Melville (4) The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, ch.4 ‘Renewal of Old Acquaintance,’ summary in brief

 

by Corry Shores

 

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[The following summarizes parts of the text, with my commentary in brackets. Boldface is my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so I apologize for my typos.]

 

 

Summary (in Brief) of

 

Herman Melville

 

The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade

 

4

Renewal of Old Acquaintance

 

 

Brief summary:

The Man with a Weed encounters the Country Merchant on the boat. The man with a weed makes it clear that he knows all the basic information about the merchant that would be found on his business card, which makes it apparent that the man with a weed is quite possibly the Crippled, Freed African Slave Beggar without his black make-up on. (The beggar secretly obtained the merchant’s business card in Ch.3.) We learn that the man with a weed calls himself “John Ringman” and the merchant’s name is Henry Roberts. The man with a weed tries to convince the merchant they met once before. When the merchant insists he cannot recall it, the man with the weed tries to convince the merchant that he had once had some brain injury that could have caused the memory loss. The merchant says there was only a brain fever that he had around that time of the supposed meeting, and the man with a weed pushes that theory for how they could have meet before without the merchant having any semblance of a recollection of it. The man with a weed then says that like the merchant, he is also a free-mason, and he tells a sad story that leads to the merchant handing over money as aid. Later the man with a weed informs the merchant of a business opportunity: there is a president of a coal company looking to sell many stocks well under their real value. Were the merchant to buy them, he would make a lot of money fast (supposing they are authentic).

 

 

 

 

 

Summary (in brief)

 

The Man with a Weed greets the Country Merchant by name (Mr. Roberts), even though the merchant does not recognize him, despite the man with a weed’s insistence he remembers the merchant vividly (26). Nonetheless, the merchant recalls the Crippled, Freed African Slave Beggar’s naming of a man with a weed as one of his character witnesses (see Ch.3), so the merchant is at least looking for the man with a weed. The man with a weed indicates that he knows the beggar and says he assured the other passengers of his character (27). The man with a weed persists in trying to get the merchant to remember him. At that point, he gives more information about the merchant, which would also be information one would find on a business card, and in fact makes this obvious by saying the information would actually be on one of his business cards:

“[...] Are you not, sir, Henry Roberts, forwarding merchant, of Wheeling, Pennsylvania? Pray, now, if you use the advertisement of business cards, and happen to have one with you, just look at it, and see whether you are not the man I take you for.”

(27)

The man with a weed then tries to get the merchant to doubt his own memory, so that the merchant would believe that in fact he met the man with the weed, but lost that memory. And he asks for the merchant’s trust (confidence) in the man with a weed’s memory over his own.

“To come to particulars, my dear sir, I met you, now | some six years back, at Brade Brothers & Co’s office, I think. I was traveling for a Philadelphia house. The senior Brade introduced us, you remember; some business-chat followed, then you forced me home with you to a family tea, and a family time we had. Have you forgotten about the urn, and what I said about Werter’s Charlotte, and the bread and butter, and that capital story you told of the large loaf. A hundred times since, I have laughed over it. At least you must recall my name—Ringman, John Ringman.”

“Large loaf? Invited you to tea? Ringman? Ringman? Ring? Ring?”

“Ah sir,” sadly smiling, “don’t ring the changes that way. I see you have a faithless memory, Mr. Roberts. But trust in the faithfulness of mine.”

(27-28)

The merchant continues to insist he has no memory of their previous encounter. To sow more doubts, the man with the weed says that the merchant may have had a brain injury that prevented him from recording the memory of their prior encounter. The merchant had no such injury at the time, but he notes that he did have a terrible brain fever. And despite the merchant’s objections, the man with the weed concludes that the fever is what is preventing him from remembering their previous encounter.

 

The man with a weed then takes the merchant to a less public area and begins to look very troubled. He also notes that the merchant is a free-mason, and indicates he is a fellow mason who is in need of help. The man with the weed then tells some calamitous tale that evokes the merchant’s sympathy, but the narrator does not tell us the details. This causes the merchant to give the man with a weed some money.

At every disclosure, the hearer’s commiseration increased. No sentimental pity. As the story went on, he drew from his wallet a bank note, but after a while, at some still more unhappy revelation, changed it for another, probably of a somewhat larger amount; which, when the story was concluded, with an air studiously disclamatory of alms-giving, he put into the stranger’s hands; who, on his side, with an air studiously disclamatory of alms-taking, put it into his pocket.

(32)

 

The man with a weed then parts ways with the merchant. But before getting to far off, the man with a weed then comes back to the merchant to inform him about a business opportunity. On account of some odd circumstances, the president of the Black Rapids Coal Company, who is on board, is ready to sell shares of the company at very low prices. This would enable the merchant to make money very fast, (supposing that the shares are legitimate) (33). When the merchant asks why the man with a weed did not buy the stocks, the man with a weed reminds him indirectly of his unfortunate circumstances that required the almsgiving from just before. He furthermore uses this incident to suggest that the merchant’s brain fever must have caused him to forget about the man with a weed’s dire financial situation. He also uses this incident to convince the merchant to have more charity and trust.

“To reproach a penniless man with remissness in not availing himself of an opportunity for pecuniary investment—but, no, no; it was forgetfulness; and this, charity will impute to some lingering effect of that unfortunate | brain-fever, which, as to occurrences dating yet further back, disturbed Mr. Roberts’s memory still more seriously.”

“As to that,” said the merchant, rallying, “I am not——”

“Pardon me, but you must admit, that just now, an unpleasant distrust, however vague, was yours. Ah, shallow as it is, yet, how subtle a thing is suspicion, which at times can invade the humanest of hearts and wisest of heads. But, enough. My object, sir, in calling your attention to this stock, is by way of acknowledgment of your goodness. I but seek to be grateful; if my information leads to nothing, you must remember the motive.”

He bowed, and finally retired, leaving Mr. Roberts not wholly without self-reproach, for having momentarily indulged injurious thoughts against one who, it was evident, was possessed of a self-respect which forbade his indulging them himself.

(34-35)

 

 

 

Chapter text [copied from Project Gutenburg]:

 

CHAPTER IV.

RENEWAL OF OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

“How do you do, Mr. Roberts?”

“Eh?”

“Don’t you know me?”

“No, certainly.”

The crowd about the captain’s office, having in good time melted away, the above encounter took place in one of the side balconies astern, between a man in mourning clean and respectable, but none of the glossiest, a long weed on his hat, and the country-merchant before-mentioned, whom, with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, the former had accosted.

“Is it possible, my dear sir,” resumed he with the weed, “that you do not recall my countenance? why yours I recall distinctly as if but half an hour, instead of half an age, had passed since I saw you. Don’t you recall me, now? Look harder.”

“In my conscience—truly—I protest,” honestly bewildered, “bless my soul, sir, I don’t know you—really, really. But stay, stay,” he hurriedly added, not without gratification, glancing up at the crape on the stranger’s hat, “stay—yes—seems to me, though I have [27] not the pleasure of personally knowing you, yet I am pretty sure I have at least heard of you, and recently too, quite recently. A poor negro aboard here referred to you, among others, for a character, I think.”

“Oh, the cripple. Poor fellow. I know him well. They found me. I have said all I could for him. I think I abated their distrust. Would I could have been of more substantial service. And apropos, sir,” he added, “now that it strikes me, allow me to ask, whether the circumstance of one man, however humble, referring for a character to another man, however afflicted, does not argue more or less of moral worth in the latter?”

The good merchant looked puzzled.

“Still you don’t recall my countenance?”

“Still does truth compel me to say that I cannot, despite my best efforts,” was the reluctantly-candid reply.

“Can I be so changed? Look at me. Or is it I who am mistaken?—Are you not, sir, Henry Roberts, forwarding merchant, of Wheeling, Pennsylvania? Pray, now, if you use the advertisement of business cards, and happen to have one with you, just look at it, and see whether you are not the man I take you for.”

“Why,” a bit chafed, perhaps, “I hope I know myself.”

“And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my dear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else? Stranger things have happened.”

The good merchant stared.

“To come to particulars, my dear sir, I met you, now [28] some six years back, at Brade Brothers & Co’s office, I think. I was traveling for a Philadelphia house. The senior Brade introduced us, you remember; some business-chat followed, then you forced me home with you to a family tea, and a family time we had. Have you forgotten about the urn, and what I said about Werter’s Charlotte, and the bread and butter, and that capital story you told of the large loaf. A hundred times since, I have laughed over it. At least you must recall my name—Ringman, John Ringman.”

“Large loaf? Invited you to tea? Ringman? Ringman? Ring? Ring?”

“Ah sir,” sadly smiling, “don’t ring the changes that way. I see you have a faithless memory, Mr. Roberts. But trust in the faithfulness of mine.”

“Well, to tell the truth, in some things my memory aint of the very best,” was the honest rejoinder. “But still,” he perplexedly added, “still I——”

“Oh sir, suffice it that it is as I say. Doubt not that we are all well acquainted.”

“But—but I don’t like this going dead against my own memory; I——”

“But didn’t you admit, my dear sir, that in some things this memory of yours is a little faithless? Now, those who have faithless memories, should they not have some little confidence in the less faithless memories of others?”

“But, of this friendly chat and tea, I have not the slightest——”

“I see, I see; quite erased from the tablet. Pray, [29] sir,” with a sudden illumination, “about six years back, did it happen to you to receive any injury on the head? Surprising effects have arisen from such a cause. Not alone unconsciousness as to events for a greater or less time immediately subsequent to the injury, but likewise—strange to add—oblivion, entire and incurable, as to events embracing a longer or shorter period immediately preceding it; that is, when the mind at the time was perfectly sensible of them, and fully competent also to register them in the memory, and did in fact so do; but all in vain, for all was afterwards bruised out by the injury.”

After the first start, the merchant listened with what appeared more than ordinary interest. The other proceeded:

“In my boyhood I was kicked by a horse, and lay insensible for a long time. Upon recovering, what a blank! No faintest trace in regard to how I had come near the horse, or what horse it was, or where it was, or that it was a horse at all that had brought me to that pass. For the knowledge of those particulars I am indebted solely to my friends, in whose statements, I need not say, I place implicit reliance, since particulars of some sort there must have been, and why should they deceive me? You see sir, the mind is ductile, very much so: but images, ductilely received into it, need a certain time to harden and bake in their impressions, otherwise such a casualty as I speak of will in an instant obliterate them, as though they had never been. We are but clay, sir, potter’s clay, as the good book says, [30] clay, feeble, and too-yielding clay. But I will not philosophize. Tell me, was it your misfortune to receive any concussion upon the brain about the period I speak of? If so, I will with pleasure supply the void in your memory by more minutely rehearsing the circumstances of our acquaintance.”

The growing interest betrayed by the merchant had not relaxed as the other proceeded. After some hesitation, indeed, something more than hesitation, he confessed that, though he had never received any injury of the sort named, yet, about the time in question, he had in fact been taken with a brain fever, losing his mind completely for a considerable interval. He was continuing, when the stranger with much animation exclaimed:

“There now, you see, I was not wholly mistaken. That brain fever accounts for it all.”

“Nay; but——”

“Pardon me, Mr. Roberts,” respectfully interrupting him, “but time is short, and I have something private and particular to say to you. Allow me.”

Mr. Roberts, good man, could but acquiesce, and the two having silently walked to a less public spot, the manner of the man with the weed suddenly assumed a seriousness almost painful. What might be called a writhing expression stole over him. He seemed struggling with some disastrous necessity inkept. He made one or two attempts to speak, but words seemed to choke him. His companion stood in humane surprise, wondering what was to come. At length, with an effort mastering [31] his feelings, in a tolerably composed tone he spoke:

“If I remember, you are a mason, Mr. Roberts?”

“Yes, yes.”

Averting himself a moment, as to recover from a return of agitation, the stranger grasped the other’s hand; “and would you not loan a brother a shilling if he needed it?”

The merchant started, apparently, almost as if to retreat.

“Ah, Mr. Roberts, I trust you are not one of those business men, who make a business of never having to do with unfortunates. For God’s sake don’t leave me. I have something on my heart—on my heart. Under deplorable circumstances thrown among strangers, utter strangers. I want a friend in whom I may confide. Yours, Mr. Roberts, is almost the first known face I’ve seen for many weeks.”

It was so sudden an outburst; the interview offered such a contrast to the scene around, that the merchant, though not used to be very indiscreet, yet, being not entirely inhumane, remained not entirely unmoved.

The other, still tremulous, resumed:

“I need not say, sir, how it cuts me to the soul, to follow up a social salutation with such words as have just been mine. I know that I jeopardize your good opinion. But I can’t help it: necessity knows no law, and heeds no risk. Sir, we are masons, one more step aside; I will tell you my story.”

In a low, half-suppressed tone, he began it. Judging [32] from his auditor’s expression, it seemed to be a tale of singular interest, involving calamities against which no integrity, no forethought, no energy, no genius, no piety, could guard.

At every disclosure, the hearer’s commiseration increased. No sentimental pity. As the story went on, he drew from his wallet a bank note, but after a while, at some still more unhappy revelation, changed it for another, probably of a somewhat larger amount; which, when the story was concluded, with an air studiously disclamatory of alms-giving, he put into the stranger’s hands; who, on his side, with an air studiously disclamatory of alms-taking, put it into his pocket.

Assistance being received, the stranger’s manner assumed a kind and degree of decorum which, under the circumstances, seemed almost coldness. After some words, not over ardent, and yet not exactly inappropriate, he took leave, making a bow which had one knows not what of a certain chastened independence about it; as if misery, however burdensome, could not break down self-respect, nor gratitude, however deep, humiliate a gentleman.

He was hardly yet out of sight, when he paused as if thinking; then with hastened steps returning to the merchant, “I am just reminded that the president, who is also transfer-agent, of the Black Rapids Coal Company, happens to be on board here, and, having been subpoenaed as witness in a stock case on the docket in Kentucky, has his transfer-book with him. A month since, in a panic contrived by artful alarmists, some credulous [33] stock-holders sold out; but, to frustrate the aim of the alarmists, the Company, previously advised of their scheme, so managed it as to get into its own hands those sacrificed shares, resolved that, since a spurious panic must be, the panic-makers should be no gainers by it. The Company, I hear, is now ready, but not anxious, to redispose of those shares; and having obtained them at their depressed value, will now sell them at par, though, prior to the panic, they were held at a handsome figure above. That the readiness of the Company to do this is not generally known, is shown by the fact that the stock still stands on the transfer-book in the Company’s name, offering to one in funds a rare chance for investment. For, the panic subsiding more and more every day, it will daily be seen how it originated; confidence will be more than restored; there will be a reaction; from the stock’s descent its rise will be higher than from no fall, the holders trusting themselves to fear no second fate.”

Having listened at first with curiosity, at last with interest, the merchant replied to the effect, that some time since, through friends concerned with it, he had heard of the company, and heard well of it, but was ignorant that there had latterly been fluctuations. He added that he was no speculator; that hitherto he had avoided having to do with stocks of any sort, but in the present case he really felt something like being tempted. “Pray,” in conclusion, “do you think that upon a pinch anything could be transacted on board here with the transfer-agent? Are you acquainted with him?” [34]

“Not personally. I but happened to hear that he was a passenger. For the rest, though it might be somewhat informal, the gentleman might not object to doing a little business on board. Along the Mississippi, you know, business is not so ceremonious as at the East.”

“True,” returned the merchant, and looked down a moment in thought, then, raising his head quickly, said, in a tone not so benign as his wonted one, “This would seem a rare chance, indeed; why, upon first hearing it, did you not snatch at it? I mean for yourself!”

“I?—would it had been possible!”

Not without some emotion was this said, and not without some embarrassment was the reply. “Ah, yes, I had forgotten.”

Upon this, the stranger regarded him with mild gravity, not a little disconcerting; the more so, as there was in it what seemed the aspect not alone of the superior, but, as it were, the rebuker; which sort of bearing, in a beneficiary towards his benefactor, looked strangely enough; none the less, that, somehow, it sat not altogether unbecomingly upon the beneficiary, being free from anything like the appearance of assumption, and mixed with a kind of painful conscientiousness, as though nothing but a proper sense of what he owed to himself swayed him. At length he spoke:

“To reproach a penniless man with remissness in not availing himself of an opportunity for pecuniary investment—but, no, no; it was forgetfulness; and this, charity will impute to some lingering effect of that unfortunate [35] brain-fever, which, as to occurrences dating yet further back, disturbed Mr. Roberts’s memory still more seriously.”

“As to that,” said the merchant, rallying, “I am not——”

“Pardon me, but you must admit, that just now, an unpleasant distrust, however vague, was yours. Ah, shallow as it is, yet, how subtle a thing is suspicion, which at times can invade the humanest of hearts and wisest of heads. But, enough. My object, sir, in calling your attention to this stock, is by way of acknowledgment of your goodness. I but seek to be grateful; if my information leads to nothing, you must remember the motive.”

He bowed, and finally retired, leaving Mr. Roberts not wholly without self-reproach, for having momentarily indulged injurious thoughts against one who, it was evident, was possessed of a self-respect which forbade his indulging them himself.

 

 

 

 

 

Melville, Herman. 1857. The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. New York: Dix, Edwards.

PDF at:

https://archive.org/details/confidencemanhis00melvrich

Online text at:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21816

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21816/21816-h/21816-h.htm

 

URL of this post:

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Melville (3) The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, ch.3 ‘In Which a Variety of Characters Appear’, summary in brief

 

by Corry Shores

 

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Literature, Poetry, Drama, entry directory]

[Herman Melville, entry directory]

[Melville’s Confidence-Man, entry directory]

 

[The following summarizes parts of the text, with my commentary in brackets. Boldface is my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so I apologize for my typos.]

 

 

Summary (in Brief) of

 

Herman Melville

 

The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade

 

3

In Which a Variety of Characters Appear.

 

 

Brief summary:

A crippled, freed African slave beggar is accused by a man with a wooden leg of being a confidence artist: instead of being crippled and black, he is accused of really being a healthy white actor in black makeup trying to scam people out of their money. The beggar defends himself by listing a number of character witnesses that could be found on the ship. A country merchant has charity for and confidence (trust) in the beggar, and gives him a half dollar from his pocket. In the process, he unknowingly drops his business card, which the beggar secretly obtains.

 

 

 

 

Summary (in brief)

 

At the front of the steamer is a crippled beggar. He is a freed African slave. He has a deformity in his legs that cuts down his stature to the size of a large dog. But he stays in cheery spirits as he begs in an entertaining but supplicating way.

In the forward part of the boat, not the least attractive object, for a time, was a grotesque negro cripple, in tow-cloth attire and an old coal-sifter of a tamborine in his hand, who, owing to something wrong about his legs, was, in effect, cut down to the stature of a Newfoundland dog; his knotted black fleece and good-natured, honest black face rubbing against the upper part of people's thighs as he made shift to shuffle about, making music, such as it was, and raising a smile even from the gravest. It was curious to see him, out of his very deformity, indigence, and houselessness, so cheerily endured, raising mirth in some of that crowd, whose own purses, hearths, hearts, all their possessions, sound limbs included, could not make gay.

(12)

He says that others call him “Der Black Guinea” and that he lives in the streets of St. Louis. To evoke more contributions, he often plays a debasing but amusing game of letting the almsgivers throw the coins into his mouth like food tossed to a hungry dog.

Thus far not very many pennies had been given him, and, used at last to his strange looks, the less polite passengers of those in that part of the boat began to get their fill of him as a curious object; when suddenly the negro more than revived their first interest by an expedient which, whether by chance or design, was a singular temptation at once to diversion and charity, though, even more than his crippled limbs, it put him on a canine footing. In short, as in appearance he seemed a dog, so now, in a merry way, like a dog he began to be treated. Still shuffling among the crowd, now and then he would pause, throwing back his head and, opening his mouth like an elephant for tossed apples at a menagerie; when, making a space before him, people would have a bout at a strange sort of pitch-penny game, the cripple's mouth being at once target and purse, and he hailing each expertly-caught copper with a cracked bravura from his tambourine. To be the subject of alms-giving is trying, and to feel in duty bound to appear cheerfully grateful under the trial, must be still more so; but whatever his secret emotions, he swallowed them, while still retaining each copper this side the œsophagus. And nearly always he grinned, and only once or twice did he wince, which was when certain coins, tossed by more playful almoners, came inconveniently nigh to his teeth, an accident whose unwelcomeness was not unedged by the circumstance that the pennies thus thrown proved buttons.

(14)

 

Then arrives a grumpy man with a wooden leg who is generally distrustful of others. He claims that the freed slave beggar is really a healthy white actor in black makeup trying to scam people out of their money.

While this game of charity was yet at its height, a limping, gimlet-eyed, sour-faced person—it may be some discharged custom-house officer, who, suddenly stripped of convenient means of support, had concluded to be avenged on government and humanity by making himself miserable for life, either by hating or suspecting everything and everybody—this shallow unfortunate, after sundry sorry observations of the negro, began to croak out something about his deformity being a sham, got up for financial purposes, which immediately threw a damp upon the frolic benignities of the pitch-penny players.

(15)

 

The crowd then began to scrutinize the crippled freed slave beggar. They asked the freed slave beggar if he had any papers, and he says he does not. They then ask if there were any people on the boat who could say something good about him. An innocent, tender, short, young Episcopal clergyman in a black coat asks the beggar if anyone on board could speak a good word for the beggar to confirm his character. The beggar then lists a number of such people who can vouch for him: a man with a weed, a man in a grey coat and a white tie, a man with a big book, a “yarb-doctor”, a man in a “yaller west,” a man with a brass plate, a man in a “wiolet robe,” a “sodjer,” and many unspecified others (17-18). A Country Merchant asks how it is possible to find these people in the dense crowd, and the Episcopal clergyman runs off to find one. The man with a wooden leg expresses his distrust in the beggar, again saying he is lying and in black-face:

“Wild goose chase!” croaked he with the wooden leg, now again drawing nigh. “Don’t believe there’s a soul of them aboard. Did ever beggar have such heaps of fine friends? He can walk fast enough when he tries, a good deal faster than I; but he can lie yet faster. He’s some white operator, betwisted and painted up for a decoy. He and his friends are all humbugs.”

(18)

A Methodist Minister wonders why the man with a wooden leg has no charity in this instance, because the beggar looks innocent.  The man with a wooden leg replies:

“Looks are one thing, and facts are another”

(19)

The two continue arguing about the merits of charity, eventually breaking into physical contact. The man with a wooden leg then departs under the crowd’s scorn. The crowd then tells the beggar that they will only have confidence in him when his authenticity is confirmed. The beggar cries in despair until the country merchant reaches into his pocket to give him a half dollar. He accidentally and unknowingly drops his business card on the ground. The beggar secretly secures if for himself. Then a steward comes announcing that those without tickets need to buy them, and the crowd dissipates.

 

 

Chapter text [copied from Project Gutenburg]:

 

CHAPTER III.
IN WHICH A VARIETY OF CHARACTERS APPEAR.

 

In the forward part of the boat, not the least attractive object, for a time, was a grotesque negro cripple, in tow-cloth attire and an old coal-sifter of a tamborine in his hand, who, owing to something wrong about his legs, was, in effect, cut down to the stature of a Newfoundland dog; his knotted black fleece and good-natured, honest black face rubbing against the upper part of people’s thighs as he made shift to shuffle about, making music, such as it was, and raising a smile even from the gravest. It was curious to see him, out of his very deformity, indigence, and houselessness, so cheerily endured, raising mirth in some of that crowd, whose own purses, hearths, hearts, all their possessions, sound limbs included, could not make gay.

“What is your name, old boy?” said a purple-faced drover, putting his large purple hand on the cripple’s bushy wool, as if it were the curled forehead of a black steer.

“Der Black Guinea dey calls me, sar.”

“And who is your master, Guinea?”

“Oh sar, I am der dog widout massa.” [13]

“A free dog, eh? Well, on your account, I’m sorry for that, Guinea. Dogs without masters fare hard.”

“So dey do, sar; so dey do. But you see, sar, dese here legs? What ge’mman want to own dese here legs?”

“But where do you live?”

“All ‘long shore, sar; dough now. I’se going to see brodder at der landing; but chiefly I libs in dey city.”

“St. Louis, ah? Where do you sleep there of nights?”

“On der floor of der good baker’s oven, sar.”

“In an oven? whose, pray? What baker, I should like to know, bakes such black bread in his oven, alongside of his nice white rolls, too. Who is that too charitable baker, pray?”

“Dar he be,” with a broad grin lifting his tambourine high over his head.

“The sun is the baker, eh?”

“Yes sar, in der city dat good baker warms der stones for dis ole darkie when he sleeps out on der pabements o’ nights.”

“But that must be in the summer only, old boy. How about winter, when the cold Cossacks come clattering and jingling? How about winter, old boy?”

“Den dis poor old darkie shakes werry bad, I tell you, sar. Oh sar, oh! don’t speak ob der winter,” he added, with a reminiscent shiver, shuffling off into the thickest of the crowd, like a half-frozen black sheep [14] nudging itself a cozy berth in the heart of the white flock.

Thus far not very many pennies had been given him, and, used at last to his strange looks, the less polite passengers of those in that part of the boat began to get their fill of him as a curious object; when suddenly the negro more than revived their first interest by an expedient which, whether by chance or design, was a singular temptation at once to diversion and charity, though, even more than his crippled limbs, it put him on a canine footing. In short, as in appearance he seemed a dog, so now, in a merry way, like a dog he began to be treated. Still shuffling among the crowd, now and then he would pause, throwing back his head and, opening his mouth like an elephant for tossed apples at a menagerie; when, making a space before him, people would have a bout at a strange sort of pitch-penny game, the cripple’s mouth being at once target and purse, and he hailing each expertly-caught copper with a cracked bravura from his tambourine. To be the subject of alms-giving is trying, and to feel in duty bound to appear cheerfully grateful under the trial, must be still more so; but whatever his secret emotions, he swallowed them, while still retaining each copper this side the œsophagus. And nearly always he grinned, and only once or twice did he wince, which was when certain coins, tossed by more playful almoners, came inconveniently nigh to his teeth, an accident whose unwelcomeness was not unedged by the circumstance that the pennies thus thrown proved buttons. [15]

While this game of charity was yet at its height, a limping, gimlet-eyed, sour-faced person—it may be some discharged custom-house officer, who, suddenly stripped of convenient means of support, had concluded to be avenged on government and humanity by making himself miserable for life, either by hating or suspecting everything and everybody—this shallow unfortunate, after sundry sorry observations of the negro, began to croak out something about his deformity being a sham, got up for financial purposes, which immediately threw a damp upon the frolic benignities of the pitch-penny players.

But that these suspicions came from one who himself on a wooden leg went halt, this did not appear to strike anybody present. That cripples, above all men should be companionable, or, at least, refrain from picking a fellow-limper to pieces, in short, should have a little sympathy in common misfortune, seemed not to occur to the company.

Meantime, the negro’s countenance, before marked with even more than patient good-nature, drooped into a heavy-hearted expression, full of the most painful distress. So far abased beneath its proper physical level, that Newfoundland-dog face turned in passively hopeless appeal, as if instinct told it that the right or the wrong might not have overmuch to do with whatever wayward mood superior intelligences might yield to.

But instinct, though knowing, is yet a teacher set below reason, which itself says, in the grave words of [16] Lysander in the comedy, after Puck has made a sage of him with his spell:—

“The will of man is by his reason swayed.”

So that, suddenly change as people may, in their dispositions, it is not always waywardness, but improved judgment, which, as in Lysander’s case, or the present, operates with them.

Yes, they began to scrutinize the negro curiously enough; when, emboldened by this evidence of the efficacy of his words, the wooden-legged man hobbled up to the negro, and, with the air of a beadle, would, to prove his alleged imposture on the spot, have stripped him and then driven him away, but was prevented by the crowd’s clamor, now taking part with the poor fellow, against one who had just before turned nearly all minds the other way. So he with the wooden leg was forced to retire; when the rest, finding themselves left sole judges in the case, could not resist the opportunity of acting the part: not because it is a human weakness to take pleasure in sitting in judgment upon one in a box, as surely this unfortunate negro now was, but that it strangely sharpens human perceptions, when, instead of standing by and having their fellow-feelings touched by the sight of an alleged culprit severely handled by some one justiciary, a crowd suddenly come to be all justiciaries in the same case themselves; as in Arkansas once, a man proved guilty, by law, of murder, but whose condemnation was deemed [17] unjust by the people, so that they rescued him to try him themselves; whereupon, they, as it turned out, found him even guiltier than the court had done, and forthwith proceeded to execution; so that the gallows presented the truly warning spectacle of a man hanged by his friends.

But not to such extremities, or anything like them, did the present crowd come; they, for the time, being content with putting the negro fairly and discreetly to the question; among other things, asking him, had he any documentary proof, any plain paper about him, attesting that his case was not a spurious one.

“No, no, dis poor ole darkie haint none o‘ dem waloable papers,” he wailed.

“But is there not some one who can speak a good word for you?” here said a person newly arrived from another part of the boat, a young Episcopal clergyman, in a long, straight-bodied black coat; small in stature, but manly; with a clear face and blue eye; innocence, tenderness, and good sense triumvirate in his air.

“Oh yes, oh yes, ge’mmen,” he eagerly answered, as if his memory, before suddenly frozen up by cold charity, as suddenly thawed back into fluidity at the first kindly word. “Oh yes, oh yes, dar is aboard here a werry nice, good ge’mman wid a weed, and a ge’mman in a gray coat and white tie, what knows all about me; and a ge’mman wid a big book, too; and a yarb-doctor; and a ge’mman in a yaller west; and a ge’mman wid a brass plate; and a ge’mman in a wiolet robe; and a ge’mman as is a sodjer; and ever so many good, kind, [18] honest ge’mmen more aboard what knows me and will speak for me, God bress ’em; yes, and what knows me as well as dis poor old darkie knows hisself, God bress him! Oh, find ‘em, find ’em,” he earnestly added, “and let ‘em come quick, and show you all, ge’mmen, dat dis poor ole darkie is werry well wordy of all you kind ge’mmen’s kind confidence.”

“But how are we to find all these people in this great crowd?” was the question of a bystander, umbrella in hand; a middle-aged person, a country merchant apparently, whose natural good-feeling had been made at least cautious by the unnatural ill-feeling of the discharged custom-house officer.

“Where are we to find them?” half-rebukefully echoed the young Episcopal clergymen. “I will go find one to begin with,” he quickly added, and, with kind haste suiting the action to the word, away he went.

“Wild goose chase!” croaked he with the wooden leg, now again drawing nigh. “Don’t believe there’s a soul of them aboard. Did ever beggar have such heaps of fine friends? He can walk fast enough when he tries, a good deal faster than I; but he can lie yet faster. He’s some white operator, betwisted and painted up for a decoy. He and his friends are all humbugs.”

“Have you no charity, friend?” here in self-subdued tones, singularly contrasted with his unsubdued person, said a Methodist minister, advancing; a tall, muscular, martial-looking man, a Tennessean by birth, who in the [19] Mexican war had been volunteer chaplain to a volunteer rifle-regiment.

“Charity is one thing, and truth is another,” rejoined he with the wooden leg: “he’s a rascal, I say.”

“But why not, friend, put as charitable a construction as one can upon the poor fellow?” said the soldierlike Methodist, with increased difficulty maintaining a pacific demeanor towards one whose own asperity seemed so little to entitle him to it: “he looks honest, don’t he?”

“Looks are one thing, and facts are another,” snapped out the other perversely; “and as to your constructions, what construction can you put upon a rascal, but that a rascal he is?”

“Be not such a Canada thistle,” urged the Methodist, with something less of patience than before. “Charity, man, charity.”

“To where it belongs with your charity! to heaven with it!” again snapped out the other, diabolically; “here on earth, true charity dotes, and false charity plots. Who betrays a fool with a kiss, the charitable fool has the charity to believe is in love with him, and the charitable knave on the stand gives charitable testimony for his comrade in the box.”

“Surely, friend,” returned the noble Methodist, with much ado restraining his still waxing indignation—“surely, to say the least, you forget yourself. Apply it home,” he continued, with exterior calmness tremulous with inkept emotion. “Suppose, now, I should exercise no charity in judging your own character by [20] the words which have fallen from you; what sort of vile, pitiless man do you think I would take you for?”

“No doubt”—with a grin—“some such pitiless man as has lost his piety in much the same way that the jockey loses his honesty.”

“And how is that, friend?” still conscientiously holding back the old Adam in him, as if it were a mastiff he had by the neck.

“Never you mind how it is”—with a sneer; “but all horses aint virtuous, no more than all men kind; and come close to, and much dealt with, some things are catching. When you find me a virtuous jockey, I will find you a benevolent wise man.”

“Some insinuation there.”

“More fool you that are puzzled by it.”

“Reprobate!” cried the other, his indignation now at last almost boiling over; “godless reprobate! if charity did not restrain me, I could call you by names you deserve.”

“Could you, indeed?” with an insolent sneer.

“Yea, and teach you charity on the spot,” cried the goaded Methodist, suddenly catching this exasperating opponent by his shabby coat-collar, and shaking him till his timber-toe clattered on the deck like a nine-pin. “You took me for a non-combatant did you?—thought, seedy coward that you are, that you could abuse a Christian with impunity. You find your mistake”—with another hearty shake.

“Well said and better done, church militant!” cried a voice. [21]

“The white cravat against the world!” cried another.

“Bravo, bravo!” chorused many voices, with like enthusiasm taking sides with the resolute champion.

“You fools!” cried he with the wooden leg, writhing himself loose and inflamedly turning upon the throng; “you flock of fools, under this captain of fools, in this ship of fools!”

With which exclamations, followed by idle threats against his admonisher, this condign victim to justice hobbled away, as disdaining to hold further argument with such a rabble. But his scorn was more than repaid by the hisses that chased him, in which the brave Methodist, satisfied with the rebuke already administered, was, to omit still better reasons, too magnanimous to join. All he said was, pointing towards the departing recusant, “There he shambles off on his one lone leg, emblematic of his one-sided view of humanity.”

“But trust your painted decoy,” retorted the other from a distance, pointing back to the black cripple, “and I have my revenge.”

“But we aint agoing to trust him!” shouted back a voice.

“So much the better,” he jeered back. “Look you,” he added, coming to a dead halt where he was; “look you, I have been called a Canada thistle. Very good. And a seedy one: still better. And the seedy Canada thistle has been pretty well shaken among ye: best of all. Dare say some seed has been shaken out; [22] and won’t it spring though? And when it does spring, do you cut down the young thistles, and won’t they spring the more? It’s encouraging and coaxing ‘em. Now, when with my thistles your farms shall be well stocked, why then—you may abandon ’em!”

“What does all that mean, now?” asked the country merchant, staring.

“Nothing; the foiled wolf’s parting howl,” said the Methodist. “Spleen, much spleen, which is the rickety child of his evil heart of unbelief: it has made him mad. I suspect him for one naturally reprobate. Oh, friends,” raising his arms as in the pulpit, “oh beloved, how are we admonished by the melancholy spectacle of this raver. Let us profit by the lesson; and is it not this: that if, next to mistrusting Providence, there be aught that man should pray against, it is against mistrusting his fellow-man. I have been in mad-houses full of tragic mopers, and seen there the end of suspicion: the cynic, in the moody madness muttering in the corner; for years a barren fixture there; head lopped over, gnawing his own lip, vulture of himself; while, by fits and starts, from the corner opposite came the grimace of the idiot at him.”

“What an example,” whispered one.

“Might deter Timon,” was the response.

“Oh, oh, good ge’mmen, have you no confidence in dis poor ole darkie?” now wailed the returning negro, who, during the late scene, had stumped apart in alarm.

“Confidence in you?” echoed he who had whispered, [23] with abruptly changed air turning short round; “that remains to be seen.”

“I tell you what it is, Ebony,” in similarly changed tones said he who had responded to the whisperer, “yonder churl,” pointing toward the wooden leg in the distance, “is, no doubt, a churlish fellow enough, and I would not wish to be like him; but that is no reason why you may not be some sort of black Jeremy Diddler.”

“No confidence in dis poor ole darkie, den?”

“Before giving you our confidence,” said a third, “we will wait the report of the kind gentleman who went in search of one of your friends who was to speak for you.”

“Very likely, in that case,” said a fourth, “we shall wait here till Christmas. Shouldn’t wonder, did we not see that kind gentleman again. After seeking awhile in vain, he will conclude he has been made a fool of, and so not return to us for pure shame. Fact is, I begin to feel a little qualmish about the darkie myself. Something queer about this darkie, depend upon it.”

Once more the negro wailed, and turning in despair from the last speaker, imploringly caught the Methodist by the skirt of his coat. But a change had come over that before impassioned intercessor. With an irresolute and troubled air, he mutely eyed the suppliant; against whom, somehow, by what seemed instinctive influences, the distrusts first set on foot were now generally reviving, and, if anything, with added severity.

“No confidence in dis poor ole darkie,” yet again [24] wailed the negro, letting go the coat-skirts and turning appealingly all round him.

“Yes, my poor fellow I have confidence in you,” now exclaimed the country merchant before named, whom the negro’s appeal, coming so piteously on the heel of pitilessness, seemed at last humanely to have decided in his favor. “And here, here is some proof of my trust,” with which, tucking his umbrella under his arm, and diving down his hand into his pocket, he fished forth a purse, and, accidentally, along with it, his business card, which, unobserved, dropped to the deck. “Here, here, my poor fellow,” he continued, extending a half dollar.

Not more grateful for the coin than the kindness, the cripple’s face glowed like a polished copper saucepan, and shuffling a pace nigher, with one upstretched hand he received the alms, while, as unconsciously, his one advanced leather stump covered the card.

Done in despite of the general sentiment, the good deed of the merchant was not, perhaps, without its unwelcome return from the crowd, since that good deed seemed somehow to convey to them a sort of reproach. Still again, and more pertinaciously than ever, the cry arose against the negro, and still again he wailed forth his lament and appeal among other things, repeating that the friends, of whom already he had partially run off the list, would freely speak for him, would anybody go find them.

“Why don’t you go find ‘em yourself?” demanded a gruff boatman. [25]

“How can I go find ’em myself? Dis poor ole game-legged darkie’s friends must come to him. Oh, whar, whar is dat good friend of dis darkie’s, dat good man wid de weed?”

At this point, a steward ringing a bell came along, summoning all persons who had not got their tickets to step to the captain’s office; an announcement which speedily thinned the throng about the black cripple, who himself soon forlornly stumped out of sight, probably on much the same errand as the rest.

 

 

 

Melville, Herman. 1857. The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. New York: Dix, Edwards.

PDF at:

https://archive.org/details/confidencemanhis00melvrich

Online text at:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21816

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21816/21816-h/21816-h.htm

 

 

 

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