Topman

“ Toodleburg, here's a fortune in your fingers. Capable heads, sir, and capable hands. There's all, sir, that is required to give the thing popularity and insure its success." Mr. Topman paused for a moment, threw himself back in his chair, and cast a patronizing glance at Hanz. "Progressive idea, sir. Grand Kidd Discovery Company. Capital one hundred thousand dollars, all paid in. The man fortunate enough to get twenty shares is sure to make a fortune."
"Den if he pe so grand, why you don't make all de fortune, and keep him yourshelf?" said Hanz, rubbing his head and dropping his pipe. ”

“ He is so keen himself that he is bound to inspire keenness in others.
Once or twice I have been round the factory with the Emperor and Empress, who would stay there for an hour or two sometimes on their way to or from Rominten. His Majesty always took the whole of his suite with him, and liked them to be as interested as himself. On one occasion, from the heaped shelves of the warehouses he hurled—there is no other word which quite expresses it—terra-cotta busts of himself and large vases and other pottery of the same material at the members of the suite. ”

“ TOPHAM, THOMAS (1710?–1749) , known as ‘the strong man,’ was born in London about 1710, and was the son of a carpenter who apprenticed him to his own trade. In early life he was landlord of the Red Lion Inn, near old St. Luke's Hospital, and, though he there failed in business, soon gained profit and notoriety by his feats of strength. His first public exhibition consisted in pulling against a horse while lying on his back with his feet against the dwarf wall that divided Upper and Lower Moorfields. ”

“ A Mr. Topham, who was many inches above the usual stature of men, used to tell an amusing story of himself. Going once to inquire for a person, he looked in at the window over the door, and asked an old woman who sat by the fire if her husband was at home. “No, sir,” said she; “but if you will please to alight and come in, I will go and call him.”
LENT NOT GIVEN.
A gentleman happening to have high words with a butcher in St. James’s market, was at last so provoked, that he raised his cane, and threatened to give him a good dressing. ”

“ We would sit under the desk of such a master as Topham like creatures who had fallen into an enchanted pit, and he would do his considerable best to work us up to enthusiasm for, let us say, a Greek play. ”

“ Mr. Rutile shall have his vacation by all means, Miss Byrd.” “Now, Mr. Topham, I have some news for you. It—or rather she—is waiting in the next room. The Countess del Ouro Preto came to see me this morning. She had read the news about the fleet in the papers and knew the game was up. She came to confess, and to tell me a secret or two about herself. [Pg 275] Ahem! You have my permission to go, Mr. Topham! Through the right door yonder. Yes! That’s it! Good-morning, Mr. Topham.”
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
Numerous silent changes have been made to correct punctuation around dialogue. ”

“ We spin our tops as in an enchanted circle, and no one sees or heeds save ourselves,—as how should they with their own tops to spin? Happy indeed is he, who has his top and cares still to spin it; for to be tired of our tops is to be tired of life, saith the preacher. ”

“ Our business in the stained glass and general decoration line flourishes so successfully that I have decided to give up engineering and take part in it: so henceforth, or rather after a week or two, Topsy will give himself more to the artistic part of the work while I shall be the business manager. I don't know whether you have heard of our firm before from me or any one else. If not, I may just as well tell you that it is composed of Brown, Rossetti, Jones, Webb, Marshall, Morris, Faulkner ”

“ When all the children were reassembled with their eggs, this small Prince, regardless of the smuts on his hands and nose, and perhaps a little weary of the stiff atmosphere, which prevailed in the presence of Their Majesties, with a smile, produced from his pocket a pair of motor-goggles, which he assumed with an aspect of the greatest joy, and after sweeping the assembled girls and boys with a sunshiny glance which left a ripple of laughter behind, turned his smiling face to the Emperor and grinned{101} confidingly. ”

“ But the new pupils had not learned their duties in the schoolroom.
Tom Topover had come to that part of the programme of the institution, where he expected to recover his lost prestige as a leader of his gang. Study had always been an abomination to him; and he supposed it was to his companions, the original Topovers. For himself, he refused to make any effort to apply himself; and, when called upon for a recitation, he was entirely unprepared. He thought he could get the better of his teachers and the principal in this department. ”

“ He goes to the top, every time and everywhere, sooner or later. And it is largely because he has been to the bottom first, and mastered the rudiments, one and all, and then risen to the heights, not by a single bound, but “climbing the ladder, round by round.” ”

“ Well, Topsy would run away, and a big, big man came out to papa and said he would train Topsy. So he drove her every day, and beat her, and beat her, till he was tired, but still Topsy would run away. ”

“ But certes sorely sunk with woe
Sir Topaz sees the elfin show,
His spirits in him die:
When Oberon cries, 'A man is near,
A mortall passion, cleeped fear,
Hangs flagging in the sky.'
With that Sir Topaz, hapless youth! ”

“ It is generally Topsy who is the centre of interest. They hustle one another to look at her and gurgle with delight. Jean told me solemnly, "I have to leave her at home when I go with Mummy to the villages. ”

“ Thomas Topham, born in London, and now about thirty-one years of age, five feet ten inches high, with muscles very hard and prominent, was brought up a carpenter, which trade he practiced till within these six or seven years that he has shewed feats of strength; but he is entirely ignorant of any art to make his strength appear more surprising; Nay, sometimes he does things which become more difficult by his disadvantageous situation; attempting and often doing, what he hears other strong men have done, without making use of the same advantages. ”

“ I had developed an unsuspected talent in the direction of Versteckens—the ever-popular hide-and-seek—more especially in the rôle of seeker, and distributed the thrills of which the game is capable with even-handed impartiality, not forgetting that even the child of least originality, who hides in the most perfectly obvious place with large portions of his anatomy plainly visible, likes to have, so to speak, a run for his money, and enjoys the hovering discovery best when it retires baffled on the verge, and the wrong cupboard is frequently and persistently searched. ”

“ In imagination I saw a spilling of red ink over the first page of the New York Universe: “Adam’s Own Story of the Rise and Fall of Man.”
“Dad and Darwin do beat creation,” Cain commented. “The delineator of the ‘Descent of Man’ says that the earth grew as naturally as a mushroom on a dung heap. Since hearing of it, Topsy has been giving herself airs under the impression that as she ‘just growed,’ she was the first woman. ”

“ There isn't a top. It's a squirrel's cage. Things are out of joint, and the only top there is is a lot of blazing card playing women and betting men—you should read Modern Society—seasoned with archbishops and officials and all that sort of glossy, pandering Bosh.... ”

“ Topsy sat for her portrait most conscientiously as though it were a photograph, not moving a hair's breadth, nor hardly winking. After each sitting she returned to exactly the same position. I tried in vain to make her take it more easily; when I talked to her (she knew half a dozen words of English) she responded with stiff lips, trying to speak without moving them. I took her a wreath which delighted her, and just before we left I came across a red silk bodice with a smocked yoke and embroidered cuffs; just the thing, I felt, for Topsy. ”

“ Why,—Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them—I was one, sir, in this interlude; one Sir Topas, sir:—By the Lord fool, I am not mad:—But do you remember? Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? an you smile not, he's gagg'd:—And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.—Ha, ha, ha! ”

“ One minute you wonder if you look and act so that no one could suspect a swelling of your hat rest and the next moment you’re wondering if the Boss doesn’t wonder if you’re sufficiently dignified for the place. All-in-all, Old Top, I’ll bet you’re in a peculiar state of mind and will remain so until the odor of mothballs and the price tag wears off. ”

“ It is the generous self-denial of the aristocracy in the matter of work, and the consequent [18] diminution of competition, that is the basis of that love. I'll do as you say, and see what I can do in the Temple. Even if a client should happen to stray in at one of those rare moments when I am on duty, I can assume a weary demeanour and tell him that I have already more work on my hands than I can accomplish with proper deference to my health, and request him to take his quarrel elsewhere. ”

“ I affected not to understand him, and edging aside a pace, made a bold effort to gain the long and very expensive mahogany counter that stretched half across the office, and behind which glowed out the figure of a fat citizen, whom I stared right in the face. You cannot get cleverly through this world without brass; if in your face you have enough to establish a foundery, so much the better. ”

“ The attitude of those who belong to the upper classes, and who have all the advantages of high position, is the same as that of the lower classes who obey implicitly every command that is given to them. ”

“ Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him. The populace will say, with Horne Tooke, "If you would be powerful, pretend to be powerful." ”

“ I studied man. I endeavoured to learn what quality in man it was that made him great and what quality made him weak. I became an expert in a great many osophies and ologies that had never been heard of in the Rocky Mountains before," answered Toppleton, forgetting his assumed character under the excitement of the moment and speaking, flushed of face, with more vehemence than the occasion [226] seemed to warrant. "And I venture to assert, sir, that there is no physiognomy in all creation that I cannot read, save possibly yours which baffles me. ”

“ Boss, the fellows have asked me to present to you a little expression of their good will—to the greatest advance agent that ever hit the iron trail. You've made us work like all possessed, but we love you almost to death, just the same. I present this gift to you with our compliments, Boss, and here also is a little remembrance for our friend, Spotted Horse, otherwise known as Teddy Tucker. ”

“ So far from being bored by it, he works with passionate interest. He—with his temperament as I know it—he has become careful and businesslike, a first-rate manager, he positively reckons every penny in his management of the land. ”

“ He is a mean man, and his soul is smaller than a mosquito’s. This morning the old rascal sent his agent over here to offer the engineer of my flour mills twenty dollars a month more than he is getting now. The villain was paid up to last night, and left without giving me any notice, and my mills are all stopped.”
Major Toppleton walked the library in a violent rage, and I waited for further developments before I dared to speak.
“He hired my engineer away from me, I’m told, because I employed you,” added the magnate, pausing before me. ”

“ A great sensation was created throughout the room by the entrance of a tall gentleman in a blue coat and bright buttons, a large lady in blue satin, and two young ladies, on a similar scale, in fashionably-made dresses of the same hue.
"Commissioner—head of the yard—great man—remarkably great man," whispered the stranger in Mr. Tupman's ear, as the charitable committee ushered Sir Thomas Clubber and family to the top of the room. ”

“ When he’s on top, he will have accomplished something. But if I take him between my fingers now and place him at the top, then the very path which his own labour has dug becomes a thing of no value to him. ”

“ After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. There was first a game at blind-man's-buff, though. And I no more believe Topper was really blinded than I believe he had eyes in his boots. Because the way in which he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. ”

“ The lessons with the tutor lasted from half-past eight until twelve o’clock, when a short walk with the Empress was taken, weather permitting. After luncheon, if the stag or stags slain by the Emperor had arrived, we all assembled under the dining-room window for the ceremony of “the Strecke.” The stags were laid on the small lawn beneath the windows, and three of the Jägers of His Majesty blew on hunting-horns the old hunting-call of the “Ha-la-li,” denoting to all who hear the success of the sportsman. ”