The Comedian evinced urbane curiosity to learn the history of that process, and drew forth a grateful tale. Four summers ago Mike had resigned the “first gem of the sea” in order to assist in making hay for a Saxon taskmaster.
Mr. Hartopp, who farmed largely, had employed him in that rural occupation. Seized by a malignant fever, Mr. Hartopp had helped him through it, and naturally conceived a liking for the man he helped. Thus, as Mike became convalescent, instead of passing the poor man back to his own country, which at that time gave little employment to the surplus of its agrarian population beyond an occasional shot at a parson,—an employment, though animated, not lucrative, he exercised Mike’s returning strength upon a few light jobs in his warehouse; and finally, Mike marrying imprudently the daughter of a Gatesboro’ operative, Mr. Hartopp set him up in life as a professional messenger and porter, patronized by the Corporation. The narrative made it evident that Mr. Hartopp was a kind and worthy man, and the Comedian’s heart warmed towards him.
“An honour to our species, this Mr. Hartopp!” said Waife, striking his staff upon the floor; “I covet his acquaintance. Would he see you if you called at his counting-house?”
Mike replied in the affirmative with eager pride. “Mr. Hartopp would see him at once. Sure, did not the Mayor know that time was money? Mr. Hartopp was not a man to keep the poor waiting.”
“Go down and stay outside the hall door; you shall take a note for me to the Mayor.”
Waife then passed into the bar, and begged the favour of a sheet of note-paper. The landlady seated him at her own desk, and thus wrote the Comedian:
“Mr. Chapman presents his compliments to the Mayor of Gatesboro’, and requests the Honour of a very short interview. Mr. Chapman’s deep interest in the permanent success of those literary institutes which are so distinguished a feature of this enlightened age, and Mr. Mayor’s well-known zeal in the promotion of those invaluable societies, must be Mr. Chapman’s excuse for the liberty he ventures to take in this request. Mr. C. may add that of late he has earnestly directed his attention to the best means of extracting new uses from those noble but undeveloped institutions.
This epistle, duly sealed and addressed, Waife delivered to the care of Mike Callaghan; and simultaneously he astounded that functionary with no less a gratuity than half a crown. Cutting short the fervent blessings which this generous donation naturally called forth, the Comedian said, with his happiest combination of suavity and loftiness, “And should the Mayor ask you what sort of person I am,—for I have not the honour to be known to him, and there are so many adventurers about, that he might reasonably expect me to be one, perhaps you can say that I don’t look like a person he need be afraid to admit. You know a gentleman by sight! Bring back an answer as soon as may be; perhaps I sha’n’t stay long in the town. You will find me in the High Street, looking at the shops.”
The porter took to his legs, impatient to vent his overflowing heart upon the praises of this munificent stranger. A gentleman, indeed! Mike should think so! If Mike’s good word with the Mayor was worth money, Gentleman Waife had put his half-crown out upon famous interest.
The Comedian strolled along the High Street, and stopped before a stationer’s shop, at the window of which was displayed a bill, entitled,
Author of “Researches into the Natural History of Limpets.”
Waife entered the shop, and lifted his hat,—“Permit me, sir, to look at that hand-bill.”
“Certainly, sir; but the lecture is over; you can see by the date: it came off last week. We allow the bills of previous proceedings at our Athenaeum to be exposed at the window till the new bills are prepared,—keeps the whole thing alive, sir.”
“Conchology,” said the Comedian, “is a subject which requires deep research, and on which a learned man may say much without fear of contradiction. But how far is Gatesboro’ from the British Ocean?”
“I don’t know exactly, sir,—a long way.”
“Then, as shells are not familiar to the youthful remembrances of your fellow-townsmen, possibly the lecturer may have found an audience rather select than numerous.”
“It was a very attentive audience, sir, and highly respectable: Miss Grieve’s young ladies’ (the genteelest seminary in the town) attended.”
WAIFE.—“Highly creditable to the young ladies. But, pardon me, is your Athenaeum a Mechanics’ institute?”
SHOPMAN.—“It was so called at first. But, somehow or other, the mere operatives fell off, and it was thought advisable to change the word ‘Mechanics’ into the word ‘Literary.’ Gatesboro’ is not a manufacturing town, and the mechanics here do not realize the expectations of that taste for abstract science on which the originators of these societies founded their—”
WAIFE (insinuatingly interrupting).—“Their calculations of intellectual progress and their tables of pecuniary return. Few of these societies, I am told, are really self-supporting: I suppose Professor Long is!—and if he resides in Gatesboro’, and writes on limpets, he is probably a man of independent fortune.”
SHOPMAN.—“Why, sir, the professor was engaged from London,—five guineas and his travelling expenses. The funds of the society could ill afford such outlay; but we have a most worthy mayor, who, assisted by his foreman, Mr. Williams, our treasurer, is, I may say, the life and soul of the institute.”
“A literary man himself, your mayor?”
The shopman smiled. “Not much in that way, sir; but anything to enlighten the working classes. This is Professor Long’s great work upon limpets, two vols. post octavo. The Mayor has just presented it to the library of the institute. I was cutting the leaves when you came in.”
“Very prudent in you, sir. If limpets were but able to read printed character in the English tongue, this work would have more interest for them than the ablest investigations upon the political and social history of man. But,” added the Comedian, shaking his head mournfully, “the human species is not testaceous; and what the history of man might be to a limpet, the history of limpets is to a man.” So saying, Mr. Waife bought a sheet of cardboard and some gilt foil, relifted his hat, and walked out.
The shopman scratched his head thoughtfully; he glanced from his window at the form of the receding stranger, and mechanically resumed the task of cutting those leaves, which, had the volumes reached the shelves of the library uncut, would have so remained to the crack of doom.
Mike Callaghan now came in sight, striding fast; “Mr. Mayor sends his love—bother-o’-me—his respex; and will be happy to see your honour.”
In three minutes more the Comedian was seated in a little parlour that adjoined Mr. Hartopp’s counting-house,—Mr. Hartopp seated also, vis-a-vis. The Mayor had one of those countenances upon which good-nature throws a sunshine softer than Claude ever shed upon canvas. Josiah Hartopp had risen in life by little other art than that of quiet kindliness. As a boy at school, he had been ever ready to do a good turn to his school-fellows; and his school-fellows at last formed themselves into a kind of police, for the purpose of protecting Jos. Hartopp’s pence and person from the fists and fingers of each other. He was evidently so anxious to please his master, not from fear of the rod, but the desire to spare that worthy man the pain of inflicting it, that he had more trouble taken with his education than was bestowed on the brightest intellect that school ever reared; and where other boys were roughly flogged, Jos. Hartopp was soothingly patted on the head, and told not to be cast down, but try again. The same even-handed justice returned the sugared chalice to his lips in his