Lemuel Ely Quigg

“ Ricketty replied, "what then? Then, Becky, fair daughter of Israel, I've a treasure for you. I always lay my treasure at the feet of my friends. This may not be wise; it may not be the way to grow rich; but it is Steve Ricketty's way, and he can't help it. I have a treasure here now for you. It has taken months of suffering and sorrow to induce me to part with it. Around it cluster memories of other and brighter days. Look!"
Mr. Ricketty produced a string of large and beautiful pearls. They were evidently of the very finest quality, and Becky's black eyes sparkled as she caught their radiance. ”

“ Some people would say, in the legs. They would try to make you believe that your legs, mere combinations of flesh and blood, could go off by themselves and get bowed, or knock-kneed, or long or short, or slim or fat, or gouty, or palsied, or paralyzed, or rheumatic, or shriveled or anything else just as they wanted to and all of their own option, as though they were a living soul with a living will and not simply so many square inches of inanimate matter. Now, Mr. Cinch, that's all nonsense. ”

“ Cinch, is the ethical law of gravitation. You already feel its influence. It draws you to the Spiritual Center of Essence. Your soul still walks in the shadow, but toward the light. You are being drawn away from the doubt. Don't you feel yourself being drawn, Mr. Cinch? ”

“ O'Meagher experienced some difficulty in understanding what was meant by corrupt and what by reform. His mission in life, as he understood it, was to name the individuals who should hold the city's offices and to control their official acts in the interest of Tammany Hall, and he had great difficulty in comprehending how it could be anybody's business that he had grown rich performing his mission. But perceiving that a large and dangerous class of voters was clamoring for a reformer, he concluded to humor it if he could find a good safe reformer on whom he could rely. ”

“ Cinch heaved a huge sigh! But he shut his eyes vigorously, and received into his big hard fist the Scientist's little white one, and murmured, "All right, mum; whip up lively."
"Our bodies are but ghosts," said the Scientist, "combinations of symbols. The combinations change as the soul that they symbolize changes. I look at your body and it tells me of your soul. I see a soul full of doubt and darkness, and the doubt and darkness are symbolized in the curved and ugly form of your legs. ”

“ One sharp-visaged and angular man with black finger-nails, spectacles, and a high tenor voice, cried out with a burst of enthusiasm, "Hail! Dear apostle uf luf!" a sentiment that brought out a general and spontaneous cheer. Mr. O'Royster, apparently under the impression that he was the object of these flattering attentions, bowed and smiled with the greatest cheerfulness and murmured something about this being the proudest moment of his life. He was on the point of addressing some remarks to the bartender, when the little round orator cut in with an energy quite amazing. ”

“ But I am worried, O'Meagher. I can't help it. By every mail I am receiving hundreds of letters from the best citizens of New-York, urging me to let my name be used. Deputations wait on me constantly with the same request, and, as you know, they are going to hold a mass-meeting to-morrow night, and they threaten to nominate me, whether or no. What can I do? I tell them I don't want to run, that my private business has already suffered by neglect, but they answer imploring me not to desert the cause of reform just when it needs me most. It is very embarrassing. ”

“ Ruse, "and that is reform. If my successor is a reformer, I shall be satisfied."
"Make yourself easy," replied Mr. O'Meagher. "He'll be a reformer. I've been paying some attention during the last two years to the education of our people in the matter of reform. My success has been flattering. I think I can truthfully say now that Tammany Hall has a reformer ready for every salary paid by the city, and that there's no danger of our stock of reformers giving out as long as the salaries last." ”

“ So long as Billy Warlock can keep himself above ground, so long will that old house keep him company, and so long will his forges blow fiery sparks in the cellar, while he hammers and hums and hums and hammers on the anvil by his side. ”

“ O'Meagher! 'Rah fer O'Meagher!" So unbounded was their enthusiasm for O'Meagher, so unanimous and determined were they to listen to nothing but O'Meagher, and so fierce and bloodthirsty did their devotion to O'Meagher appear to make them, that General Divvy, warned by the sudden contact of a projected cabbage with his mallet, ceased at once to hammer and picked up his hat and coat. The Reformers about him accepted this as the signal of retreat, and they fled precipitately through the door at the rear of the stage. ”

“ Ricketty is walking along the Bowery. His step is light and easy, and an air pervades him betokening peace and serenity of mind. In one hand he carries a short rattan stick, which he twirls in his fingers carelessly. His little black eyes travel further and faster than his legs, and rove up and down and across the Bowery ceaselessly. ”

“ He glanced quickly through the pawnshop window and made out the figure of a woman standing within among the shadows. He adjusted his hat to his head and a winsome smile to his countenance, and entered.
"Good-morning!" he said, breezily, to the young woman who came forward, "where's Ike?"
"Gone out," she answered, looking him over carefully.
"Tut, tut, tut," said Mr. Ricketty, as if utterly annoyed and disappointed. "That's too bad. Will he be gone long?"
"All the morning."
"Will he now? Well, I'll call again," and Mr. Ricketty started for the door. ”

“ Nature had denied her none of the faculties that give beauty, and grace and dignity and sweetness to another. Even as she lay stretched on the floor of a dive in the heart of a Christian city, but remoter from influences that encourage the good and repress the bad in her nature than if she were standing in the darkest jungle of Africa—even there, degraded, ignorant, and infinitely wretched, she was a martyr to the very virtues, truth and constancy, of which she knew the least! ”

“ He had made an honest man's contract and he would stand by it till he dropped in his tracks. He was not the man to desert a poor old woman in her sorrow at the bidding of an irresponsible clique of labor bosses. The Freaks did not want to strike, anyhow. They were nagged on to it by their leaders, who were not genuine Freaks at all, but professional agitators. Aside from his duty to Grandmother Cruncher, he was not going to have his business run by outsiders—not if he knew himself! ”

“ Ruse's plea for rest from official cares, and as he now from behind the wings contemplated the great crowd that was surging into the Cooper Union, he rubbed his hands and gleamed his teeth with such intensity of emotion that the Rev. Dr. Lillipad Froth, who was standing near by, felt his flesh a-creeping.
It was certainly an extraordinary crowd. It had assembled almost in an instant. Scarcely had the policemen taken their places at the doors of the Cooper Union when a bulky, variegated young man stepped up to one of them. ”

“ We'll settle up when the day is over, and every second you lose now will cost you hundreds of dollars. It's sure to go to 160. Don't keep me waiting—say the word?"
Mr. Gallivant jammed his hands deep into his pockets to prevent their betraying his excitement, and hemmed and hawed.
"Do you really think it's worth while, Thwicket!"
"Great guns, man! You make me—"
"Now, don't be nervous, Thwicket. When I trust a man to spend my money for me I want him cool and calm."
"But you're losing valuable time! It's jumping up every minute. The Exchange has gone wild! Everybody's in a furor. ”

“ It was just twelve years ago on Christmas Eve that Billy Warlock bought the smithy in the cellar of that little old house. Billy had been working for the man who owned it, and the man who owned it, being a little short of wind and a trifle weak in his legs, had decided to sell and retire. Billy had become the purchaser, and not without many qualms and doubts as to the wisdom of assuming such heavy responsibilities. Billy knew he was a good mechanic, and could put a tire on a wheel or a shoe on a horse as quickly and as well as the next man. ”

“ MR. DOOTLEBY.
In truth, it is a suggestive place, is the Bowery. Day and night are all the same to it. It never gets up and it never goes to bed. It never takes a holiday. It never keeps Lent. It indulges in no sentiments. It acknowl- [Pg 67] edges no authority that bids it remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. But from year's end to year's end it bubbles, and boils, and seethes, and frets while the daylight lasts, and in the glare of its brighter night it plunges headlong into carousal!
Mr. Dootleby had a great habit of walking at night, though he seldom came down town so far as this. ”

“ When they reached the end of the hall Bludoffski opened another door and they entered a large beer saloon. At a score of tables men were sitting, many apparently of German birth. They were smoking pipes, drinking beer, and listening to the hoarse voice of an orator standing in the furthest corner of the room.
He was a little round man with little round eyes, a little round nose, a little round stomach, and little round legs. Though very small in person, his voice was formidable enough, and he appeared to be astonishingly in earnest. ”

“ The man who has not drank the bitter [Pg 229] waters of an uncle's experience for himself is—pardon me, but I must say it—wholly incompetent to speak as to the woes of childhood. How often have you wooed sleep amid the wailings of an infant voice? I'm disappointed in you, Warlock!"
"Don't talk so loud, you'll waken her."
"Spare us that. Let me have my hat and stick. I'll get that paregoric if I have to commit burglary!" and Mr. Wrangler started back as if fully prepared to carry out his threat.
"Be quiet," said Billy, "and look here. My rooms are downstairs where I live with my mother. ”

“ He looked upon partisanship as the curse of the Republic, and in his more enthusiastic moments had declared that if he [Pg 108] could have his way about it, any man so hopelessly dead to the nobler impulses of the human heart as to confess himself a partisan should be declared guilty of a felony and confined for a proper period of years at hard labor. What the country called for, according to Colonel Sneekins, was Reform. The first step in bringing about the triumph of Reform was to put all the offices in the hands of Reformers. ”

“ We're growing old, Croaker. We're nearing the time when the fleeting show will have flet. And hanged if I can see that we're growing any wiser, or better, or richer—hey? Thirty cents! Ye gods, Croaker, that man says thirty cents! Thirty cents, and my entire capital is a lonely ten-cent piece that I kept for luck. Thirty cents, and my last collateral security hocked and the ticket lost! Croaker, I'm in despair."
The Croak dived into his trowsers pocket, took out a small roll of bills, handed one to the bartender and another—a ten-dollar greenback—to Dennie. ”

“ The crime you have committed is the most dreadful known to the law. For it there is but one penalty, the requisition of your life in forfeit for the one you have taken. The sentence of the Court is that you be conducted hence to the prison from which you came, and that you be confined there until Friday, the 18th day of March, following, and that you then, between the hours of 7 and 11 in the morning, be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may God have mercy on you!
This is all that Billy Warlock knows or cares to know of the circumstances under which [Pg 240] Lotchen became his child. ”

“ The street is empty. Not a sound is heard. Not a footfall. Not a voice. The world is sleeping, dreaming of its own ambitions. Stars of the night, are you watching here?
"You said you t'ought I was pretty, Swiggsy, an' it made me so glad an' happy, 'cause I wants you to think I'm pretty—ah! where are you going! Come back! come back! come back! Don't leave me all alone, please, please don't, for I'm falling again, fast, faster all the time, an' I'll soon fall—"
She opened her eyes wide—wider than ever. She looked into Mr. Dootleby's face and smiled. ”

“ Mr. Dootleby concluded to stop there and ask his way. As he approached the cellar, he heard what seemed to be cries of distress. They grew more distinct, and accompanying them were the dull sounds of blows and the harsh accents of a man's voice, evidently permeated with rage.
Mr. Dootleby ran down the steps and flung the door open, presenting his eyes with a spectacle that made his blood run cold. The room was long and narrow. At one end and near the door was a bar fitted up with a few black [Pg 72] bottles and broken tumblers, a keg or two of beer, and some boxes of cigars. ”

“ My signature must be on as many as a thousand bail-bonds first and last, in this city, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and other places, and I've never yet experienced the slightest trouble. I think my good fortune is almost wholly due to the circumstance that I never repeat myself. I always tell a new story every time."
"Do they know you at the place where we're going?"
"I fervently hope they don't, my dear. It wouldn't do M. Tulitz any good, or me either, if they did. No, no, you must introduce me. I am your friend, your lifelong friend, Colonel Edward Lawrence Rivers. ”

“ Aspire toward the Life of the Spirit, and as your aspirations are tenacious they will draw your legs into the shape which, like the spirit it typifies, will be all beauty. Does your soul respond, Mr. Cinch? ”

“ Manager Scollop Stands Firm! Says He Will Be Loyal To Grandmother Cruncher Till The Heavens Fall! Not A Freak Left! But Grandmother Cruncher Remains Nobly At Her Post! Thousands Shake Her By The Hand! She Is Now Making A Speech To The Multitude! Hurry Up To Hear Her Thrilling Words! Come One! Come All! Only Ten Cents!'
"There, got it down?" continued the Manager, breathlessly. "Got it all down? Then rush off, Dick! By the great horn spoon! Was there ever such a stroke of luck as this! Now, Runty, you fellows hurry up to your headquarters, so's to be there when the reporters come. ”

“ I don't know whom you think of for my place, but it seems to me that there's only one way to save your ticket from defeat and that is to indorse the candidate for Mayor presented by the citizens' mass-meeting to-morrow night. That would make success certain. The public would praise your noble fidelity to reform, and you'd sweep the city! Think of it, Mr. O'Meagher! What a glorious, what a golden opportunity!"
"My eyes are as wide open as the next man's for golden opportunities, Mr. Ruse," replied [Pg 97] Mr. O'Meagher. ”

“ It chose your legs, and straightway your eyes, prompted by your diseased mind, began to tell you that your legs were bowed."
"Well, really!" cried Mr. Cinch, "how very plain you make it."
"It's plain enough to such as will see. Mat [Pg 261] ter, Mr. Cinch, does not act. Matter has no will. It doesn't feel, or get tired, or wear out or do any of the things attributed to it by thoughtless people. Matter is inanimate and takes form only as the mind, the soul, the Vital Force, wills that it shall. It responds to the soul. Therefore, if your legs are bowed, your mind is at fault." ”

“ Billy contemplated Mr. Wrangler for a few moments more, and then amiably replied: "Well, that's all right. What more could a man ask?"
"Precisely so," answered Mr. Wrangler, dusting off the anvil and sitting down upon it. "That, I take it, is quite enough. ”