gard to the fashions, and then had gone round the city to all the clubs, hotels, and opera-houses, blowing for Maloney with all his lungs. He didn't "hesitate to declare" that Maloney was the only man in the country who could fit you decently to pantaloons. Pantaloons were his spécialité. His cutter was a born genius," an Englishman, sir, whose grandfather used to cut for the famous Brummel, — you've heard of Brummel?" The results of all this persistent blowing were astonishing. Soon the superstition prevailed in Wall Street and along the Fifth Avenue, that if one wanted pantaloons he must go to Maloney. Haynes was excellent for dress-coats and sacks; but don't let him hope to compete with Maloney in pantaloons. You would hear young fops discussing the point with intensest earnestness and enthusiasm. ers. How many fortunes have a basis quite as airy and unsubstantial! Soon Maloney's little shop was crowded with customHe was obliged to take a large and showy establishment in Broadway. Here prosperity insisted on following him. Wealth began to flow steadily in. He found himself on the plain, high road to fortune; and by whom but Pompilard had he been led there? The consequence was perpetual gratitude on the tailor's part, evinced in daily sending home, with his own marketing, enough for the other half of the house; evinced also in the determination to stick to Harlem till his benefactor would consent to leave. While the Pompilards were discussing the matter of the wedding, Melissa and Purling entered from a walk. Melissa carried her years very well; though hope deferred had written anxiety on her amiable features. Purling was a slim, gentlemanly person, always affecting good spirits, though certain little silvery streaks in the side-locks over his ears showed that time and care were beginning their inevitable work. In aspiring to authorship he had not thought it essential that he should consume gin like Byron, or whiskey like Charles Lamb, or opium like De Quincey. But if there be an avenging deity presiding over the wrongs of undone publishers, Purling must be doomed to some unquiet nights. There was something sublime in the pertinacity with which he kept on writing after the public had snubbed him so repeatedly by utter neglect; THE CHAPTER XVII. SHALL THERE BE A WEDDING? "Ah! spare your idol; think him human still; Young. HE question as to the inheritance of the Aylesford-Berwick property was not decided without a lawsuit. The case was put into the courts, and kept there many months. The heavy legal expenses to which Charlton was subjected, and his reluctance to meet them, protracted the contest by alienating his lawyers. Pompilard went straight to the point by promising his counsel a fee of a hundred thousand dollars in the event of success; and thus he enlisted and kept active the best professional aid. Still the prospect was doubtful. But even the law's delay must finally have an end. The hour of the final settlement of the great case by the ultimate court of appeal had come at last. The judges had entered and taken their seats. Charlton, pale and haggard, sat by the side of his lawyer, Detritch. Pompilard, still masking his age, entered airy as a maiden just stepping forth into Broadway in her new spring bonnet. He wore a paletot of light gray, a choker girt by a sky-blue silk ribbon, a white vest, checked pantaloons, and silk stockings under low-cut patent-leather shoes. Taking a seat at a little semicircular table near his lawyers, he exchanged repartees with them, and then tranquilly abided his fate. Charlton looked with anguish on the composure of his antagonist. Just as the case was expected to come on, one of the judges was found to have left a certain document at home. They all retired, and a messenger was sent for the important paper. Hence a delay of an hour. Charlton could not conceal his agitation. Pompilard took up the morning journal, and read with sorrow of the death of an old friend. "Poor old Toussaint! I see he has left us," said Pompilard. "Yes," replied Girard, "All-Saint has gone. He was well named. He has never held up his head since he lost his wife.” "Toussaint was a gentleman, every inch of him," said Pompilard. "He believed in the elevation of the black man, not by that process of absorption or amalgamation which some of our noodles recommend, but by his showing in his life and character that a negro can be as worthy and capable of freedom as a white man. He was for keeping the blacks socially separate from the whites, though one before the law, and teaching them to be content with the color God had given them. A brave fellow was Toussaint. I remember that was before your day—when the yellow fever prevailed here. Maiden Lane and the lower parts of the city were almost deserted. But Toussaint used to cross the barricades every day to tend on the sick and dying, and carry them food and medicine." "Did you know him well?" asked Girard. He "Intimately, these thirty years. In his demeanor exquisitely courteous and respectful, there was never the slightest tinge of servility. You could not have known him as I did without forgetting his color and feeling honored in the companionship of a man so thoroughly generous, pious, and sincere. would sometimes make playful allusions to his color. He seemed much amused once by my little Netty, who, when she was about three years old, said to him, after looking him steadily in the face for some time, Toussaint, do you live in a black house?' The other day, knowing he was quite ill, my wife called on him, and while by his bedside asked him if she should close a window, the light of which shone full in his face. 'O non, madam,' he replied, 'car alors je serai trop noir.'"* 6 Here Pompilard ceased, and looked up. There was a stir in the court-room. Their Honors had re-entered and taken seats. The messenger with the missing paper had returned. The presiding judge, after a long and tantalizing preamble, in the course of which Charlton was alternately elevated and depressed, at length summed up, in a few intelligible words, the final decision of the court. Charlton fainted. Pompilard's lawyers bent down their heads, as if certain * "O no, madam, for then I shall be too black." A Life of Toussaint, by Mrs. George Lee, was published in Boston some years since. papers suddenly demanded their close scrutiny; but Pompilard himself was radiant. Everybody stared at him, and handsomely did he baffle everybody by his imperturbable good humor. It is not every day that one has an opportunity of seeing how a fellow-being is affected by the winning or the losing of a million of dollars. No one could have guessed from Pompilard's appearance whether he had won or lost. Unfortunately he had lost; and Charlton had reached the acme of his hopes, mortal or immortal, he was a millionnaire. Pompilard took the news home to his wife in the little old double house at Harlem; and her only comment was: "Poor dear Melissa! I had hoped to make her a present of a furnished cottage on the North River." The conversation was immediately turned to the subject of Toussaint, and one would have thought, hearing these strange foolish people talk, that the old negro's exit saddened them far more than the loss of their fortune. Angelica, Pompilard's widowed daughter, entered. After her came Netty, the elf, now almost a young lady. She carried under her arm a portfolio, filled with such drawings of ships, beaches, and rocks as she could find in occasional excursions to Long Island, under the patronage of Mrs. Maloney, the tailor's wife. Julia and Mary Ireton, daughters of Angelica, came in. "Which of my little nieces will take my portfolio up-stairs?" asked Netty. "I will, aunt," said the dutiful Mary; and off she ran with it. "Poor Melissa! We shall now have to put off the wedding," sighed Angelica, on learning the result of the lawsuit. "No such thing! It sha'n't be put off!" said Pompilard. Netty threw her arms round the old man's neck, kissed him, and exclaimed: Bravo, father of mine! Stick to that! It is n't half lively enough in this house. We want a few more here to make it jolly. Why can't we have such high times as they have in at the Maloneys'? There we made such a noise the other night that the police knocked at the door." Maloney, by the way, be it recorded, had, under the pupilage of Pompilard, given up strong drink and wife-beating, and risen to be a tailor of some fashionable note. Pompilard had found out for him an excellent cutter, - had kept him posted in re gard to the fashions, and then had gone round the city to all the clubs, hotels, and opera-houses, blowing for Maloney with all his lungs. He did n't "hesitate to declare" that Maloney was the only man in the country who could fit you decently to pantaloons. Pantaloons were his spécialité. His cutter was a born genius, 66 an Englishman, sir, whose grandfather used to cut for the famous Brummel, you've heard of Brummel?" The results of all this persistent blowing were astonishing. Soon the superstition prevailed in Wall Street and along the Fifth Avenue, that if one wanted pantaloons he must go to Maloney. Haynes was excellent for dress-coats and sacks; but don't let him hope to compete with Maloney in pantaloons. You would hear young fops discussing the point with intensest earnestness and enthusiasm. ers. How many fortunes have a basis quite as airy and unsubstantial! Soon Maloney's little shop was crowded with customHe was obliged to take a large and showy establishment in Broadway. Here prosperity insisted on following him. Wealth began to flow steadily in. He found himself on the plain, high road to fortune; and by whom but Pompilard had he been led there? The consequence was perpetual gratitude on the tailor's part, evinced in daily sending home, with his own marketing, enough for the other half of the house; evinced also in the determination to stick to Harlem till his benefactor would consent to leave. In While the Pompilards were discussing the matter of the wedding, Melissa and Purling entered from a walk. Melissa carried her years very well; though hope deferred had written anxiety on her amiable features. Purling was a slim, gentlemanly person, always affecting good spirits, though certain little silvery streaks in the side-locks over his ears showed that time and care were beginning their inevitable work. aspiring to authorship he had not thought it essential that he should consume gin like Byron, or whiskey like Charles Lamb, or opium like De Quincey. But if there be an avenging deity presiding over the wrongs of undone publishers, Purling must be doomed to some unquiet nights. There was something sublime in the pertinacity with which he kept on writing after the public had snubbed him so repeatedly by utter neglect; |