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- 6030
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- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z
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- 5959
- text
- CHAPTER XXIV.
A PHILANTHROPIST UNDERTAKES TO CONVERT A MISANTHROPE, BUT DOES NOT GET
BEYOND CONFUTING HIM.
"Hands off!" cried the bachelor, involuntarily covering dejection with
moroseness.
"Hands off? that sort of label won't do in our Fair. Whoever in our Fair
has fine feelings loves to feel the nap of fine cloth, especially when a
fine fellow wears it."
"And who of my fine-fellow species may you be? From the Brazils, ain't
you? Toucan fowl. Fine feathers on foul meat."
This ungentle mention of the toucan was not improbably suggested by the
parti-hued, and rather plumagy aspect of the stranger, no bigot it would
seem, but a liberalist, in dress, and whose wardrobe, almost anywhere
than on the liberal Mississippi, used to all sorts of fantastic
informalities, might, even to observers less critical than the bachelor,
have looked, if anything, a little out of the common; but not more so
perhaps, than, considering the bear and raccoon costume, the bachelor's
own appearance. In short, the stranger sported a vesture barred with
various hues, that of the cochineal predominating, in style
participating of a Highland plaid, Emir's robe, and French blouse; from
its plaited sort of front peeped glimpses of a flowered regatta-shirt,
while, for the rest, white trowsers of ample duck flowed over
maroon-colored slippers, and a jaunty smoking-cap of regal purple
crowned him off at top; king of traveled good-fellows, evidently.
Grotesque as all was, nothing looked stiff or unused; all showed signs
of easy service, the least wonted thing setting like a wonted glove.
That genial hand, which had just been laid on the ungenial shoulder, was
now carelessly thrust down before him, sailor-fashion, into a sort of
Indian belt, confining the redundant vesture; the other held, by its
long bright cherry-stem, a Nuremburgh pipe in blast, its great porcelain
bowl painted in miniature with linked crests and arms of interlinked
nations--a florid show. As by subtle saturations of its mellowing
essence the tobacco had ripened the bowl, so it looked as if something
similar of the interior spirit came rosily out on the cheek. But rosy
pipe-bowl, or rosy countenance, all was lost on that unrosy man, the
bachelor, who, waiting a moment till the commotion, caused by the boat's
renewed progress, had a little abated, thus continued:
"Hark ye," jeeringly eying the cap and belt, "did you ever see Signor
Marzetti in the African pantomime?"
"No;--good performer?"
"Excellent; plays the intelligent ape till he seems it. With such
naturalness can a being endowed with an immortal spirit enter into that
of a monkey. But where's your tail? In the pantomime, Marzetti, no
hypocrite in his monkery, prides himself on that."
The stranger, now at rest, sideways and genially, on one hip, his right
leg cavalierly crossed before the other, the toe of his vertical slipper
pointed easily down on the deck, whiffed out a long, leisurely sort of
indifferent and charitable puff, betokening him more or less of the
mature man of the world, a character which, like its opposite, the
sincere Christian's, is not always swift to take offense; and then,
drawing near, still smoking, again laid his hand, this time with mild
impressiveness, on the ursine shoulder, and not unamiably said: "That in
your address there is a sufficiency of the _fortiter in re_ few unbiased
observers will question; but that this is duly attempered with the
_suaviter in modo_ may admit, I think, of an honest doubt. My dear
fellow," beaming his eyes full upon him, "what injury have I done you,
that you should receive my greeting with a curtailed civility?"
"Off hands;" once more shaking the friendly member from him. "Who in the
name of the great chimpanzee, in whose likeness, you, Marzetti, and the
other chatterers are made, who in thunder are you?"
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