The Monikins Part 38

"I begin to see into your management--after all, you are neither miserable nor ashamed?"

"Not the least in the world. It is of more importance for monikins of my calibre to seem to be anything than to be it. My fellow-citizens are usually satisfied with this sacrifice; and, now principle is eclipsed, nothing is easier."

"But how happens it, judge, that one of your surprising dexterity and agility should be caught tripping? I had thought you particularly expert, and infallible in all the gyrations. Perhaps the little affair of the cauda has leaked out?"

The judge laughed in my face.

"I see you know little of us, after all, Sir John. Here have we proscribed caudae, as anti-republican, both public opinions setting their faces against them; and yet a monikin may wear one abroad a mile long with impunity if he will just submit to a new dock when he comes home, and swear that he is the most miserable wretch going. If he can throw in a favorable word, too, touching the Leaplow cats and dogs--Lord bless you, sir! they would pardon treason!"

"I begin to comprehend your policy, judge, if not your polity. Leaplow being a popular government, it becomes necessary that its public agents should be popular too. Now, as monikins naturally delight in their own excellences, nothing so disposes them to give credit to another, as his professions that he is worse than themselves."

The judge nodded and grinned.

"But another word, dear sir--as you feel yourself constrained to commend the cats and dogs of Leaplow, do you belong to that school of philocats, who take their revenge for their amenity to the quadrupeds, by berating their fellow-creatures?"

The judge started, and glanced about him as if he dreaded a thief-taker.

Then earnestly imploring me to respect his situation, he added in a whisper, that the subject of the people was sacred with him, that he rarely spoke of them without a reverence, and that his favorable sentiments in relation to the cats and dogs were not dependent on any particular merits of the animals themselves, but merely because they were the people's cats and dogs. Fearful that I might say something still more disagreeable, the judge hastened to take his leave, and I never saw him afterward. I make no doubt, however, that in good time his hair grew as he grew again into favor, and that he found the means to exhibit the proper length of tail on all suitable occasions.

A crowd in the street now caught my attention. On approaching it, a colleague who was there was kind enough to explain its cause.

It would seem that certain Leaphighers had been travelling in Leaplow; and, not satisfied with this liberty, they had actually written books concerning things that they had seen, and things that they had not seen. As respects the latter, neither of the public opinions was very sensitive, although many of them reflected on the Great National Allegory and the sacred rights of monikins; but as respects the former, there was a very lively excitement. These writers had the audacity to say that the Leaplowers had cut off all their caudae, and the whole community was convulsed at an outrage so unprecedented. It was one thing to take such a step, and another to have it proclaimed to the world in books. If the Leaplowers had no tails, it was clearly their own fault.

Nature had formed them with tails. They had bobbed themselves on a republican principle; and no one's principles ought to be thrown into his face, in this rude manner, more especially during a moral eclipse.

The dispensers of the essence of lopped tails threatened vengeance; caricaturists were put in requisition; some grinned, some menaced, some swore, and all read!

I left the crowd, taking the direction of my door again, pondering on this singular state of society, in which a peculiarity that had been deliberately and publicly adopted, should give rise to a sensitiveness of a character so unusual. I very well knew that men are commonly more ashamed of natural imperfections than those which, in a great measure, depend on themselves; but then men are, in their own estimation at least, placed by nature at the head of creation, and in that capacity it is reasonable to suppose they will be jealous of their natural privileges. The present case was rather Leaplow than generic; and I could only account for it, by supposing that nature had placed certain nerves in the wrong part of the Leaplow anatomy.

On entering the house, a strong smell of roasted meat saluted my nostrils, causing a very unphilosophical pleasure to the olfactory nerves, a pleasure which acted very directly, too, on the gastric juices of the stomach. In plain English, I had very sensible evidence that it was not enough to transport a man to the monikin region, send him to parliament, and keep him on nuts for a week, to render him exclusively ethereal, I found it was vain "to kick against the p.r.i.c.ks." The odor of roasted meat was stronger than all the facts just named, and I was fain to abandon philosophy, and surrender to the belly. I descended incontinently to the kitchen, guided by a sense no more spiritual than that which directs the hound in the chase.

On opening the door of our refectory, such a delicious perfume greeted the nose, that I melted like a romantic girl at the murmur of a waterfall, and, losing sight of all the sublime truths so lately acquired, I was guilty of the particular human weakness which is usually described as having the "mouth water."

The sealer had quite taken leave of his monikin forbearance, and was enjoying himself in a peculiarly human manner. A dish of roasted meat was lying before him, and his eyes fairly glared as he turned them from me to the viand, in a way to render it a little doubtful whether I was a welcome visitor. But that honest old principle of seamen which never refuses to share equally with an ancient mess-mate, got the better even of his voracity.

"Sit down, Sir John," the captain cried, without ceasing to masticate, "and make no bones of it. To own the fact, the latter are almost as good as the flesh. I never tasted a sweeter morsel!"

I did not wait for a second invitation, the reader may be sure; and in less than ten minutes the dish was as clear as a table that had been swept by harpies. As this work is intended for one in which truth is rigidly respected, I shall avow that I do not remember any cultivation of sentiment which gave me half so much satisfaction as that short and hurried repast. I look back to it, even now, as to the very beau ideal of a dinner! Its fault was in the quant.i.ty, and not in quality.

I gazed greedily about for more. Just then, I caught a glimpse of a face that seemed looking at me with melancholy reproach. The truth flashed upon me in a flood of horrible remorse. Rushing upon Noah like a tiger, I seized him by the throat, and cried, in a voice of despair:

"Cannibal! what hast thou done?"

"Loosen your grip, Sir John--we do not relish these hugs at Stunin'tun."

"Wretch! thou hast made me the partic.i.p.ator of thy crime! We have eaten Brigadier Downright."

"Loosen, Sir John, or human natur' will rebel."

"Monster! give up thy unholy repast--dost not see a million reproaches in the eyes of the innocent victim of thy insatiable appet.i.tes?"

"Cast off, Sir John, cast off, while we are friends, I care not if I have swallowed all the brigadiers in Leaplow--off hands!"

"Never, monster! until thou disgorgest thy unholy meal!"

Noah could endure no more; but, seizing me by the throat, on the retaliating principle, I soon had some such sensations as one would be apt to feel if his gullet were in a vice. I shall not attempt to describe very minutely the miracle that followed. Hanging ought to be an effectual remedy for many delusions; for, in my case, the bowstring I was under certainly did wonders in a very short time. Gradually the whole scene changed. First came a mist, then a vertigo; and finally, as the captain relaxed his hold, objects appeared in new forms, and instead of being in our lodgings in Bivouac, I found myself in my old apartment in the Rue de Rivoli, Paris.

"King!" exclaimed Noah, who stood before me, red in the face with exertion; "this is no boy's play, and if it's to be repeated, I shall use a lashing! Where would be the harm, Sir John, if a man had eaten a monkey?"

Astonishment kept me mute. Every object, just as I had left it the morning we started for London, on our way to Leaphigh, was there. A table, in the centre of the room, was covered with sheets of paper closely written over, which, on examination, I found contained this ma.n.u.script as far as the last chapter. Both the captain and myself were attired as usual; I a la Parisien and he a la Stunin'tun. A small ship, very ingeniously made, and very accurately rigged, lay on the floor, with "Walrus" written on her stern. As my bewildered eye caught a glimpse of this vessel, Noah informed me that, having nothing to do except to look after my welfare (a polite way of characterizing his ward over my person, as I afterward found), he had employed his leisure in constructing the toy.

All was inexplicable. There was really the smell of meat. I had also that peculiar sensation of fulness which is apt to succeed a dinner, and a dish well filled with bones was in plain view. I took up one of the latter, in order to ascertain its genus. The captain kindly informed me that it was the remains of a pig, which had cost him a great deal of trouble to obtain, as the French viewed the act of eating a pig as very little less heinous than the act of eating a child. Suspicions began to trouble me, and I now turned to look for the head and reproachful eye of the brigadier.

The head was where I had just before seen it, visible over the top of a trunk; but it was so far raised as to enable me to see that it was still planted on its shoulders. A second look enabled me to distinguish the meditative, philosophical countenance of Dr. Reasono, who was still in the hussar-jacket and petticoat, though, being in the house, he had very properly laid aside the Spanish hat with bedraggled feathers.

A movement followed in the antechamber, and a hurried conversation, in a low, earnest tone, succeeded. The captain disappeared, and joined the speakers. I listened intently, but could not catch any of the intonations of a dialect founded on the decimal principle. Presently the door opened, and Dr. Etherington stood before me!

The good divine regarded me long and earnestly. Tears filled his eyes, and, stretching out both hands towards me, he asked:

"Do you know me, Jack?"

"Know you, dear sir!--Why should I not?"

"And do you forgive me, dear boy?"

"For what, sir?--I am sure, I have most reason to demand your pardon for a thousand follies."

"Ah! the letter--the unkind--the inconsiderate letter!"

"I have not had a letter from you, sir, in a twelvemonth; the last was anything but unkind."

"Though Anna wrote, it was at my dictation."

I pa.s.sed a hand over my brow, and had dawnings of the truth.

"Anna?"

"Is here--in Paris--and miserable--most miserable!--on your account."

Every particle of monikinity that was left in my system instantly gave way to a flood of human sensations.

"Let me fly to her, dear sir--a moment is an age!"

"Not just yet, my boy. We have much to say to each other, nor is she in this hotel. To-morrow, when both are better prepared, you shall meet."

"Add, never to separate, sir, and I will be patient as a lamb."

"Never to separate, I believe it will be better to say."

I hugged my venerable guardian, and found a delicious relief from a most oppressive burden of sensations, in a flow of tears,