form as obviously derived from the last syllable of his Indian name as the emphatic "siree" of our greatest orators is from the modest monosyllable "sir." Porgy seems to be the accepted form of the word; but letters of the old, unphonetic kind are poor guides to pronunciation. And a beautiful, clean-scaled fish is Porgy,—whose g, by-the-by, as I learned from a funny man in the heterogeneous crowd, is pronounced "hard, as in 'git eowt.'" A lovely fish is he, as he comes dripping up the side of the vessel from his briny pastures. Silver is the pervading gleam of his oval form; but while he is yet wet and fresh, the silver is flushed with a chromatic radiance of gold, and violet, and pale metallic green, all blending and harmonizing like the mother-o'-pearl lustre in some rare sea-shell. The true value of this fish is not of a commercial kind, for he cannot be deemed particularly exquisite in a gastronomic sense; neither is he staple as a provision of food. His virtue lies in the inducement offered to him by the citizen of moderate means, who, for a trifling outlay, can secure for himself and family the invigorating influence of the salt sea-breezes, by having a run down outside the Hook any fine day in summer, with an object. The average weight of the porgy of these banks may be set down at about a pound.

Five minutes after we came to anchor, there must have been at least two hundred and fifty whip-cord lines stretching out into the three-fathom water from every available rail and fender of the old boat. Most of the men had brought their tackle with them, and their tin canisters of bait. To those who had not, the articles were ready at hand; for speculators had mingled in the crowd, one of whom affixed his "shingle" to a post between-decks, setting forth,—"Fishing-Lines and Hooks, with Sinkers and Bait,"—the latter consisting of clams in the shell, contained in a barrel big enough for the supply of the whole flotilla of green boats and red shirts, which still hung around us like swallows in the wake of an osprey. Two or three of our excursionists—men, perhaps, whose minds indulged in dear memories of a brook that babbles by a mill—had fishing-rods with them, and made great ado with scientific lunges and casts, producing much discord, indeed, by flicking away wildly outside their proper sea-limits. Most industrious among the hand-fishers I remarked a small, spare man, who, under the careful supervision of a buxom young wife in a "loud" tartan silk, baited no hook nor broke water with his lead until he had first folded and put carefully away between the handle and lid of the family prog-basket his tight little black frock-coat, and passed his small legs through the tough creases of a pair of stout blue "Denim" overalls. These, pulled up to his neck, and hitched on there with shoulder-straps, served for waistcoat and trousers and all, imparting to him the cool atmospheric effect so much admired in that curious picture of Gainsborough's, known to connoisseurs as "The Blue Boy." Then he fished the waters with a will; and it was but a scurvy remark of Flashy Joe, who said that "it was about an even chance whether he took porgy or porgy took him." But it seems to me that this unskilled labor of fishing from a steamboat must be epidemic, if not contagious; for even Young New York, who in the early forenoon doubted visibly his discretion at having got himself into such an ugly scrape as an "excursion-spree," put off his delicate gloves, and set to hauling, hand over hand, as if for a bet.

But I believe I have committed a breach of etiquette in giving precedence to Scuppaug over the skipper, a very large and thoroughly pickled old man, who now bustled deliberately about the decks, with as few clothes on his broad back and stern-post legs as were consistent with decorum and with the requirements of those by-laws of society which extend even to Sandy Hook and the rest of the Jerseys, as well as to the fishing-banks that shoal out from the same. Strictly speaking, this old man of our part of the sea was not the captain of the boat, but the pilot, who takes command of her when she abandons her proper line on the rivers, and ventures to that "far Cathay" of city-navigators indefinitely spoken of as "outside the Hook." The smooth-water captain of the steamer, who was nobody to talk of now, was a slim, pale young man, in a black dresscoat, tall, silky hat, and shoes of a material which has long years ago been patented, on account of its matchless ability to shine. This commander remained permanently within the "office," where he was probably very poorly by himself during all this "high old time." The stout old pilot was the real skipper; and now that the vessel had come to anchor, he turned from his lighter duties to the grave pastime of the day, and fished earnestly through a large hole in the paddlebox,—the porgies that came to his allurements arriving at their destination by a series of flapping manoeuvres from blade to blade of the wheel. For so burly a man, and one with such a chest for the stowage of sea-breezes and monsoons, the skipper was provided with a wonderfully small voice, suggesting, as he lectured upon sea-fishing to the novices who were getting into "snarls" with their tackle hard by where he sat, the circumstance of a tree-toad discoursing from the hollow of a brave old oak.

"If you want to ketch good fish," said he, sententiously, to Young New York, whose hook persisted in baiting itself with his thumb,—"if you want to ketch reel snorters, you must have a heavy line, heavy lead, and gimp tackle. Then take your own time, haul in, hand over hand, and no matter what the heft, you'll be sure to fetch him."

Young New York produced from his breast-pocket the blue enamelled case in which reposed his ivory tablets, and, seating himself upon the chain-box, wrote down with golden pencil the dictum of the sage.

Notwithstanding the storm of yesterday, from which the discontented foreboded a stampede of the fish to deeper waters, porgies to an extraordinary amount were soon heaped on the decks, at the feet of each fisherman, the more careful of whom put them into baskets or barrels. But in general they were thrown carelessly on the deck, with a string passed through their gills to keep them from straying out of their proper lots. When these bright fishes are lying the deck, it is curious to watch them flushing and gasping there, with that singular, dubious expression of mouth peculiar to fishes out of water, as if more struck by the absence of that element than by their novel position among the accessories of dry life. Now and then a blackfish was hauled in,—an event greeted with a loud cheer from all parts of the boat. When a very large one was announced, people came rushing from all quarters to see it; but the greatest tribute to largeness in a fish that I remember anywhere to have seen was the altered expression on the face of a baby some six months old, whose features settled permanently down into the collapse of imbecility, from the moment of the arrival on the upper deck of a blackfish two feet long.

By this time the scene on the forecastle was quite a picture of the Dutch school. Grouped everywhere among the fish and fishers were matronly women and unbonneted damsels, most of them with handkerchiefs tied upon their heads; for they had got over their sea-sickness, now, and were coming by twos and threes from the saloon, to breathe a little fresh air and look on at the sport. One pretty, Jewish-looking girl, wrapped in a red and white shawl, was sitting on the big anchor near the bows, and three or four others looked quite picturesque, as they reclined on the heavy coils of the great cable. More central to the picture than was at all advantageous to it sat our friend Raw Material, with his head jammed recklessly into the capstan, abandoning himself to his misery. For the inevitable malady had fallen upon him among the first; and as he sat there, helpless and without hope, upon one of those life-preserving stools that remind one, by their shape, of the "properties" of Saturn in the mythology of old, he looked like Languor on an hour-glass, timing the duration of Woe. All along the bulwarks on both sides of the boat, men and boys were crowding upon each other, casting out and hauling in their lines with unflagging spirit. Slim city-children, blistered wholesomely as to their legs, from knee to ankle, by the sun and the salt air, harnessed themselves to little heaps of fish, and were driven about the upper deck in various fashionable styles, including four-in-hand and tandem, by other slim city-children, whose lower extremities had been treated in the same beneficial manner by the same eminent physicians. The musicians had laid away their cornopeans and other cunningly twisted horns upon the broad disk of the big drum, in a dark alcove between-decks, and were fishing savagely in German and broken English, according to the nationality with which their affairs happened to get entangled. Even the colored chef de cuisine, a muscular mulatto, with a beard of a rash disposition, coming out on wrong parts of his face in little eruptive pustules of black wool, sported his lines out of the galley-airholes, and his porgies were simmering in the pan while their memories were yet green in the submarine parishes from which they came. Have these finny creatures their full revenge upon fishermankind, when a smack sinks foundered into the swallowing deep? Do the midnight revellers in the sea-caverns call out in broad Scuppaug to the attendant mermaid for a "half-dozen large-sized jolterheads on the half monkey-jacket?" To these queries I hope that Poetical Justice, if still living, will forward a reply at her earliest convenience. Porgy now began to pervade the air with an astringent perfume of the sea: none of your Fulton Market smells of stagnating fish, but a clean, wholesome, coralline odor, such as we may imagine supplied to the Peris "beneath the dark sea" by the scaly fellows in the toilet line down there, who are likely to keep it for sale in conch-shells,—quarts and pints. Porgy prevailed to that extent, in fact, that it came to be talked of, by-and-by, as a circulating medium; and a hard-fisted mechanic averred his intention of compensating his landlady for his board with porgy, for the week that was passing away.

For some time, luck appeared to favor the starboard side of the boat, at which the take was much greater than at the other. Hence, discontent began to crawl in at the port-gangways, and the fishermen on that side were gradually edging over to the other, to look for a chance of stealing in their lines clandestinely between the ranks. This led to an interchange of bad compliments, as well as to a very perceptible slanting of the deck, and the captain piped out to the hands to shift the chain-box. And by this action was resolved for me a riddle with regard to the properties and uses of a prematurely stout man of fabulous girth, who had been dimly revealed to me, once or twice in the course of the voyage, through some long vista of the 'tween-decks, but seemed always to melt into air,—or, more probably, oil,—upon any advance being made to a closer inspection. Now, as a couple of the deck-hands hauled and howled unsuccessfully at the unwieldy chain-box, this mysterious person suddenly appeared, as if spirited up, and, throwing himself stomach on to the loaded vehicle, shot across with it to the other side of the deck with wonderful velocity, retiring, then, with a gliding movement, so as to preserve the rectitude of the deck, which now seemed inclined to slope rather too much the other way. I will not undertake to say, for certain, that the stout man was paid for doing this; but, as his hands were small and remarkably white, indications that he toiled not with them, and as he made his appearance on deck only when movable ballast was wanted, I am bound to suppose that he secured a living by sitting heavily and throwing himself on for weight, in circumstances under which such actions command a standard value.

Three hours having gone by since we came to anchor, the healthful toil of fishing in the salt sea produced its natural result,—a ravenous appetite for food and drink; and a common consent to partake of refreshments now began to develop itself. The wives had much to do with this, as they detailed themselves along the railings, influencing their husbands with hints about the hamper and flask. For most of the family-people had brought their provisions with them; and, in many cases, the basket was flanked by a stone jar which looked as if it might contain lager-beer,—as, in several instances, it did. Where there were many small children in a party, however, I noticed that the beverage obtained from the jar was milk,—real Orange County cow-produce, let us hope, and none of that sickly town-abomination, the vending of which ought to be made by our legislators a felony, at least. Ham-sandwiches, greatly enhanced in flavor by the circumstance of their outer surfaces being impressed with a reverse of yesterday's news, from the contact of the pieces of newspaper in which they were wrapped up, formed the staple of the feast. Large bowls of the various, seasonable berries were also in request; and all the shady places of the ship were soon occupied by families, who distributed themselves in independent groups, as people do in the sylvan localities dedicated to picnics. All were hungry and happy, all better in mind and body,—illustrating the wise providence of the instinct that whispers to the over-wrought artisan and bids him go sometimes forth on a summer's day to the woods and waters,—a move which the marine character of the subject impels me to speak of nautically, but reverently, as taking himself and family into the graving-dock of Nature, for the necessary repairs.

Some of the girls now stole slyly about among the lines, and popped the baits timidly into the blue water. The pale seamstress, who has quite a rose-flush on her cheek now, has hooked a good-sized porgy, and her screams in this terrible predicament have brought several smart young men to her rescue. Another girl, pretty and well-dressed,—in the glove-making line, as I guess from the family she is with, all of whom, from paterfamilias to baby, are begloved in a manner entirely irrespective of expense,—is kneeling pensively on the stern-benches of the upper deck, paying out the line with confidence in herself, but evidently hoping for masculine assistance in the process of hauling it in.

And where were our dear friends, the roughs, all this time? and how came it that they were so quiet? They have been asleep,—snoring off the effects of last night's diversions, and fortifying their constitutions against the influences to come. Ever since the music ceased playing, these fellows have been rolled away, singly or in heaps, in crooked corners, into which they seem to fit naturally. But now they began to rally, waking up and stretching themselves and yawning,—the last two actions appearing to be the leading operations of a rowdy's toilet; and, gathering round Lobster Bob, who has been steadily employed in opening oysters for all who have a midsummer faith in those mollusks, they commenced rapidly swallowing great quantities of the various kinds, which they seasoned to an alarming extent with coarse black pepper and brownish salt. The fierce thirst, which, with these men, is not a consequence, because it is a thing that was and is and ever will be, was brought vividly to their minds by this unnecessary adstimulation; and now the bar-keeper, whose lager-beer was wellnigh exhausted, from its connection with ham-sandwiches, had enough to do to furnish them with whiskey, of which stimulant there was but too large a supply on hand. The consequence of this was soon apparent in the ugly hilarity with which the rowdies entered upon the enjoyment of the afternoon. First, in spite of the remonstrances of the Teuton whose proper chattel it was, they seized upon the large drum, with which they made an astounding din in the public promenades of the vessel, abetted, I am sorry to say, by some who ought to have known better,—and did, probably, before the whiskey had curdled their wits. In this proceeding, as in all their movements, they were marshalled by Flashy Joe, whose comparatively spruce appearance, when he came on board in the morning, had been a good deal deteriorated by broken slumbers in places not remote from coals, and by the subsequent course of drinks. Quiet people were beginning to express some dissatisfaction with the noise made by these fellows, who, however, kept pretty much by themselves, as yet, and had got only to the musical stage of the proceedings, chorusing with unearthly yells a song contributed to the harmony of the afternoon by the first ruffian, the burden of which ran,—

"When this old hat was ny-oo, my boys, When this old hat was ny-oo-ooo!"

No voice in this chorus dwelt more decidedly by itself than the shrill one belonging to the small, spare man already spoken of as having a buxom young wife and blue cotton overalls. During his wife's adjournment to the ladies' cabin, this person, I am obliged to record, had become boisterously drunk,—a condition in which the contradictory elements that make up the characters of most men are generally developed to an instructive extent. In his first paroxysm, the fighting man within him was all aroused, as is generally the case with diminutive men, when under the influence of drink. Already he had tucked his sleeves up to fight a large German musician, who could have put him into the bell of his brass-horn and played him out, without much trouble. But the song pacified him; and, with a misty sense of his importance in a convivial point of view, on account of the manner in which he had acquitted himself in the chorus, he now essayed a higher flight, and treated the party to a new version of "The Pope," oddly condensed into one verse, as follows:—

"The Pope, he leads a happy life, He fears no married care nor strife, His wives are many as be will: I would the Sultan's place, then, fill!"

At this moment the buxom young wife descended suddenly from the upper deck by the forecastle-ladder, like Nemesis from a thunder-cloud, and, seizing upon the small warbler, to whom she administered a preliminary shake which must have sadly changed the current of his ideas, drove him ignominiously before her toward the stern of the vessel, rapping him occasionally about the ears with the hard end of her fan, to keep him on a straight course. Persons who traced the matter farther said that he was driven all the way to the upper deck, pushed with gentle violence into a state-room, the door locked upon him, and the key pocketed by the lady, who said triumphantly, as she walked away,—"That's the Sultan's place for him, I guess!" The moral to this little episode is but a horn-book one, and without any pretension to didactic force: That respectable citizens, like the small, spare man, would do well, on excursion-trips or elsewhere, to avoid whiskey and black-guards; and that wives might be saved a deal of trouble by keeping their eyes permanently on their husbands, when the latter are of uncertain ways.

This little domestic drama had hardly been played out, when a more serious one—almost a tragedy—was enacted on the forecastle. It originated in the misconduct of the red man, who, seized with a desire to catch porgies, went a short way to work for tackle, by snatching away the line of a peaceable, but stout Frenchman, who was paralyzed for a moment by the novelty of the thing, but, immediately recovering himself, expressed his dissent by smashing an earthen-ware dish, containing a great mess of raw clams for bait, upon the head of the red man, as he stooped over the railing to fish. This led to a general fight, in which blood flowed freely, and the roughs were getting rather the upper-hand. Knives were drawn by some of the Germans and others in self-defence, and great consternation reigned in the afterpart of the boat and the neighborhood of the ladies' cabin. Then the slim captain of the boat—the one in the black dress-coat—hurriedly whispered something to Lobster Bob, who rushed away aft, where the fight was now agglomerating, headed by the red man and Flashy Joe, both covered with blood, and looking like demons, as they wrestled and bit through the Crowd. Just as they hustled past a large chest intended for the stowage of life-preservers, Lobster Bob kicked the lid of it open with a bang, and, seizing up the red man, neck and crop, with his huge, tattooed hands, dropped him into it and shut down the lid, which was promptly sat upon by the large, stout, smiling man already favorably spoken of in these pages, who suddenly made his appearance from nowhere in particular. The picture of contentment, he sat there like one who knew how, caressing slowly his large knees with his short, plump hands, until the cries from the chest began to wax feeble, when he slowly arose, vanished, and I never saw him again. The red rowdy was then dragged, half-suffocated, from his imprisonment, and as much life as he ought ever to be intrusted with restored to him by the stout old skipper, who was at hand with a couple of buckets full of cold salt-water, with which he drenched him liberally, as he slunk away. A diversion thus effected, the disturbance was quelled. All was quiet in a short time, and the word was passed to heave the anchor and 'bout ship for home.

On the way back, we took a pleasant course inside the Hook, which brought the charming scenery of the Jersey shore and of Staten Island before us, as a pleasant drop-curtain on the melodrama just closed. The music again struck up, and dancing was resumed with fresh vigor,—the waltzing of all other couples being quite eclipsed by that of Young New York and little Straw-Goods, who had effectually got rid of her tipsy persecutor ever since the ground-swell, and was keeping rather in the background of late, with a sober-minded lady whom she called "aunty." With the exception of the few who took to whiskey and bad company, all appeared contented, and the better for their sea-holiday. The very musicians played with greater spirit than they did before, owing, perhaps, to their remarkable success in the porgy-fishery. One of the horn-players, far too knowing to let his fish out of sight, has propped his music-book up against a pyramid of them, as upon a desk. The good-looking man who plays upon the double-bass is equally prudent with regard to his trophies, which he has hung up around the post on which is pinned the score to which he looks for directions when it becomes necessary to bind together with string-music the pensive interchanges of the sax-horn and bassoon.

And now, as our vessel neared the wharf from which we had started while the sun was yet in the east, I looked forward to see what signs of the times were astir on the forecastle. All had deserted it, and were tending aft, with their tackle, their fish, and their prog-baskets,—all, at least, except Raw Material, of whom we enjoyed now an uninterrupted view, as he sat in his old position, with his head jammed obstinately into the capstan. But how was this?—he was round at the opposite side of it now; and I puzzled myself for a moment, thinking whether this change of bearings could be accounted for by the fact of the boat being headed the other way.

But Young New York, who is far more nautical than I am, and has a big brother in one of the yacht-clubs, derided the idea, and said he must have gone round with the handspikes, when the anchor was hove.

And there he remained, as we went our way,—a modern Spartan slave in a kind of marine pillory,—conveying to the red-legged children of Gotham, as they toddled ashore, a useful lesson on the doubtful relations existing between whiskey and pleasure.



COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION.

The beaver cut his timber With patient teeth that day, The minks were fish-wards, and the cows Surveyors of highway,—

When Keezar sat on the hillside Upon his cobbler's form, With a pan of coals on either hand To keep his waxed-ends warm.

And there, in the golden weather, He stitched and hammered and sung; In the brook he moistened his leather, In the pewter mug his tongue.

Well knew the tough old Teuton Who brewed the stoutest ale, And he paid the good-wife's reckoning In the coin of song and tale.

The songs they still are singing Who dress the hills of vine, The tales that haunt the Brocken And whisper down the Rhine.

Woodsy and wild and lonesome, The swift stream wound away, Through birches and scarlet maples Flashing in foam and spray,—

Down on the sharp-horned ledges Plunging in steep cascade, Tossing its white-maned waters Against the hemlock's shade.

Woodsy and wild and lonesome, East and west and north and south; Only the village of fishers Down at the river's mouth;

Only here and there a clearing With its farm-house rude and new, And tree-stumps, swart as Indians, Where the scanty harvest grew.

No shout of home-bound reapers, No vintage-song he heard, And on the green no dancing feet The merry violin stirred.

"Why should folk be glum," said Keezar, "When Nature herself is glad, And the painted woods are laughing At the faces so sour and sad?"

Small heed had the careless cobbler What sorrow of heart was theirs Who travailed in pain with the births of God, And planted a state with prayers,—

Hunting of witches and warlocks, Smiting the heathen horde,— One hand on the mason's trowel, And one on the soldier's sword!

But give him his ale and cider, Give him his pipe and song, Little he cared for church or state, Or the balance of right and wrong.

"'Tis work, work, work," he muttered,— "And for rest a snuffle of psalms!" He smote on his leathern apron With his brown and waxen palms.

"Oh for the purple harvests Of the days when I was young! For the merry grape-stained maidens, And the pleasant songs they sung!

"Oh for the breath of vineyards, Of apples and nuts and wine! For an oar to row and a breeze to blow Down the grand old river Rhine!"

A tear in his blue eye glistened And dropped on his beard so gray. "Old, old am I," said Keezar, "And the Rhine flows far away!"

But a cunning man was the cobbler; He could call the birds from the trees, Charm the black snake out of the ledges, And bring back the swarming bees.

All the virtues of herbs and metals, All the lore of the woods he knew, And the arts of the Old World mingled With the marvels of the New.

Well he knew the tricks of magic, And the lapstone on his knee Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles Or the stone of Doctor Dee.

For the mighty master Agrippa Wrought it with spell and rhyme From a fragment of mystic moonstone In the tower of Nettesheim.

To a cobbler Minnesinger The marvellous stone gave he,— And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar, Who brought it over the sea.

He held up that mystic lapstone, He held it up like a lens, And he counted the long years coming By twenties and by tens.

"One hundred years," quoth Keezar, "And fifty have I told: Now open the new before me, And shut me out the old!"

Like a cloud of mist, the blackness Rolled from the magic stone, And a marvellous picture mingled The unknown and the known.

Still ran the stream to the river, And river and ocean joined; And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line, And cold north hills behind.

But the mighty forest was broken By many a steepled town, By many a white-walled farm-house And many a garner brown.

Turning a score of mill-wheels, The stream no more ran free; White sails on the winding river, White sails on the far-off sea.

Below in the noisy village The flags were floating gay, And shone on a thousand faces The light of a holiday.

Swiftly the rival ploughmen Turned the brown earth from their shares; Here were the farmer's treasures, There were the craftsman's wares.

Golden the good-wife's butter, Ruby her currant-wine; Grand were the strutting turkeys, Fat were the beeves and swine.

Yellow and red were the apples, And the ripe pears russet-brown, And the peaches had stolen blushes From the girls who shook them down.

And with blooms of hill and wild-wood, That shame the toil of art, Mingled the gorgeous blossoms Of the garden's tropic heart.

"What is it I see?" said Keezar: "Am I here, or am I there? Is it a fete at Bingen? Do I look on Frankfort fair?

"But where are the clowns and puppets, And imps with horns and tail? And where are the Rhenish flagons? And where is the foaming ale?

"Strange things, I know, will happen,— Strange things the Lord permits; But that droughty folk should be jolly Puzzles my poor old wits.

"Here are smiling manly faces, And the maiden's step is gay; Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking, Nor mopes, nor fools are they.

"Hero's pleasure without regretting, And good without abuse, The holiday and the bridal Of beauty and of use.

"Here's a priest and there is a Quaker,— Do the cat and the dog agree? Have they burned the stocks for oven-wood? Have they cut down the gallows-tree?

"Would the old folk know their children? Would they own the graceless town, With never a ranter to worry And never a witch to drown?"

Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar, Laughed like a school-boy gay; Tossing his arms above him, The lapstone rolled away.

It rolled down the rugged hill-side, It spun like a wheel bewitched, It plunged through the leaning willows, And into the river pitched.

There, in the deep, dark water, The magic stone lies still, Under the leaning willows In the shadow of the hill.

But oft the idle fisher Sits on the shadowy bank, And his dreams make marvellous pictures Where the wizard's moonstone sank.

And still, in the summer twilights, When the river seems to run Out from the inner glory, Warm with the melted sun,

The weary mill-girl lingers Beside the charmed stream, And the sky and the golden water Shape and color her dream.

Fair wave the sunset gardens, The rosy signals fly; Her homestead beckons from the cloud, And love goes sailing by!



THE FIRST ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH.

"In the name of the Prophet:—Figs!"

"Eh, bien, Sare! wiz you Field and ze uzzers! Zey is ver' good men, sans doute, an' zey know how make ze money; mais—gros materialistes, I tell you, Sare! Vat zen? I sall sink I know, I! Oui, Monsieur, I, Cesar Prevost, who has ze honneur to stand before you,—I am ze original inventeur of ze Telegraphique Communication wiz Europe!"

It was about the period when, with the fast world of cities, De Sauty was beginning to become type of an "ism"; already the attention of excitement-hunters had travelled far from Trinity Bay, and Cyrus Field had yielded his harvest. Nevertheless, to me, who had just come to town from a quiet country seclusion into which news made its entry teredo-fashion only, the performances of the Agamemnon and Niagara were matters of fresh and vivid interest. So I purchased Mr. Briggs's book, and went to Guy's, to cut the leaves over a steak and a bottle of Edinburgh ale. It was while I was thus engaged that the little Frenchman had accosted me, calling my attention to his wares with such perfect courtesy, such airy grace, that I was forced to look at his baskets. And looking, I was induced to lay down my book and examine them more closely; for they were really pretty,—made of extremely white and delicate wood, showing an exquisite taste in their design, and being neatly and carefully finished. Then it was, that, having apparently noticed the title of my book, M. Cesar Prevost had used the language above quoted, and with such empressement of manner, that my attention was diverted from his wares to himself. I looked at him with some curiosity.

He was a little old Frenchman, lean as a haunch of dried venison, and scarcely less dark in complexion,—though his color was nearer that of rappee snuff, and had not the rich blood-lined purple of venison. His face was wofully meagre, and seemed scored and overlaid with care-marks. Nevertheless, there was an energetic, nervous, almost humorsome mobility about his mouth; while his little beady black eyes, quick, warm, scintillant, had ten times the life one would have expected to find keeping company with his fifty years. In dress, he was very threadbare, and, sooth to say, not over-clean; yet he was jaunty, and moved with the air of a man much better clad. I was impressed with his appearance, and especially with his voice, which was vibrant, firm, and excellently intoned. It is my foible, perhaps, but I am always charmed with bonhommie, I class originality among the cardinal virtues, and I am as eager in the chase after eccentricity as a veteran fox-hunter is in pursuit of Reynard. M. Cesar promised a compensative proportion of all three qualities, could I only "draw him out"; and besides, he was not like Mr. Canning's "Knife-Grinder,"—for, evidently, he had a story to tell.

Observing my scrutiny, he smiled; a singular, ironical smile it was, yet without a particle of bitterness or of cynicism.

"Eh, bien!" said he; "you stare, Monsieur! you sink me an excentrique. Vraiment! I am use to zat,—I am use to have persons smile reeseeblement, to tap zere fronts, an' spek of ze strait-jackets. Never fear,—I am toujours harmless! Mais, Monsieur, it is true, vat I tell you: I am ze original inventeur of ze Atlantic Telegraph! You mus' not comprehend me, Sare, to intend somesing vat persons call ze Telegraph,—such like ze Electric Telegraph of Monsieur Morse,—a vulgaire sing of ze vire and ze acid. Mon Dieu, non! far more perfect,—far more grrand,—far more original! Ze acid may burn ze finger,—ze vire vill become rrusty,—ze isolation subject always to ze atmosphere. Ah, bah! Vat make you in zat event? As ze pure lustre of ze diamant of Golconde to ze distorted rays of a morsel of bottle-glass, so my grrand invention to ze modes of ze telegraph in vogue at present!"

"Monsieur, you shall tell me about it," said I, pointing to a seat on the other side of the table; "sit down there, and tell me about your invention, and in your native language,—that is, if you can spare the time to do so, and to drink a glass of Bordeaux with me."

He accepted my invitation as a gentleman would, sipped his wine like a connoisseur, passed me a few compliments, such as any French gentleman might toss to you, if you had asked him to join you in a glass of wine in one of his city's cafes, and then proceeded with his story. My translation gives but a faint echo of the impression made upon me by his life, vigor, and originality; but still I have striven to do him as little injustice as possible.

"Monsieur, it is ten years since I accomplished, put in practice, and evoked practical results from this international communication, which your two peoples have failed to establish, in spite of all their money, their great ships, and the united wisdom of their savans. I am a Frenchman, Monsieur,—and, you know, France is the congenial soil of Science. In that country, where they laugh ever and se jouent de tout, Science is sacred;—the Academy has even pas of the army; honors there are higher prized than the very wreaths of glory. Among the votaries of Science in France, Cesar Prevost was the humblest,—serviteur, Monsieur. Nevertheless, though my place was only in the outermost porch of the temple, I was a faithful, devoted, self-sacrificing worshipper of the goddess; and therefore, because earnest fidelity has ever its crown of reward, it happened to me to make a grand discovery,—a discovery more momentous, it may be, than that of gunpowder or the telescope,—ten million hundred times more worth than the vaunted great achievement of M. le Professeur Morse. Not that its whole import came to me at once. No, Monsieur, it is full twenty years now since the first light of it glimmered upon Cesar Prevost's mind, and he gave ten years of his life to it—ten faithful years—before it was perfect to his satisfaction. Ah, Monsieur, and 'tis more than one year now that I have been what you see me, in consequence of it. Eh, bien! I shall die so,—rightly,—but my discovery shall live forever.

"But pardon, Monsieur,—I see that you are impatient. You shall immediately hear all I have to say,—after I have, in a few words, given you a brief insight into the nature of my invention. Come, then!—Has it ever occurred to Monsieur to reflect upon that something which we call Sympathy? The philosophers, you know, and the physiologists, the followers of that coquin, Mesmer, and the betes Spiritualists, as they now dub themselves,—these have written, talked, and speculated much about it. I doubt not these fellows have aided Monsieur in perplexing his brain respecting the diverse, the world-wide ramifications of this physiological problem. The limits, indeed, of Sympathy have not been, cannot be, rightly set or defined; and there are those who embrace under such a capitulation half the dark mysteries that bother our heads when we think of Life's under-current,—instinct,—clairvoyance,—trance,—ecstasy,—all the dim and inner sensations of the Spirit, where it touches the Flesh as perceptibly, but as unseen and unanalyzed, as the kiss of the breeze at evening. Sans doute, Monsieur, 'tis very wonderful, all this,—and then, also, 'tis very convenient. Our ships must have a steersman, you know. And, par exemple, unless we call it sympathetic, that strange susceptibility which we see in many persons, detect in ourselves sometimes, what name have we to give it at all? Unless we call it sympathy, how shall we define those mysterious premonitions, shadowy warnings, solemn foretokens, that fall upon us now and then as the dew falls upon the grass-leaf, that make our blood to shiver and our flesh to quake, and will not by any means permit themselves to be passed by or nullified? 'T is a fact that is irrepressible; and, in persons with imagination of morbid tendency, this spontaneous sympathy takes a hold so strong as to present visibly the image about which there is concern,—and, behold! your veritable spectre is begotten! So, again, of your 'love at first sight,' comme on dit,—that inevitable attraction which one person exerts towards another, in spite, it may be, both of reason and judgment. If this be not child of sympathy, what parentage shall we assign it? And antipathy, Monsieur, the medal's reverse,—your bete noire, for instance,—expound me that! Why do you so shudder at sight of this or that innocent object? You cannot reason it away,—'t is always there; you cannot explain it, nor diagnose its symptoms,—'t is a part of you, governed by the same laws that govern your 'elective affinities' throughout. But note, Monsieur! You and I and man in general are not alone in this: the whole organic world—nay, some say the entire universe, inorganic as well as organic—is subject to these impalpable sympathetic forces. Is the hypothesis altogether fanciful of chemical election and rejection,—of the kiss and the kick of the magnet? Your Sensitive-Plant, your Dionea, your Rose of Jericho, your Orinoco-blossom that sets itself afloat in superb faith that the ever-moving waters will bring it to meet its mate and lover,—are not these instances of sympathy? And tell me by what means your eye conquers the furious dog that would bite you,—tell me how that dog is able to follow your traces, and to find the quail or the fox for you,—tell me how the cat chills the bird it would spring upon,—how the serpent fascinates its victim with a flash of its glittering eye. Our 'dumb beasts' yet have a language of their own, unguessed of us, yet perfectly intelligible to them,—how? We call this, Instinct. Eh, bien, Monsieur! what is Instinct, but Sympathy?

"Bah! it amounts to nothing, all this, if we only look at it in such relations. For centuries have stupides bothered their brains about such matters, seeking to account for them. As well devote one's time to puzzling over 'Aelia Laelia'! Mysteries were not meant to be put in the spelling-books, Monsieur. Ah, bah! a far different path did Cesar Prevost pursue! He studied these phenomena, not to explain them,—being too wise to dream of living par amours with such barren virgins as are Whence and Why (your Bacon was very shrewd, Monsieur). What cared I about causes? Let Descartes, and Polignac, and Reid, and Cudworth, et id omne genus, famish themselves in this desert; but ask it not of Cesar Prevost! He is always considerate to the impossible. He says this, always:—Here we have certain interesting phenomena; their causes are involved in mystery impenetrable; their esoteric nature is beyond the reach of any microscope;—what then? My Heaven! let us do what we can with them. Let us seek out their relations; let us investigate the laws regulating their interdependence,—if there be such laws; and apres, let us inquire if there be any practical results obtainable from such relations and laws.

"You follow me, Monsieur? Eh, bien! This was the system, and Cesar Prevost came speedily to one law,—a law so important, that, like Aaron's serpent, it put all the rest out of sight forever, engrossing thereafter his whole attention. This law, which pervades the entire animal economy, and is of course important in proportion to its universality, is as follows:—The sympathetic harmony between animals, other things being equal, is IN INVERSE PROPORTION to their rank in that scale of comparison in which man is taken as the maximum of perfection. Consequently, man is most deficient in this instinctive something, which, for lack of a better term, I have ventured to style 'sympathetic harmony,' while the simplest organization has it most developed. This last, you perceive, Monsieur, is only inductively true;—when we get below a certain stage in the scale, we find the difficulties of observation increase in a larger ratio than the augmented sympathy, and so we are not compensated; 't is, for instance, like the telescope, where, after you have reached a certain power, the deficiency of light overbalances the degree of multiplication. Knowing this, my first aim was to find out what animal would suit best,—what one that could be easily observed was most susceptible, most sympathetic. 'T was a long labor, Monsieur; I shall not tire you with the details. Enough that I found in the snail the instrument I needed,—and in the snail of the Rocky Mountains the most perfect of his kind. You smile, Monsieur. Eh, bien! 't is not philosophic to laugh at the means by which one achieves something. Smile how you will, 't is a fact that in the snail which is so common and grows to such an enormous size in the valleys and on the slopes of your great Cordilleras I found an animal combining a maximum of sympathetic harmony with the greatest facility of being observed, the best health and habits, and the utmost simplicity of prononcee manifestation. But, you ask, what seek I, then? My Heaven, Monsieur! there was the grand Idea,—the Idea upon which I build my pride,—the Idea that is mine! When it came to me, Monsieur, this Idea, a great calm filled all my soul, and I felt then the spirit of Kepler, when he said he could wait during centuries to be recognized, since the laws he had demonstrated were eternal and immutable as the Great God Himself! Yes, Monsieur! For in that crude, undeveloped Idea were already germinating the wonders of an achievement grander than any of Schwartz, or Guttenberg, or Galileo. Oh, this beautiful, grand simplicity of Science, which was able, from the snail itself, the very type and symbol and byword of torpidity and inaction, to evolve what was to conquer time and space,—to outrun the wildest imaginings of Puck himself!"

——What a coltish fire of enthusiasm pranced in the worthy little Frenchman's veins, to be sure!

"Eh, bien! Now, distance made no matter; it was forever subdued. I could as soon send messages to the Sun itself as to my next-door neighbor! Smile on, Monsieur! Cesar Prevost shall not be piqued at your incredulity. He also was amazed, prostrated, when all the stupendous consequences of his discovery first flashed upon his mind; and it was very long before he could rid his mind of the notion that he was become victim to the phantasms of a ridiculous dream. Eh, bien! 't was very simple, once analyzed. Know one fact, and you have all. And this one fact, so simple, yet so grand, was just this:—That a male and female snail, having been once, by contact, put in communication with one another, so as to become what magnetizers call en rapport the one with the other, continue ever after to sympathize, no matter what space may divide them. 'T is in a nutshell, you perceive,—and giving me the entire principle of an unlimited telegraphic communication. All that was to do was to systematize it. Tedious work, you may conceive, Monsieur; yet I did not shrink from it, nor find it irksome, for my assured result was ever leading me onward. Ah, bah! what did I not dream then?—Passons!

"I was not rich, and so, to save the trouble and expense of importing my snails to Paris,—vast trouble and expense, of course, since my experiments were so numerous,—I came across the Atlantic, and fixed myself at a point near St. Louis, where I could study in peace and have the subjects of my experiments close at hand. I used to pay the trappers liberally to get my snails for me, instructing them how to gather and how to transport them; and to divert all suspicion from my real objects, I pretended to be a gourmet, who used the snails solely for gastronomic purposes,—whereby, Monsieur," said Cesar Prevost, with a humorous smile, "I was unfortunate enough to inspire the hearty garcons with a supreme contempt for me, and they used to say I 'vas not bettaire zan one blarsted Digger Injun!' Mon Dieu! what martyrs the votaries of Science have been, always!

"Eh, bien! I shall not bother you with my experiments. In brief, let me give you only results, so as to be just comprehensible. Given my law, I had to find, first, the manner exactly in which snails manifest their sympathy, the one for the other,—c'est a dire, how Snail A tells you that something is happening to his comrade, Snail B. There was a constant law for this, hard to find, but I achieved it. Second, to make my telegraph perfect, and pat my system beyond the touch of accident, I had to discover how to destroy the rapport between Snails A and B. Unless I could do this, I could never be sure my instruments were perfectly isolated, so to speak. 'Twas a difficult task, Monsieur; for the snail is the most constant in its attachments of all the animal kingdom, and I have known them to die, time and again, because their mates had died,—

"'Pining away in a green and yaller melancholie,'

"as your grand poet has it, Monsieur. Still, I succeeded, and I am very proud to announce it;—'twas a great feat, indeed—no less than to subvert an instinct! Third, I found out the way to keep them perfectly isolated, so as to prevent any subvention of a higher influence from weakening or destroying the previous rapport. Fourth, what sort of influence brought to bear upon Snail B would be sympathetically indicated most palpably in Snail A. So, Monsieur, you may fancy I had my hands full.

"But I succeeded, after long labor. Then I spent much time in seeking to perfect an Alphabetical System, and also a Recording Apparatus, capable of exactly setting forth the quality of the sympathy manifested, as well as the number of the manifestations. When these things were all perfected, I should have a complete system of Telegraph, which no circumstances of time, distance, or atmosphere could impair, which would put on record its every step, and permit no opportunity for error or for accident.

"Eh, bien! Man proposes,—God disposes. Monsieur, when I began my experiments, when I devoted myself, my energies, and my life itself to developing and utilizing my discovery, my motives were purely, exclusively scientific. My sole aim was to win the position of an eminent savant, who, by conferring a signal benefit upon the race, should merit the common applause of mankind. But, as time wore on, as my labors began to be successful, as the grand possibilities of my achievement arrayed themselves before me, other dreams usurped my brain. I, the inventor of this thing, so glorious in its aspect, so incomputable in its results,—was I to permit myself to go without reward? Fame? Ah, bah! what bread would Fame butter? 'Twas a bubble, a name, an empty, profitless sound, this coquin of Fame! 'Proximus sum egomet mihi,' says Terence,—or, as your English proverb has it, 'Charity begins at home.' I bethought me of the usual fate of discoverers and inventors,—neglected, scoffed at, ill-used, left to starve. The blesser of the world with infinite riches must nibble his crust au sixieme. Why, then? Because, in their sublime eagerness to serve others, they forget to care for themselves. Eh, bien! One must still keep his powder dry, said your great Protector. This discovery was to double the effectiveness of men's hands,—therefore, was grandly to enrich them. But could it not be also made a notable instrument for wealth in one man's hands? Ah! brave thought! How, if, none the less resolved to give man eventually the benefit of my Idea, I should yet keep it in abeyance, till I had made my own sufficient profit out of it? It could be done;—surely, to use it well were less difficult than to have invented it. So dreams of wealth and luxury began to fill my brain. I would enrich myself till I had become a power, emphatically,—till all purchasable things were within my reach. Then I should likewise become a benefactor of the race; for my intentions were liberal, and intelligence sustained adequately can effect miracles. Then, when I had made myself veritably the Apostle of Riches, I would put the capstone to man's debt to me, by endowing him with knowledge in the uses of this great instrument whereby I had made myself so great. Ah, Monsieur, you see, Haroun Alraschid had set me on his throne for an hour by way of jest, and I imagined myself Caliph in Bagdad forever!

"Full of such purposes, and of the fiery impatience of yearning begotten of them, I hastened to bring my work to efficiency for use. I had worked in silence, alone, secretly; for I dreaded to have my discovery guessed, my aims anticipated and foreclosed upon. But, hasten how I would, the processes were too slow for my means,—and just when, like the alchemist, my crucible promised the grand projection, came the dreaded explosion. My money exhausted itself! I found myself, a stranger in a strange land, without a dollar. Eh, bien, Monsieur! 't is not in Cesar Prevost to despair. Ah, in those days, especially, had I a heart big with the strength of hope! To accomplish my ends, a partner was needed at best, money or no money; so now it was only necessary for me to find one who to the essential qualities of heart and brain conjoined a purse of sufficient size. Before long, I came across the very man. Monsieur, when I recall the past, I behold many instances where I erred and was foolish; but the single bitter reflection I have is, that my own ruin involved the ruin of John Meavy, my partner and good comrade. I remember what he was when I found him,—happy, prosperous, large-hearted,—in every sense a noble man. I ruined him! Ah, could I but—Eh, bien! 't is too late, now; he is dead; requiescat! I have the bliss to know he found no fault with the end.—Passons!

"When I first knew John Meavy, he was a merchant, living with the quiet ease of a well-to-do bachelor. Though he had been brought up to trade, the stain of money was not upon him. Generous, charitable, liberal of thought, he was the gentlest enthusiast in other men's behalf that ever the sun shone on. It was the fact that he possessed fifty thousand dollars and was trustworthy that first drew rue towards him; but I had not known him long ere I gave him my ardent love, and thereafter thoughts of wealth were pleasant to me as much for his sake as for my own. John was a student, and a lover of Science, as well as a man of trade; and, in the first moments of our intercourse, I took care to let drop words that I knew would attract his curiosity and interest. Like all you Americans, John Meavy was a man of perfect faith in all that regarded 'Progress,' and especially did he believe in the infinite perfectibility of Science in the hands of an energetic people. This was the chord upon which I played, and the responsive note was easily evoked. He sought me out, came to me eagerly, and, by degrees, I divulged to him all my plans. He was ambitious to work for mankind, and I convinced him that I could give him the means to do so. My faith, Monsieur! that John Meavy had not one least morsel of selfishness in all his character! How far was he from dreaming of wealth for its own sake, and for the voluptuous surroundings with which my fancy enlarged upon it! No, indeed,—my invention to John Meavy was nothing; but, as a means to profit you and me and the rest of us, 't was a thing of the grandest import. So, at first, he would not have had us keep our secret for a day; but I—by a sophistry that is only sophistic when we add to the consideration man's impotent and easily perverted will—brought him into my plans, showing him what an instrument for good vast riches would be in his hands. And he was the more easily persuaded because of the very grand purity of his nature. Sans doute, he felt it to be altogether true, what I told him, that, in his hands, a hundred million dollars would be worth more to mankind at large than the whole French kingdom. Mais, Monsieur, you cannot own a hundred millions and be good. As well expect to find the same virtue in London that prevails in a quiet country-town. You cannot filter oceans, Monsieur, and the dead fish in them will cause a stink. But I did not know this till afterwards.

"So, having inoculated John, I bestowed upon him my confidence without reserve; for I knew he was one to appreciate such treatment, and would repay me in kind. 'Here it all is, mon ami,' said I; 'this is my invention; these the means for reducing it to practice; money is all I need. If you will join me, and provide the funds required, we will enter into a partnership for ten years, enrich ourselves, and then give it to all the world.'

"'Ten years! must the world wait so long?'

"'The world has waited six thousand years for this century, camarade. We shall require so long to enrich ourselves. And then, remember,—the longer they are kept out of it, the more perfect will our invention be, and, consequently, the greater their profit from it. Science has suffered too much already by its seven-months' children, my good friend. Eh, bien! What say you? Will you be my partner?'

"'Yes, Cesar. 'T is a noble scheme, such as only a noble man could originate. But, Prevost, do not speak to me of an equal partnership. I must not pattern after my country's way of overlooking the inventor. Let us go into business upon this basis:—Prevost one share, John Meavy one share, Invention one share.'

"'Bah! John Meavy!' I cried. 'If I have discovered something, so also have you, namely: a pocket deep enough, a heart honest enough, and a faith strong enough to make that something available;—I expected sooner to find the philosopher's-stone than all these, good friend. No, John Meavy,—if you share with me, you share equally. Then I shall be sure that you are equally interested with myself; so we shall succeed.'

"Eh, bien! We arranged it; and that very day, after I had pointed out to John the state of my experiments, my noble comrade took me with him to his place of business, put all his books open before me, explained exactly the condition of his affairs, and concluded by giving me a check for five thousand dollars. 'There,' said he, 'take that, pay your debts, provide for yourself, and go on and reduce your invention to the practical working you speak about. Meantime, I will wind up my business in readiness to join you. Six months from now, the firm of Prevost and Meavy, established to-day, will begin business together.'

"Mon pauvre John Meavy!

"Eh bien, Monsieur!" resumed the little Frenchman, after a short pause,—"one cannot help one's self, after it is too late. Allons, donc!—I had lately, thinking over the matter in the light of my intense desire to begin a career, and under the pressure of urgent poverty, given up the notion of bringing my invention to absolute perfection as a system of telegraphing. Instead of elaborating a complete alphabet, I proposed to carry into effect a substitute already perfected, one simple almost beyond belief, needing few preparations, involving trifling cost, and capable of being made immediately operative. Further experience has taught me that the very same means, aided by a little deeper generalization, and an arbitrary set of signals, would have given me an entire alphabet. But just now I had no time to extend my experiments, needing all my time to make sure and acquire skill in what was already achieved. I must insure against the chance of mistake; for when we were applying our invention to the acquisition of money, any error would necessarily be fatal.