“Near enough!” said I, laughing at my friend’s rattling history of my life.
“And here he is, fellow-citizens,” Stillfleet continued. “He has seen the world and had his fling in Paris, where he picked up a little chemistry and this half-cynical manner and half-sceptical method, which you remark. He has also got a small supply of science and an abundance of dreaminess and fatalism in Germany. But he is a fine fellow, with a good complexion, not dishonest blue eyes, not spoilt in any way, and if America punishes him properly, and puts his nose severely to the grindstone, he may turn out respectable. I’ll offer you three to two, Byng, the Devil don’t get you. Speak quick, or I shall want to bet even.”
“You rascal!” said I. “I would go at you with an analysis after the same fashion, if I were not too hungry. Come down and breakfast.”
“Here is a gentleman from Sybaris!” cried Stillfleet. “ ‘Come and breakfast!’ says he, lifting himself out of his bed of rose-leaves at mid-day. Why, man! I breakfasted three hours ago. I’ve been up to the Reservoir and down to the Exchange and over to Brooklyn since. That’s the style you have to learn, twenty thousand miles an hour, hurrah boys! go ahead! ‘En avant, marrche!’ ‘Marrrrche!’ Yes; I took breakfast three hours ago,—and a stout one,—to fortify me for the toil of packing to go to Washington. But I’ll sit by and check your come-ashore appetite.”
2
Chrysalis College
Stillfleet escorted me down to the long, desolate dining-room of my hotel, the Chuzzlewit.
The great Chuzzlewit dined there on his visit to America, and damned his dinner with such fine irony, that the proprietor thought himself complimented, and re-baptized his hotel.
“Here you are,” said my friend, “at a crack house on the American plan. You can breakfast on fried beefsteak, hard eggs, café au delay, soggy toast, flannel cakes, blanket cakes, and wash-leather cakes. You can dine on mock soup, boiled porpoise, beef in the raw or in the chip, watery vegetables, quoit pies, and can have your choice at two dollars a bottle of twelve kinds of wine, all mixed in the same cellar, and labelled in the same shop. You can sup on soused tea, dusty sponge-cake, and Patrick à discrétion. How do you like the bill of fare?”
“Marine appetites are not discriminating. But, Harry,” I continued, when I had ordered my breakfast, “you spoke of going to Washington. I thought only raff—Congressmen, contractors, and tide-waiters—went there.”
“Civilization makes its missionaries acquainted with strange lodgings. They are building a big abortion of a new Capitol. I go, as an architect, to expunge a little of the Goth and the Vandal out of their sham-classic plans.”
“Beware! Reform too soon, and you risk ostracism. But before you go, advise me. Where am I to live? Evidently not here at the Chuzzlewit. Here the prices are large, and the rooms little. I must have a den of my own, where I can swing a cat, a longish cat.”
“Why not take my place off my hands? It is big enough to swing a royal Bengal tiger in. I meant to lock it up, but you shall occupy and enjoy, if you like. It’s a grand chance, old fellow. There’s not such another Rubbish Palace in America.”
“Excellent!” said I. “But will you trust me with your plunder?”
“Will I trust you? Haven’t we been brats together, lads together, men together?”
“We have.”
“Haven’t we been comrades in robbing orchards, mobbing tutors, spoiling the Egyptians of mummies, pillaging the Tuileries in ’48? Haven’t we been the historic friends, Demon and Pythagoras,—no, Damon and Pythias? Answer me that!”
“We have.”
“Well, then, enter my shop, studio, palace, and use and abuse my tools, rubbish, valuables, as you like. Really, Byng, it will be a great favor if you will fill my quarters, and keep down the rats with my rat rifle, while I am in Washington trying to decorate the Representative Chamber so that it will shame blackguards to silence.”
“Now,” said I, after a pause, and a little stern champing over a tough Chuzzlewit chop, “all ready, Harry; conduct me to your den.”
We left the Chuzzlewit by the side door on Mannering Place, and descended from Broadway as far as Ailanthus Square. On the corner, fronting that mean, shabby enclosure, Stillfleet pointed out a huge granite or rough marble building.
“There I live,” said he. “It’s not a jail, as you might suppose from its grimmish aspect. Not an Asylum. Not a Retreat. No lunatics, that I know of, kept there, nor anything mysterious, guilty, or out of the way.”
“Chrysalis College, is it not?”
“You have not forgotten its monastic phiz?”
“No; I remember the sham convent, sham castle, modern-antique affair. But how do you happen to be quartered there? Is the College defunct?”
“Not defunct; only without vitality. The Trustees fancied that, if they built roomy, their college would be populous; if they built marble, it would be permanent; if they built Gothic, it would be scholastic and mediæval in its influences; if they had narrow, mullioned windows, not too much disorganizing modern thought would penetrate.”
“Well, and what was the result?”
“The result is, that the old nickname of Chrysalis sticks to it, and whatever real name it may have is forgotten. There it stands, big, battlemented, buttressed, marble, with windows like crenelles; and inside they keep up the traditional methods of education.”
“But pupils don’t beleaguer it?”
“That is the blunt fact. It stays an ineffectual high-low school. The halls and lecture-rooms would stand vacant, so they let them to lodgers.”
“You are not very grateful to your landlords.”
“I pay my rent, and have a right to criticise.”
“Who live there besides you?”
“Several artists, a brace of young doctors, one or two quiet men about town, Churm, and myself.”
“Churm! How is that noble old fellow? I count upon reclaiming his friendship.”
“How is Churm? Just the same. Tranquil sage; headlong boy. An aristocratic radical. A Timon without gall. Says the wisest things; does the kindest. Knows everything; and yet is always ready for the new truth that nullifies the old facts. He cannot work inside of the institutions of society. He calls them ‘shingle-cells,’ tight and transitory. He cannot get over his cynical way of putting a subject, though there is no cynic in his heart. So the world votes him odd, and lets him have his own way.”
“Lucky to get liberty at cost of a nickname! Who would not be called odd to be left free?”
“If Churm were poor, he would be howled at as a radical, a destructive, an infidel.”
“I suppose he is too rich and powerful to be harmed, and too intrepid to care.”
“Yes; and then there is something in Churm’s vigor that disarms opposition. His generosity hoists people up to his level. But here we are, Byng, at the grand portal of the grand front.”
“I see the front and the door. Where is the grandeur?”
“Don’t put on airs, stranger! We call this imposing, magnifique, in short, pretty good. Up goes your nose! You have lived too long in Florence. Brunelleschi and Giotto have spoilt you. Well, I will show you something better inside. Follow me!”
We entered the edifice, half college, half lodging-house, through a large doorway, under a pointed arch. The interior was singularly ill-contrived. A lobby opened at the door, communicating with a dim corridor running through the middle of the building, parallel to the front.