John Brooks

“ We shall let this versatile John Brooks close the pre-Chabert record and turn our attention to the fire-eaters of Chabert's day. Imitation may be the sincerest flattery, but in most cases the victim of the imitation, it is safe to say, will gladly dispense with that form of adulation. When Chabert first came to America and gave fresh impetus to the fire-eating art by the introduction of new and startling material, he was beset by many imitators, or—as they probably styled themselves—rivals, who immediately proceeded, so far as in them lay, to out-Chabert Chabert. ”

“ Brooks, having made a will and hidden it—for some reason or other under his pillow—that will had fallen, through the means related by John O'Neill, into the hands of Mr. Percival Brooks, who had destroyed it and substituted a forged one in its place, which adjudged the whole of Mr. Brooks' millions to himself. It was a terrible and very daring accusation directed against a gentleman who, in spite of his many wild oats sowed in early youth, was a prominent and important figure in Irish high-life. ”

“ He did not notice the actions of the stenographer as he dictated:
“I, John Boland, am a business man. I stand on my record. I defy Miss Mary Randall—”
In pausing to formulate his thoughts, he became conscious that Miss Masters had not been taking his dictation; that she had laid an envelope on his desk directly in front of where he usually sat, and that she was putting on her hat.
“Here, hold on!” he cried peremptorily. “What does this mean, Miss Masters?”
“It means, Mr. Boland,” she replied quietly, as she adjusted a hat pin, “that I have resigned. Good day.” ”

“ Long John sank down, and Brooks improved his chance: “When the newly arrived gentleman from Illinois becomes a little more familiar with matters in the House, he will be a little slower in undertaking to find me out of order.” Presently he essayed a tilt against Thad. Stevens, but came out from that, as most men do, badly beaten, with House and galleries roaring at his discomfiture. Finally, Brooks was ready to close and sought to yield the floor to a Democrat ”

“ Do you think I will stand idly by and see a bunch of half-baked reformers shake down the business institutions of Chicago?” 321
“John, they are right.”
“O yes, I suppose if you take the mamby-pamby, hysterical, sentimental end of it, any campaign that hits at vice is right.”
“It was a great movement. Mary Randall is a fine girl. You’ll live to regret that you helped to thwart her.”
“Pshaw, what’s the matter with you, man? You’re blood seems to be turning to milk. The papers will howl for a few days and then they’ll forget it. We’ll invite them to. ”

“ Miss Masters merely motioned him to silence.
“Yes,” she went on, “his father, Mr. John Boland, will be in some time during the morning. Who shall I say called?”
The girl waited for the answer and hung up the receiver.
“Who is it, Miss Masters?” inquired the boy.
“Well, Dickey, I don’t think it’s any of your business,” retorted Miss Masters good-naturedly. “But, for fear you’ll burst with curiosity, I’ll say that it’s Mr. Martin Druce.” 135
“Happy as a crab this morning, ain’t you?” jeered the boy. “Well, you want to look out for that geezer, Druce. He’s a devil with the girls.” ”

“ The manufactory was for a time successful, but led eventually to the bankruptcy of its chief proprietor, Stephen Theodore Janssen, lord mayor of London for 1754-5. Brooks continued in London as an engraver and enameller of china. He is said to have spent much of his later years in dissipation, and there are no records of his works during that period, or of the date of his death. Some of the pupils of Brooks highly distinguished themselves as engravers in mezzotinto. ”

“ John Boland had won! The brain that had never failed had proved its resourcefulness once again in this hour of dire trouble. Druce was gone. He would never be heard of in Chicago again. It had cost thirty thousand 318 dollars, but what was thirty thousand dollars? Mary Randall and her crusaders were crushed. Anson was dead. Druce was gone.
What mattered it now how much evidence Mary Randall had gathered in against the Cafe Sinister! There would be a period of quiet. The tenderloin would carefully observe all the proprieties. ”

“ Brooks was influential in securing for him his first charge. John H. Burke, pastor of Israel Baptist Church, came up under Dr. Brooks, as did also Joseph Lee, of Arlington, Virginia, and James L. Jasper, of Brentwood, Maryland. But none of these products of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church have done a better work than Miss Jennie Deane, the founder of the Manassas Industrial School, in Virginia, and [Pg 80] Miss Nannie H. Burroughs, the founder and promoter of the National Training School for Women and Girls, Lincoln Heights, Washington, D. C. Nor should Mrs. ”

“ John, there are some things even you can’t do.”
“Well, Mike, what are they?”
“You can’t beat Nature and you can’t beat God. Good day.”
In vain Boland scoffed at Grogan’s sentimentalism. Again and again the words rose in his mind:
You can’t beat Nature and you can’t beat God. 323
The telephone rang. At the other end of the wire was that senator who had been at his conference. He asked Boland in a frightened voice if he had seen the papers, and then rang off.
Boland, alarmed, sent a boy in haste for the latest editions. The boy returned and spread them out on the desk before him. ”

“ The public of both sections took up the affair with equal party zeal. From the North came resolutions of legislatures, outbursts of indignation in meetings and addresses, and the denunciation of Brooks and his deed in the newspapers. In the South the exactly opposite sentiment predominated. Brooks was defended and eulogized, and presented with canes and pitchers as testimonials to his valor. When the resolution of censure had been passed, he at once resigned his seat in the House, and going home to his constituents, was immediately reëlected. ”

“ He sat down again shamefacedly. “I don’t want Mary Randall to write to me,” he admitted dolefully.
“What’s come over you, Grogan?” inquired John Boland sharply.
“A blue envelope—a sheet of blue paper with words on it, and—I’ve got a pain in the back of my neck.” Grogan brought forth the blue letter again and gazed at it gloomily.
“You’re crazy,” John Boland informed him curtly. Then he turned to Harry. “Look here, my boy,” he said, “don’t be a fool—”
“He’s your son,” interrupted Grogan chuckling. 153
“Keep quiet, Mike. ”

“ Fox is represented as tired of pastime in the country and he hopes that Townshend is in like case. He indulges in satire over the peculiarities of his opponents in politics and adjures his friend to return to life at Westminster. The young Whig yachtsman is designated the "pride of fop alley though a little tanned" and there is spread before him an alluring picture of the pleasures of life at Brooks's, a worthy man "who blushes to be paid." Hare, the Hare of many friends, complained a year or two later that he seldom saw Fox "except at supper at Brooks's, with lord John Townshend." ”

“ The girl was startled, “I—why—I?” she hesitated.
“Yes—yes,” said Harry, “do you know her?”
The girl still hesitated and Grogan broke in.
“You’re a woman, Miss Masters,” he said, “you ought to know all the feminine quirks. Now it’s up to you. Who’s Mary Randall?”
“Mary Randall is a wealthy girl,” said Miss Masters calmly. “She has grown weary of 159 the foolish methods you men have employed in attacking the vice problem. Convinced of your total incompetence she has started out really to do something.”
“What does she want?” snorted John Boland. ”

“ And bear life’s heavy crosses still.”
Nathan Covington Brooks, A.M., LL.D. The following sketch is principally from the Third Volume of Biographical Sketches of Eminent Americans.
“Nathan Covington Brooks, the youngest son of John and Mary Brooks, was born in West Nottingham, Cecil county, Maryland, on the 12th of August, 1809. His education was commenced at the West Nottingham Academy, then under the charge of Rev. James Magraw, D.D., and subsequently he graduated as Master of Arts, at St. John’s College, Annapolis, Md. His thesis was a poem on the World’s Changes. ”

“ BURGESS, JOHN (d. 1671) , ejected minister, was the son of a Devonshire clergyman and a graduate. He obtained the rectory of Ashprington, Devonshire, on the sequestration of John Lethbridge (d. 2 Sept. 1655) . It is remarkable that on Burgess's ejection in 1662 the patron, Edward Giles of Bowden, gave him the next presentation, which Burgess disposed of for 500l. He removed to Dartmouth to reside with Allen Geare, M.A., ejected from St. Saviour's (d. December 1662) ; and afterwards to London, where he had a daughter married to Thomas Brooks. ”

“ Labor is noble and holy. To defend it from degradation; to divest it of the evils to body, mind, and estate which ignorance and greed have imposed; to rescue the toiler from the grasp of the selfish,—is a work worthy of the noblest and best of our race. ”

“ Here is a sphere for art as much nobler than that of sculptor or painter as the destinies of human life and society are higher than those of any inanimate object, even though carved by Phidias or painted by Raphael. ”

“ Mary was shocked. I was still listening between sputters.
"Why, yes, we have. What are you going to do?"
"I hate to tell you this, Mother," Jim said, "But if Professor Jordan is going to do what I think he's going to do, you're not going to be very happy about it. Neither is Dad."
"But we hope to get Mr. Wilson down," the professor said, "Even though it may get a little damp in here."
"If you can get Ralph down, I won't mind how damp it gets," said Mary. And turning to Johnny, who was standing open-mouthed, "Johnny, will you hook up the hose?" ”

“ A New Edition ... In Six Volumes, J. Debrett, 1786, I, 318-323. Reprinted in Bell’s Classical Arrangement of Fugitive Poetry, British Library, 1789-94, IV, [86] -91.
The Epistle is a pleasing Horatian piece that makes good-natured fun of the Whig wits and politicians of Brooks’s Club. On John Townshend (1757-1833) , later called Lord John, second son of the first Marquis Townshend, see W. P. Courtney, Eight Friends of the Great, 1910, pp. 172-183. Fox, in the country, is depicted urging on his pointers with “patriot names”:
No servile ministerial runners they! ”

“ Brooks answered. "But it is too late to draw back now."
"It is never too late," Mr. Bullsom declared, vigorously. "I've no fancy for weathercocks, but I haven't a ha'porth of respect for a man who ain't smart enough to own up when he's made a mistake, and who isn't willing to start again on a fresh page. You take my advice, Brooks. Be reconciled with your father, and let 'em all know who you are. I've seen a bit of Lord Arranmore, and I'll stake my last shilling that he's not a bad 'un at heart. You make it up with him, Brooks. ”

“ She had not had any acquaintance with this man herself, but she knew his house. Everyone knew that. It was one of the most princely in the whole city. C. Dudley Brooks had known how to spend his millions. Indeed, he had known how to do this so well that it was of him her father, also a financier of some note, had once said he was the only successful American he envied.
She was expected; that she saw the instant the door was opened. This made her entrance easy—an entrance further brightened by the delightful glimpse of a child’s cherubic face looking at her from a distant doorway. ”

“ Such satin, my dear, O, it’s exquisite, Jane,
And a ribbon so rich you will not see again.
There’s Katharine—I mean the ridiculous Shrew;
She is frowning like death, but she’s beautiful, too:
Petruchio is looking uncommonly wroth,
And spilling the gravy all over the cloth.
You remember—I’m sure that you do—Pegwell Bay,
Where Charles took us all for a lunch that hot day.
There’s a picture of that, cut as sharp as a knife,
With the ladies’ red petticoats done to the life.
One picture’s remarkably good, I declare.
There’s a boy without trousers ”

“ As though Niagara were suddenly turned upon the hill-side, a vast volume of water swept downward, hissing, foaming, rolling over the rocks, and the leaping spray dashed high in air, as the black wealth of waters came surging down into the ravine.
"A cloud-burst, by all that's holy!" screamed Brooks, as he sprang down the grassy side of the bluff. "Up with you, up the hill-side, for your lives!" The dancers, faltering through the sudden flutter of the band, for the first time looked upward, and saw the peril. ”

“ Brooks expostulated. "He is not a public man."
"A peer of England with a seat in the House of Lords must always be a public man to some extent," Mr. Huntingdon remarked.
"I am not sure," Brooks remarked, "that the lives of all our hereditary legislators would bear the most searching inquiry."
"That's right, Brooks," Mr. Bullsom declared. "Stick up for your pals."
Brooks looked a little annoyed.
"The only claim I have upon Lord Arranmore's acquaintance," he remarked, "is his kindness to my father. I hope, Dr. Seventon, that you are going to press the matter of that fever hospital home. ”

“ And turning so I could see her better, if you can turn while lying on the ceiling looking down, I said, "Do you suppose you could whip up something to eat? And maybe put it on a pole so you could hand it up?" She allowed as how she could, but Jim, who had been in one of his brown studies again spoke up; "I don't believe we'll need a pole, Dad. Now that the plastic plate's been turned off and moved, everything's all right."
"Everything's all right!" I growled. "If everything's so all right, why don't we come down? ”

“ Brooks shoveling a path from his front porch. He and his mother came to Crossroads yesterday, and they have been very busy getting settled. They have a colored maid, Milly, but no [55] man, and young Richard does all of the outside work. I think I shall like him. Don't you remember how as a little girl I always adored the Lion-hearted king? I always think of him when I see Dr. Brooks. He isn't handsome, but he is broad-shouldered and big and blond. I haven't had but one chance to speak to him since he and his mother left Bower's. ”