Chapter I. THE NOSE OF A SPY

"Squire."said Mr. Hopewell,"you know Sam well enough, I hope, to make all due allowances for the exuberance of his fancy. The sketch he has just given you of London society, like the novels of the present day, though founded on fact, is very unlike the reality. The re may be assemblages of persons in this great city, and no doubt there are, quite as insipid and absurd as the one he has just pourtrayed; but you must not suppose it is at all a fair specimen of the society of this place. My own experience is quite the reverse. I think it the most refined, the most agreeable, and the most instructive in the world. Whatever your favourite study or pursuit may be, here you are sure to find well-informed and enthusiastic associates. If you have merit, it is appreciated; and for an Aristocratic country, that merit places you on a level with your superiors in rank in a manner that is quite incomprehensible to a republican. Money is the great leveller of distinctions with us; here, it is talent. Fashion spreads many tables here, but talent is always found seated at the best, if it thinks proper to comply with certain usages, without which, even genius ceases to be attractive.

"On some future occasion, I will enter more at large on this subject; but now it is too late; I have already exceeded my usual hour for retiring.'Excuse me, Sam,'said he.'I know you will not be offended with me, but Squire there are some subjects on which Sam may amuse, but cannot instruct you, and one is, fashionable life in London. You must judge for yourself, Sir. Good night, my children.'"

Mr. Slick rose, and opened the door for him, and as he passed, bowed and held out his hand."Remember me, your honour, no man opens the door in this country without being paid for it. Remember me, Sir."

"True, Sam,"said the Minister,"and it is unlucky that it does not extend to opening the mouth, if it did, you would soon make your fortune, for you can't keep yours shut. Good night."

The society to which I have subsequently had the good fortune to be admitted, fully justifies the eulogium of Mr. Hopewell. Though many persons can write well, few can talk well; but the number of those who excel in conversation is much greater in certain circles in London, than in any other place. By talking well, I do not mean talking wisely or learnedly; but agreeably, for relaxation and pleasure, are the principal objects of social assemblies. This can only be illustrated by instancing some very remarkable persons, who are the pride and pleasure of every table they honour and delight with their presence But this may not be. For obvious reasons, I could not do it if I would; and most assuredly, I would not do it if I could. No more certain mode could be devised of destroying conversation, than by showing, that when the citadel is unguarded, the approach of a friend is as unsafe as that of an enemy.

Alas! poor Hook! who can read the unkind notice of thee in a late periodical, and not feel, that on some occasions you must have admitted to your confidence men who were as unworthy of that distinction as, they were incapable of appreciating it, and that they who will disregard the privileges of a table, will not hesitate to violate even the sanctity of the tomb. Cant may talk of your"inter pocula"errors with pious horror; and pretension, now that its indulgence is safe, may affect to disclaim your acquaintance; but kinder, and better, and truer men than those who furnished your biographer with his facts will not fail to recollect your talents with pride, and your wit and your humour with wonder and delight.

We do not require such flagrant examples as these to teach us our duty, but they are not without their use in increasing our caution.

When Mr. Hopewell withdrew, Mr. Slick observed:

"Ain't that ere old man a trump? He is always in the right place. Whenever you want to find him, jist go and look for him where he ought to be, and there you will find him as sure as there is snakes in Varginy. He is a brick, that's a fact. Still, for all that, he ain't jist altogether a citizen of this world nother. He fishes in deep water, with a sinker to his hook. He can't throw a fly as I can, reel out his line, run down stream, and then wind up, wind up, wind up, and let out, and wind up again, till he lands his fish, as I do. He looks deep into things, is a better religionist, polititioner, and bookster than I be: but then that's all he does know. If you want to find your way about, or read a man, come to me, that's all; for I'm the boy that jist can do it. If I can't walk into a man, I can dodge round him; and if he is too nimble for that, I can jump over him; and if he is too tall for that, although I don't like the play, yet I can whip him.

"Now, Squire, I have been a good deal to England, and crossed this big pond here the matter of seven times, and know a good deal about it, more than a great many folks that have writtin'books on it, p'raps. Mind what I tell you, the English ain't what they was. I'm not speakin'in jeest now, or in prejudice. I hante a grain of prejudice in me. I've see'd too much of the world for that I reckon. I call myself a candid man, and I tell you the English are no more like what the English used to be, when pigs were swine, and Turkey chewed tobacky, than they are like the Picts or Scots, or Norman, French, or Saxons, or nothin'."

"Not what they used to be?"I said."Pray, what do you mean?"

"I mean,"said he,"jist what I say. They ain't the same people no more. They are as proud, and overbearin', and concaited, and haughty to foreigners as ever; but, then they ain't so manly, open-hearted, and noble as they used to be, once upon a time. They have the Spy System now, in full operation here; so jist take my advice, and mind your potatoe-trap, or you will be in trouble afore you are ten days older, see if you ain't."

"The Spy System!"I replied."Good Heavens, Mr. Slick, how can you talk such nonsense, and yet have the modesty to say you have no prejudice?"

"Yes, the Spy System,"said he,"and I'll prove it. You know Dr. Mc'Dougall to Nova Scotia; well, he knows all about mineralogy, and geology, and astrology, and every thing a'most, except what he ought to know, and that is dollar-ology. For he ain't over and above half well off, that's a fact. We ll, a critter of the name of Oatmeal, down to Pictou, said to another Scotchman there one day,'The great nateralist Dr. Mc'Dougall is come to town.'

"'Who?'says Sawney.

"'Dr. Mc'Dougall, the nateralist,'says Oatmeal.

"'Hout, mon,'says Sawney,'he is nae nateral, that chiel; he kens mair than maist men; he is nae that fool you take him to be.'

"Now, I am not such a fool as you take me to be, Squire. Whenever I did a sum to, school, Minister used to say,'Prove it, Sam, and if it won't prove, do it over agin, till it will; a sum ain't right when it won't prove.'Now, I say the English have the Spy System, and I'll prove it; nay, more than that, they have the nastiest, dirtiest, meanest, sneakenest system in the world. It is ten times as bad as the French plan. In France they have bar-keepers, waiters, chamber galls, guides, quotillions,—"

"Postilions, you mean,"I said.

"We ll, postilions then, for the French have queer names for people, that's a fact; disbanded sodgers, and such trash, for spies. In England they have airls and countesses, Parliament men, and them that call themselves gentlemen and ladies, for spies."

"How very absurd!"I said.

"Oh yes, very absurd,"said Mr. Slick;"whenever I say anythin'agin England, it's very absurd, it's all prejudice. Nothin'is strange, though, when it is said of us, and the absurder it is, the truer it is. I can bam as well as any man when bam is the word, but when fact is the play, I am right up and down, and true as a trivet. I won't deceive you; I'll prove it.

"The re was a Kurnel Dun—dun—plague take his name, I can't recollect it, but it makes no odds—I know he is Dun for, though, that's a fact. We ll, he was a British kurnel, that was out to Halifax when I was there. I know'd him by sight, I didn't know him by talk, for I didn't fill then the dignified situation I now do, of Attache. I was only a clockmaker then, and I suppose he wouldn't have dirtied the tip eend of his white glove with me then, any more than I would sile mine with him now, and very expensive and troublesome things them white gloves be too; there is no keepin'of them clean. For my part, I don't see why a man can't make his own skin as clean as a kid's, any time; and if a feller can't be let shake hands with a gall except he has a glove on, why ain't he made to cover his lips, and kiss thro'kid skin too.

"But to get back to the kurnel, and it's a pity he hadn't had a glove over his mouth, that's a fact. We ll, he went home to England with his regiment, and one night when he was dinin'among some first chop men, nobles and so on, they sot up considerable late over their claret; and poor thin cold stuff it is too, is claret. A man may get drowned in it, but how the plague he can get drunk with it is dark to me. It's like every thing else French, it has no substance in it; it's nothin'but red ink, that's a fact. We ll, how it was I don't know, but so it eventuated, that about daylight he was mops and brooms, and began to talk somethin'or another he hadn't ought to; somethin'he didn't know himself, and somethin'he didn't mean, and didn't remember.

"Faith, next mornin'he was booked; and the first thing he see'd when he waked was another man a tryin'on of his shoes, to see how they'd fit to march to the head of his regiment with. Fact, I assure you, and a fact too that shows what Englishmen has come to; I despise'em, I hate'em, I scorn such critters as I do oncarcumcised niggers."

"What a strange perversion of facts,"I replied.

But he would admit of no explanation."Oh yes, quite parvarted; not a word of truth in it; there never is when England is consarned. The re is no beam in an Englishman's eye; no not a smell of one; he has pulled it out long ago; that's the reason he can see the mote in other folks's so plain. Oh, of course it ain't true; it's a Yankee invention; it's a hickory ham and a wooden nutmeg.

"We ll, then, there was another feller got bagged t'other day, as innocent as could be, for givin'his opinion when folks was a talkin'about matters and things in gineral, and this here one in partikilar. I can't tell the words, for I don't know'em, nor care about'em; and if I did, I couldn't carry'em about so long; but it was for sayin'it hadn't ought to have been taken notice of, considerin'it jist popt out permiscuous like with the bottle-cork. If he hadn't a had the clear grit in him, and showed teeth and claws, they'd a nullified him so, you wouldn't have see'd a grease spot of him no more. What do you call that, now? Do you call that liberty? Do you call that old English? Do you call it pretty, say now? Thank God, it tante Yankee."

"I see you have no prejudice, Mr. Slick,"I replied.

"Not one mite or morsel,"he replied."Tho'I was born in Connecticut, I have travelled all over the thirteen united univarsal worlds of ourn and am a citizen at large. No, I have no prejudice. You say I am mistaken; p'raps I am, I hope I be, and a stranger may get hold of the wrong eend of a thing sometimes, that's a fact. But I don't think I be wrong, or else the papers don't tell the truth; and I read it in all the jarnals; I did, upon my soul. Why man, it's history now, if such nasty mean doins is worth puttin'into a book.

"What makes this Spy System to England wuss, is that these eaves-droppers are obliged to hear all that's said, or lose what commission they hold; at least so folks tell me. I recollect when I was there last, for it's some years since Government first sot up the Spy System; there was a great feed given to a Mr. Robe, or Robie, or some such name, an out and out Tory. We ll, sunthin'or another was said over their cups, that might as well have been let alone, I do suppose, tho'dear me, what is the use of wine but to onloosen the tongue, and what is the use of the tongue, but to talk. Oh, cuss'em, I have no patience with them. We ll, there was an officer of a marchin'regiment there, who it seems ought to have took down the words and sent'em up to the head Gineral, but he was a knowin'coon, was officer, and didn't hear it. No sooner said than done; some one else did the dirty work for him; but you can't have a substitute for this, you must sarve in person, so the old Gineral hawls him right up for it.

"'Why the plague, didn't you make a fuss?'sais the General,'why didn't you get right up, and break up the party?'

"'I didn't hear it,'sais he.

"'You didn't hear it!'sais Old Sword-belt,'then you had ought to have heerd it; and for two pins, I'd sharpen your hearin'for you, so that a snore of a fly would wake you up, as if a byler had bust.'

"Oh, how it has lowered the English in the eyes of foreigners! How sneakin'it makes'em look! They seem for all the world like scared dogs; and a dog when he slopes off with his head down, his tail atween his legs, and his back so mean it won't bristle, is a caution to sinners. Lord. I wish I was Queen!"

"What, of such a degraded race as you say the English are, of such a mean-spirited, sneaking nation?"

"We ll, they warn't always so,"he replied."I will say that, for I have no prejudice. By natur, there is sunthin'noble and manly in a Britisher, and always was, till this cussed Spy System got into fashion. They tell me it was the Liberals first brought it into vogue. How that is. I don't know; but I shouldn't wonder if it was them, for I know this, if a feller talks

very liberal in politics, put him into office, and see what a tyrant he'll make. If he talks very liberal in religion, it's because he hante got none at all. If he talks very liberal to the poor, talk is all the poor will ever get out of him. If he talks liberal about corn law, it tante to feed the hungry, but to lower wages, and so on in every thing a most. None is so liberal as those as hante got nothin'. The most liberal feller I know on is"Old Scratch himself."If ever the liberals come in, they should make him Prime Minister. He is very liberal in religion and would jine them in excludin'the Bible from common schools I know. He is very liberal about the criminal code, for he can't bear to see criminals punished. He is very liberal in politics, for he don't approbate restraint, and likes to let every critter'go to the devil'his own way. Oh, he should be Head Spy and Prime Minister that feller.