66 of itself," and his pleasures are imbibed neat," never spoiling both by an infusion and admixture of either. That soldier is a poor sentinel who nods upon His post, and would both watch and wink upon a tour of duty. The winkings of Tibbs are wisely condensed into a continuous slumber, and when he watches, it is generally found that his eyes are quite as widely open as the eyes of other people. Tom Tibbs had a father, a necessity from which it is believed the greatest are not exempt, and in Tom's case, as indeed in many others, it was a hard necessity, from which it would have pleased him to be excused. Tom's father was a disciplinarian-that is, he compounded for his own delinquencies by a compensatory severity upon the delinquencies of others. When he had made a fool of himself abroad, he balanced the account and atoned for the folly, by chastising Tom at home, and thus went to bed with a clear conscience and a wearied arm. When he had spent more money upon a recreation than precisely suited his circumstances, the family were put upon short commons, and Tom's contingent of shoes and jackets, as well as those of his brothers and sisters--for he was not the only scion of Tibbsism-were economically retrenched. The elder Tibbs piqued himself much upon his paternal kindness in teaching prudence to his offspring. "You'll bless me for it," said he, with tears in his eyes, as he prepared to hammer them all round, after having been fined for wheeling his barrow upon the pavement; "you'll bless me for it to the longest day you have to live?" The elder Tibbs was patriarchal he made the law as the necessity arose, and carried it into effect himself, and its adaptation to circumstances was wonderful. Any trouble in solving the equity of the case was instantly obviated by flogging Tom, and then old Tibbs would exclaim, "My conscience is easy-I do my best towards these naughty children-my duty is fulfilled-if they come to bad ends, they can't blame me for it. I have spared no pains to bring 'em up properly," and he had not, so far as the strap was concerned. Mrs. Tibbs was a tender-hearted woman, who did not exactly understand parental duties as they were received by her husband; yet, being somewhat overcrowed by the commanding spirit of her mate, she sometimes almost began to think that Tom must indeed be rather a bad boy to require the neat's leather so often; but Mrs. Tibbs loved her children, and did her best to console them, thus preserving a verdant spot in Tom's otherwise arid heart; for as his cuticle was hardened, his spirit also grew callous. The pressure of the times, however, at last compelled the Tibbs family to migrate westward, and the father, when two days out from the city, having become warm with his own eloquence upon the difficulties of making a living, called Tom to his side and diverged into a personal episode and an individual apostrophe: "It is so hard now to get along in the world that I shouldn't wonder, if anything happened to me, if these children were to starve. Tom, Tom, how often have I told you that you'd never come to good! Tom, Tom! you'll break my heart! Where's that strap? I don't want to do it, but I must!" Tom, however, could not be prevailed upon to " stay to supper," and escaped, retracing his steps to the city, and dissolving all connection with the strap. He thought that he had received quite as much "bringing up" in that respect as was necessary. Tom felt his destiny strong within him. He threw himself into the bosom of the news-boys, and through their kindness, for they are a kindly race when properly approached, soon became one of the most distinguished of the corps. No one can sell more adroitly than he; his perseverance is mingled with tact, and his verbal embellishments as to the peculiar interest of the number of the journal he has to sell, are founded on fact. He never announces the steamer to be in, before she is telegraphed, nor indulges in the false pretences which so often derogate from the dignity of the profession. He estimates its importance, and proceeds upon principle. The traveller who trades with Tibbs, at the cars, or on board the steamboat, may safely buy under the ringing of the last bell, without finding too late, that his pennies have been exchanged for newspapers stale as an addled egg, and freshly pumped upon, to give them an appearance of juvenility. Nor does Tom ever avail himself of hasty departures to be oblivious in the matter of returning change. He does not, under such circumstances, "as some ungracious pastors do," put your quarter in one pocket, and fumble for sixpences in the other, until the train darts away; nor would he, if tempted to the performance of this unworthy feat, add insult to injury by holding up the cash when distance had made its reception impossible, or by assuming that burlesque expression of hypocritical astonishment with which some paper-venders, in a similar catastrophe, outrage your feelings, besides wronging your purse. As Tom often justly remarks to such of his colleagues as are habituated to these practices, "This 'ere chiselling system won't do. Nobody likes to be chiselled, and when you have chiselled everybody, why then they'll get a law passed, and chisel us all to chips. A joke to-day is often a licking to-morrow, mind I tell you." Tom's philosophy was, at once, Franklinian and indisputable. He felt the necessity of obviating all danger of a war of races. He knew that nothing but mischief was to be anticipated, if all the rest of the human family were to be "chiselled" into a hostility against the news-boys; for the minority always stand in the predicament of being presented and suppressed as a nuisance, whenever the stronger party think fit to exercise the power of numbers, and, as a natural consequence, Tom was opposed to the practice of clustering about a corner and selling newspapers in a flock. "A sprinkling of news boys, one or two in every square," thought he, "is well enough. It's good for trade, and makes things lively; but to be cutting up, so fashion, all in a jam, why people go on t'other side of the way, and retailing's done for. I vote for scatteration. Folks hate being obligated to fight their way through the literary circles. But Tibbs, with all his good sense, has a weakness. There is a forte and a foible to every blade, and even such a blade as a news-boy cannot escape the common lot of humanity. Sound upon the general principle of not annoying others, yet, in the indulgence of his humor, he sometimes makes an exception. He especially dislikes Mr. Sappington Sapid, a starched gentleman of the old school, who never reads a jour nal, cares nothing for the current of events, and entertains a perfect horror of the modern style of newspapers, and of all concerned in their distribution. In fact, he attributes much of the evils of the time to cheap journalism, and he has not been sparing of an expression of his views of the subject, whenever the opportunity was afforded. On some one of these occasions, it was his luck to wound the feelings of Thomas Tibbs, and Tibbs accordingly marked him for a sufferer. Incessantly was Mr. Sappington Sapid assailed. Not a news-boy passed his door without ringing the bell to ascertain whether a paper was not required-he never walked the streets without perpetual and ridiculous solicitations. When he appeared, all customers were left for his special annoyance, and, in consequence of failing in the attaint one day, when he directed an indignant kick at the provoking Tibbs-unpractised individuals should never essay the rapid and extemporaneous application of the foot-Mr. Sappington Sapid sat suddenly and unexpectedly down in a puddle of water, in full sight of a legion of his tormentors, who never forgot the incident, but would rehearse it, to the delight of their fellows, whenever the unfortunate man happened to present himself, and Tibbs was especially dexterous in giving the broadest effect to the incident. What a vitality there is in our worst mishaps! It would be nothing, comparatively, if disaster were circumscribed by its immediate consequences, and it would have made but little figure in Mr. Sapid's memoirs had he only caught cold by the operation referred to; but when a personal sorrow is transmuted into a general joke, it becomes, ipso facto, a living piece of attendant biography, a walking companionship, which even smiles over a man's last resting-place. Death itself affords no refuge to the hero of a "ridicule." "Poor fellow !" say his dearest friends, "perhaps it's wrong to mention it now, but, by-theway, did you ever hear how,-ha! ha! ho-how he made such a fool of himself at Mrs. Dunover's pic-nic? Ho! ho! ha! Poor soul!!"" Rob a church, or lay logs on a railroad, and there is a chance that the last may be heard of it; but if a drollery, no matter how sad in its essence, be created at any one's expense, he and it are so far married that they cling together purpose. His coat was buttoned up to through life, while the jest is a "relict," the chin to prevent the evaporation of to move post mortem mirth, autopsical his stern resolve; his lips were drawn grins and necrological merriment. A together, as if to obviate all danger of dear departed is much more likely to evasion by word of mouth; his hat had be resurrectionised by a surviving joke, settled martially down, almost to the than by the most intrepid of body- bridge of his nose, while his heels sasnatchers, and the best of portraits is luted mother earth so determinedly, not so good a memento as being im- that his whole frame-work jarred at plicated in an anecdote which is sure to the shock. If ever a man displayed create laughter. Under an inkling of outward symptoms of having his mind this truth, Mr. Sapid always denies made up in the most compact kind of that he is the person who "shook his a parcel, it was Sappington Sapid, on foot at the news-boy. this memorable occasion. No beggar would have dared to ask charity from him, under such an aspect. He was safe from being solicited to take a cab. They who met him, made way instinctively, for their "genius felt rebuked by his, as Mark Antony's was by Cæsar's,”a psychological phenomenon often manifest when even inferior men are screwed up to the sublime by the force of an emergency, just as valor's self shrinks abashed from the angry presence of a cornered cat. But there are bounds to patience. A man is but a bottle before the fire of mischance, and when the heat becomes insupportable, he must of necessity explode, no matter how tightly corked by fortitude, or wired down by philosophy. "The grief that will not speak," is a deadly inward fermentation. They who survive sorrow, are those who "exteriorize" sorrow, and give sorrow a free channel. To scold is the vital principle of practical hygiene for the ladies, and grumbling humanity rarely needs the doctor. The inference therefore is, that the average of existence would be at a higher rate, if the admirable counter-irritant of round swearing were not proscribed in refined society, thus killing people by the suppressed perspiration of an indignant spirit. Sapid, however, was none of these. Patience might sit upon a monument, if she liked, but there was nothing of the marble-mason in his composition, nor did he at all affect the " statuesque," when vexation chafed his heart. If preyed upon in this way, though he never indulged in Commodore Trunnion's expletives, nor "shotted his discourse" like that worthy commander, yet he did not by any means pray in return, as Dinah had often reason to acknowledge, when the chamber pitcher was left vacant of water, or when forgetful Boots failed in the performance of his resplendent office. No! Sappington Sapid makes people hear of it when he is offended, justly thinking it better that their ears should be annoyed, than that he should pine away of an unexpressed inflammation. It was a bright forenoon, such as elicits snakes in the country, and evolves the fashionables in cities, when Mr. Sappington Sapid walked firmly along the street, filled with a settled But whither wandered Sapid? No one knew. He had taken breakfast without a word, and had wandered forth in equal silence. Counsel he sought not-sympathy he did not require. When we are girded up, of our own impulse, to pull the trigger of a catastrophe, advice is felt to be an impertinence, and no spur is needed to prick the sides of our intent. We are a sufficiency unto ourselves. Legions could not make us stronger, and therefore Sapid disdained companionship or an interchange of thought. He, Sapid, was enough to fill the canvass for the contemplated picture. He was the tableau, all alone, so far as his share in the incident was to be concerned. Some clue to his state of mind may be afforded, when it is known that he was visited by a night-mare, a journalistic incubus, on the previous night. An immense Tom Tibbs sat upon his breast, and tried to feed him with penny papers. His head seemed to grow to the size of a huge type-foundry, and each of his ears roared like a powerpress. Then, again, he was flattened into an immense sheet, and they printed him as a "Double Brother Jonathan," with pictorial embellishments. He was expanded into whole acres of reading for the people, and did not awake until he was folded, pasted up and thrust into the mail-bag, when, protesting against the ignominy of being charged at the usual rate of newspaper postage," he sprang up convulsively, and found that his night-cap had got over his nose. "Is this the office of the National Pop-gun and Universal Valve Trumpet?" inquired Sapid, in sepulchral tones. 66 Hey-what? Oh!-yes," gruffly replied the clerk, as he scrutinized the applicant. It is, is it?" was the response. "H-umpse;" being a porcine affirmative, much in use in the city of brotherly love. "I am here to see the editor, on business of importance," slowly and solemnly articulated Sapid. There must have been something professionally alarming in this announcement, if an opinion may be formed from the effect it produced. "Editor's not come down yet, is he, Spry ?" inquired the clerk, with a cautionary wink at the paste-boy. "Guess he ain't more nor up yet," said Spry; "the mails was late last night." "I'll take a seat till he does come," observed Sapid, gloomily. Spry and the clerk laid their heads together, in the most distant corner of the little office. "Has he got a stick?" whispered one. "No, and he isn't remarkable big, nuther." 66 Any bit of paper in his handdoes he look like State House?" "Not much, and as we didn't have any scruger in the Pop-gun yesterday, perhaps he wants to have somebody tickled up himself. Send him in." St. Sebastian Sockdolager, Esq., the editor of "The National Pop-Gun and Universal Valve Trumpet,' sat at a green table, elucidating an idea by the aid of a steel pen and whitey-brown paper, and, therefore, St. Sebastian Sockdolager did not look up when Mr. Sapid entered the sanctum. The abstraction may, perhaps, have been a sample of literary stage effect, but it is certain that the pen pursued the idea with the speed and directness of a steeple-chase, straight across the paper, and direful was the scratching thereof. The luckless idea being at last fairly run down, and its brush cut "Glad of it, sir; the Gun' is death on a nuisance. We circulate ten thousand deaths to any sort of a nuisance every day, besides the weekly and the country edition. We are a regular smash-pipes in that line-surgical, surgical to this community-we are at once the knife and the sarsaparilla to human ills, whether financial, political or social." "Sir, the nuisance I complain of lies in the circulation-in its mode and manner." Bless me!" said Sockdolager, with a look of suspicion; "you are too literal in your interpretation. If your circulation is deranged, you had better try Brandreth, or the Fluid Extract of Quizembob." "It is not my circulation, but yours which makes all the trouble. I never circulate,-I can't, without being insulted." "Really, mister, I can't say that this is clearly comprehensible to perception. Not circulate! Are you below par in the money article,' or in what particular do you find yourself in the condition of being no go? Excuse my facetiæ and he brief, for thought comes tumbling, bumping, booming ;- "and Sockdolager dipped his pen in the ink. Mr. Sappington Sapid unravelled the web of his miseries. "I wish you, sir, to control your boys-to dismiss the saucy, and to write an article which shall make 'em ashamed of themselves. I shall call on every editor in the city, sir, and ask the same-a combined expression for the suppression of iniquity. We must be emancipated from this new and growing evil, or our liberties become a farce, and we are squashed and crushed in a way worse than fifty tea-taxes." "Pardon me, Mr. Whatcheecallem; it can't be done-it would be suicidal, with the sharpest kind of a knife. Whatcheecallem, you don't understand the grand movement of the nineteenth century—you are not up to snuff as to the vital principle of human progression-the propulsive force has not yet been demonstrated to your benighted optics. The sun is up, sir; the hilltops of intellect glow with its brightness, and even the level plain of the world's collective mediocrity is gilded by its beams; but you, sir, are yet in the foggy valley of exploded prejudice, poking along with a tupenny-ha'penny candle-a mere dip. Suppress sauciness! why, my dear bungletonian, sauciness is the discovery of the agethe secret of advancement! We are saucy now, sir, not by the accident of constitution temperament has nothing to do with it. We are saucy by calculation, by intention, by design. It is cultivated, like our whiskers, as a superadded energy to our other gifts. Without sauciness, what is a newsboy what is an editor? what are revolutions? what are people? Sauce is power, sauce is spirit, independence, victory, everything. It is, in fact, this sauce, or sass,' as the vulgar have it-steam to the great locomotive of affairs. Suppress, indeed! No, sir; you should regard it as a part of your duty as a philanthropist and as a patriot, to encourage this essence of superiority in all your countrymen, and I've a great mind to write you an article on that subject, instead of the other, for this conversation has warmed up my ideas so completely, that justice will not be done to the community till they, like you, are enlightened on this important point." St. Sebastian Sockdolager, now having a leading article for "The National Pop-Gun and Universal Valve Trumpet," clearly in his mind, was not a creature to be trifled with. An edidor in this paroxysm, however gentle in his less inspired moments, cannot safely be crossed, or even spoken to. It is not wise to call him to dinner, except through the key-hole, and to ask for "more copy," in general a privileged demand, is a risk too fearful to be encountered. St. Sebastian's eye became fixed, his brow corrugated, his mouth intellectually ajar. "But, sir, the nuisance"-said Sappington. "Don't bother!" was the impatient reply, and the brow of St. Sebastian Sockdolager grew black as his own ink. "The boys, sir, the boys!-am I to be worried out of my life and soul?" The right hand of St. Sebastian Sockdolager fell heavily upon the huge pewter inkstand-the concatenation of his ideas had been broken-he halfraised himself from his chair, and glanced significantly from his visitor to the door. "Mizzle!" said he, in a hoarse, suppressed whisper. The language itself was unintelligible the word might have been Chaldaic, for all that Sapid knew to the contrary; but there are situations in which an interpreter is not needed, and this appeared to be one of them. Sapid never before made a movement so swiftly extemporaneous. He intends shortly to try whether the Grand Jury is a convert to the new doctrine of sauciness. Tibbs, in the mean time, grows in means and expands in ambition. Progress is in his soul, like a reel in a bottle. He aspires already to a "literary agency," and often feels as if he were destined to publish more magazines at a single swoop than there are now in existence, each of which shall have upon its cover a picture of the News-Boy," while the same device shall gleam upon the panels of his coach. |