Israel Potter/Chapters 6-10

by Herman Melville

 

CHAPTER VI.

ISRAEL MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF CERTAIN SECRET FRIENDS OF AMERICA, ONE OF THEM BEING THE FAMOUS AUTHOR OF THE "DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY," THESE DESPATCH HIM ON A SLY ERRAND ACROSS THE CHANNEL.

At this period, though made the victims indeed of British oppression, yet the colonies were not totally without friends in Britain.  It was but natural that when Parliament itself held patriotic and gifted men, who not only recommended conciliatory measures, but likewise denounced the war as monstrous; it was but natural that throughout the nation at large there should be many private individuals cherishing similar sentiments, and some who made no scruple clandestinely to act upon them.

Late one night while hiding in a farmer’s granary, Israel saw a man with a lantern approaching.  He was about to flee, when the man hailed him in a well-known voice, bidding him have no fear.  It was the farmer himself.  He carried a message to Israel from a gentleman of Brentford, to the effect, that the refugee was earnestly requested to repair on the following evening to that gentleman’s mansion.

At first, Israel was disposed to surmise that either the farmer was playing him false, or else his honest credulity had been imposed upon by evil-minded persons.  At any rate, he regarded the message as a decoy, and for half an hour refused to credit its sincerity.  But at length he was induced to think a little better of it.  The gentleman giving the invitation was one Squire Woodcock, of Brentford, whose loyalty to the king had been under suspicion; so at least the farmer averred.  This latter information was not without its effect.

At nightfall on the following day, being disguised in strange clothes by the farmer, Israel stole from his retreat, and after a few hours’ walk, arrived before the ancient brick house of the Squire; who opening the door in person, and learning who it was that stood there, at once assured Israel in the most solemn manner, that no foul play was intended.  So the wanderer suffered himself to enter, and be conducted to a private chamber in the rear of the mansion, where were seated two other gentlemen, attired, in the manner of that age, in long laced coats, with small-clothes, and shoes with silver buckles.

“I am John Woodcock,” said the host, “and these gentlemen are Horne Tooke and James Bridges.  All three of us are friends to America.  We have heard of you for some weeks past, and inferring from your conduct, that you must be a Yankee of the true blue stamp, we have resolved to employ you in a way which you cannot but gladly approve; for surely, though an exile, you are still willing to serve your country; if not as a sailor or soldier, yet as a traveller?”

“Tell me how I may do it?” demanded Israel, not completely at ease.

“At that in good time,” smiled the Squire.  “The point is now—­do you repose confidence in my statements?”

Israel glanced inquiringly upon the Squire; then upon his companions; and meeting the expressive, enthusiastic, candid countenance of Horne Tooke—­then in the first honest ardor of his political career—­turned to the Squire, and said, “Sir, I believe what you have said.  Tell me now what I am to do.”

“Oh, there is just nothing to be done to-night,” said the Squire; “nor for some days to come perhaps, but we wanted to have you prepared.”

And hereupon he hinted to his guest rather vaguely of his general intention; and that over, begged him to entertain them with some account of his adventures since he first took up arms for his country.  To this Israel had no objections in the world, since all men love to tell the tale of hardships endured in a righteous cause.  But ere beginning his story, the Squire refreshed him with some cold beef, laid in a snowy napkin, and a glass of Perry, and thrice during the narration of the adventures, pressed him with additional draughts.

But after his second glass, Israel declined to drink more, mild as the beverage was.  For he noticed, that not only did the three gentlemen listen with the utmost interest to his story, but likewise interrupted him with questions and cross-questions in the most pertinacious manner.  So this led him to be on his guard, not being absolutely certain yet, as to who they might really be, or what was their real design.  But as it turned out, Squire Woodcock and his friends only sought to satisfy themselves thoroughly, before making their final disclosures, that the exile was one in whom implicit confidence might be placed.

And to this desirable conclusion they eventually came, for upon the ending of Israel’s story, after expressing their sympathies for his hardships, and applauding his generous patriotism in so patiently enduring adversity, as well as singing the praises of his gallant fellow-soldiers of Bunker Hill, they openly revealed their scheme.  They wished to know whether Israel would undertake a trip to Paris, to carry an important message—­shortly to be received for transmission through them—­to Doctor Franklin, then in that capital.

“All your expenses shall be paid, not to speak of a compensation besides,” said the Squire; “will you go?”

“I must think of it,” said Israel, not yet wholly confirmed in his mind.  But once more he cast his glance on Horne Tooke, and his irresolution was gone.

The Squire now informed Israel that, to avoid suspicions, it would be necessary for him to remove to another place until the hour at which he should start for Paris.  They enjoined upon him the profoundest secresy, gave him a guinea, with a letter for a gentleman in White Waltham, a town some miles from Brentford, which point they begged him to reach as soon as possible, there to tarry for further instructions.

Having informed him of thus much, Squire Woodcock asked him to hold out his right foot.

“What for?” said Israel.

“Why, would you not like to have a pair of new boots against your return?” smiled Home Tooke.

“Oh, yes; no objection at all,” said, Israel.

“Well, then, let the bootmaker measure you,” smiled Horne Tooke.

“Do you do it, Mr. Tooke,” said the Squire; “you measure men’s parts better than I.”

“Hold out your foot, my good friend,” said Horne Tooke—­“there—­now let’s measure your heart.”

“For that, measure me round the chest,” said Israel.

“Just the man we want,” said Mr. Bridges, triumphantly.

“Give him another glass of wine, Squire,” said Horne Tooke.

Exchanging the farmer’s clothes for still another disguise, Israel now set out immediately, on foot, for his destination, having received minute directions as to his road, and arriving in White Waltham on the following morning was very cordially received by the gentleman to whom he carried the letter.  This person, another of the active English friends of America, possessed a particular knowledge of late events in that land.  To him Israel was indebted for much entertaining information.  After remaining some ten days at this place, word came from Squire Woodcock, requiring Israel’s immediate return, stating the hour at which he must arrive at the house, namely, two o’clock on the following morning.  So, after another night’s solitary trudge across the country, the wanderer was welcomed by the same three gentlemen as before, seated in the same room.

“The time has now come,” said Squire Woodcock.  “You must start this morning for Paris.  Take off your shoes.”

“Am I to steal from here to Paris on my stocking-feet?” said Israel, whose late easy good living at White Waltham had not failed to bring out the good-natured and mirthful part of him, even as his prior experiences had produced, for the most part, something like a contrary result.

“Oh, no,” smiled Horne Tooke, who always lived well, “we have seven-league-boots for you.  Don’t you remember my measuring you?”

Hereupon going to the closet, the Squire brought out a pair of new boots.  They were fitted with false heels.  Unscrewing these, the Squire showed Israel the papers concealed beneath.  They were of a fine tissuey fibre, and contained much writing in a very small compass.  The boots, it need hardly be said, had been particularly made for the occasion.

“Walk across the room with them,” said the Squire, when Israel had pulled them on.

“He’ll surely be discovered,” smiled Horne Tooke.  “Hark how he creaks.”

“Come, come, it’s too serious a matter for joking,” said the Squire.  “Now, my fine fellow, be cautious, be sober, be vigilant, and above all things be speedy.”

Being furnished now with all requisite directions, and a supply of money, Israel, taking leave of Mr. Tooke and Mr. Bridges, was secretly conducted down stairs by the Squire, and in five minutes’ time was on his way to Charing Cross in London, where taking the post-coach for Dover, he thence went in a packet to Calais, and in fifteen minutes after landing, was being wheeled over French soil towards Paris.  He arrived there in safety, and freely declaring himself an American, the peculiarly friendly relations of the two nations at that period, procured him kindly attentions even from strangers.

 

CHAPTER VII.

AFTER A CURIOUS ADVENTURE UPON THE PONT NEUF, ISRAEL ENTERS THE PRESENCE OF THE RENOWNED SAGE, DR. FRANKLIN, WHOM HE FINDS RIGHT LEARNEDLY AND MULTIFARIOUSLY EMPLOYED.

Following the directions given him at the place where the diligence stopped, Israel was crossing the Pont Neuf, to find Doctor Franklin, when he was suddenly called to by a man standing on one side of the bridge, just under the equestrian statue of Henry IV.

The man had a small, shabby-looking box before him on the ground, with a box of blacking on one side of it, and several shoe-brushes upon the other.  Holding another brush in his hand, he politely seconded his verbal invitation by gracefully flourishing the brush in the air.

“What do you want of me, neighbor?” said Israel, pausing in somewhat uneasy astonishment.

“Ah, Monsieur,” exclaimed the man, and with voluble politeness he ran on with a long string of French, which of course was all Greek to poor Israel.  But what his language failed to convey, his gestures now made very plain.  Pointing to the wet muddy state of the bridge, splashed by a recent rain, and then to the feet of the wayfarer, and lastly to the brush in his hand, he appeared to be deeply regretting that a gentleman of Israel’s otherwise imposing appearance should be seen abroad with unpolished boots, offering at the same time to remove their blemishes.

“Ah, Monsieur, Monsieur,” cried the man, at last running up to Israel.  And with tender violence he forced him towards the box, and lifting this unwilling customer’s right foot thereon, was proceeding vigorously to work, when suddenly illuminated by a dreadful suspicion, Israel, fetching the box a terrible kick, took to his false heels and ran like mad over the bridge.

Incensed that his politeness should receive such an ungracious return, the man pursued, which but confirming Israel in his suspicions he ran all the faster, and thanks to his fleetness, soon succeeded in escaping his pursuer.

Arrived at last at the street and the house to which he had been directed, in reply to his summons, the gate very strangely of itself swung open, and much astonished at this unlooked-for sort of enchantment, Israel entered a wide vaulted passage leading to an open court within.  While he was wondering that no soul appeared, suddenly he was hailed from a dark little window, where sat an old man cobbling shoes, while an old woman standing by his side was thrusting her head into the passage, intently eyeing the stranger.  They proved to be the porter and portress, the latter of whom, upon hearing his summons, had invisibly thrust open the gate to Israel, by means of a spring communicating with the little apartment.

Upon hearing the name of Doctor Franklin mentioned, the old woman, all alacrity, hurried out of her den, and with much courtesy showed Israel across the court, up three flights of stairs to a door in the rear of the spacious building.  There she left him while Israel knocked.

“Come in,” said a voice.

And immediately Israel stood in the presence of the venerable Doctor Franklin.

Wrapped in a rich dressing-gown, a fanciful present from an admiring Marchesa, curiously embroidered with algebraic figures like a conjuror’s robe, and with a skull-cap of black satin on his hive of a head, the man of gravity was seated at a huge claw-footed old table, round as the zodiac.  It was covered with printer papers, files of documents, rolls of manuscript, stray bits of strange models in wood and metal, odd-looking pamphlets in various languages, and all sorts of books, including many presentation-copies, embracing history, mechanics, diplomacy, agriculture, political economy, metaphysics, meteorology, and geometry.  The walls had a necromantic look, hung round with barometers of different kinds, drawings of surprising inventions, wide maps of far countries in the New World, containing vast empty spaces in the middle, with the word desert diffusely printed there, so as to span five-and-twenty degrees of longitude with only two syllables,—­which printed word, however, bore a vigorous pen-mark, in the Doctor’s hand, drawn straight through it, as if in summary repeal of it; crowded topographical and trigonometrical charts of various parts of Europe; with geometrical diagrams, and endless other surprising hangings and upholstery of science.

The chamber itself bore evident marks of antiquity.  One part of the rough-finished wall was sadly cracked, and covered with dust, looked dim and dark.  But the aged inmate, though wrinkled as well, looked neat and hale.  Both wall and sage were compounded of like materials,—­lime and dust; both, too, were old; but while the rude earth of the wall had no painted lustre to shed off all fadings and tarnish, and still keep fresh without, though with long eld its core decayed:  the living lime and dust of the sage was frescoed with defensive bloom of his soul.

The weather was warm; like some old West India hogshead on the wharf, the whole chamber buzzed with flies.  But the sapient inmate sat still and cool in the midst.  Absorbed in some other world of his occupations and thoughts, these insects, like daily cark and care, did not seem one whit to annoy him.  It was a goodly sight to see this serene, cool and ripe old philosopher, who by sharp inquisition of man in the street, and then long meditating upon him, surrounded by all those queer old implements, charts and books, had grown at last so wondrous wise.  There he sat, quite motionless among those restless flies; and, with a sound like the low noon murmur of foliage in the woods, turning over the leaves of some ancient and tattered folio, with a binding dark and shaggy as the bark of any old oak.  It seemed as if supernatural lore must needs pertain to this gravely, ruddy personage; at least far foresight, pleasant wit, and working wisdom.  Old age seemed in no wise to have dulled him, but to have sharpened; just as old dinner-knives—­so they be of good steel—­wax keen, spear-pointed, and elastic as whale-bone with long usage.  Yet though he was thus lively and vigorous to behold, spite of his seventy-two years (his exact date at that time) somehow, the incredible seniority of an antediluvian seemed his.  Not the years of the calendar wholly, but also the years of sapience.  His white hairs and mild brow, spoke of the future as well as the past.  He seemed to be seven score years old; that is, three score and ten of prescience added to three score and ten of remembrance, makes just seven score years in all.

But when Israel stepped within the chamber, he lost the complete effect of all this; for the sage’s back, not his face, was turned to him.

So, intent on his errand, hurried and heated with his recent run, our courier entered the room, inadequately impressed, for the time, by either it or its occupant.

“Bon jour, bon jour, monsieur,” said the man of wisdom, in a cheerful voice, but too busy to turn round just then.

“How do you do, Doctor Franklin?” said Israel.

“Ah!  I smell Indian corn,” said the Doctor, turning round quickly on his chair.  “A countryman; sit down, my good sir.  Well, what news?  Special?”

“Wait a minute, sir,” said Israel, stepping across the room towards a chair.

Now there was no carpet on the floor, which was of dark-colored wood, set in lozenges, and slippery with wax, after the usual French style.  As Israel walked this slippery floor, his unaccustomed feet slid about very strangely as if walking on ice, so that he came very near falling.

“’Pears to me you have rather high heels to your boots,” said the grave man of utility, looking sharply down through his spectacles; “don’t you know that it’s both wasting leather and endangering your limbs, to wear such high heels?  I have thought, at my first leisure, to write a little pamphlet against that very abuse.  But pray, what are you doing now?  Do your boots pinch you, my friend, that you lift one foot from the floor that way?”

At this moment, Israel having seated himself, was just putting his right foot across his left knee.

“How foolish,” continued the wise man, “for a rational creature to wear tight boots.  Had nature intended rational creatures should do so, she would have made the foot of solid bone, or perhaps of solid iron, instead of bone, muscle, and flesh,—­But,—­I see.  Hold!”

And springing to his own slippered feet, the venerable sage hurried to the door and shot-to the bolt.  Then drawing the curtain carefully across the window looking out across the court to various windows on the opposite side, bade Israel proceed with his operations.

“I was mistaken this time,” added the Doctor, smiling, as Israel produced his documents from their curious recesses—­“your high heels, instead of being idle vanities, seem to be full of meaning.”

“Pretty full, Doctor,” said Israel, now handing over the papers.  “I had a narrow escape with them just now.”

“How?  How’s that?” said the sage, fumbling the papers eagerly.

“Why, crossing the stone bridge there over the Seen”—­

“Seine”—­interrupted the Doctor, giving the French pronunciation.—­“Always get a new word right in the first place, my friend, and you will never get it wrong afterwards.”

“Well, I was crossing the bridge there, and who should hail me, but a suspicious-looking man, who, under pretence of seeking to polish my boots, wanted slyly to unscrew their heels, and so steal all these precious papers I’ve brought you.”

“My good friend,” said the man of gravity, glancing scrutinizingly upon his guest, “have you not in your time, undergone what they call hard times?  Been set upon, and persecuted, and very illy entreated by some of your fellow-creatures?”

“That I have, Doctor; yes, indeed.”

“I thought so.  Sad usage has made you sadly suspicious, my honest friend.  An indiscriminate distrust of human nature is the worst consequence of a miserable condition, whether brought about by innocence or guilt.  And though want of suspicion more than want of sense, sometimes leads a man into harm, yet too much suspicion is as bad as too little sense.  The man you met, my friend, most probably had no artful intention; he knew just nothing about you or your heels; he simply wanted to earn two sous by brushing your boots.  Those blacking-men regularly station themselves on the bridge.”

“How sorry I am then that I knocked over his box, and then ran away.  But he didn’t catch me.”

“How? surely, my honest friend, you—­appointed to the conveyance of important secret dispatches—­did not act so imprudently as to kick over an innocent man’s box in the public streets of the capital, to which you had been especially sent?”

“Yes, I did, Doctor.”

“Never act so unwisely again.  If the police had got hold of you, think of what might have ensued.”

“Well, it was not very wise of me, that’s a fact, Doctor.  But, you see, I thought he meant mischief.”

“And because you only thought he meant mischief, you must straightway proceed to do mischief.  That’s poor logic.  But think over what I have told you now, while I look over these papers.”

In half an hour’s time, the Doctor, laying down the documents, again turned towards Israel, and removing his spectacles very placidly, proceeded in the kindest and most familiar manner to read him a paternal detailed lesson upon the ill-advised act he had been guilty of, upon the Pont Neuf; concluding by taking out his purse, and putting three small silver coins into Israel’s hands, charging him to seek out the man that very day, and make both apology and restitution for his unlucky mistake.

“All of us, my honest friend,” continued the Doctor, “are subject to making mistakes; so that the chief art of life, is to learn how best to remedy mistakes.  Now one remedy for mistakes is honesty.  So pay the man for the damage done to his box.  And now, who are you, my friend?  My correspondents here mention your name—­Israel Potter—­and say you are an American, an escaped prisoner of war, but nothing further.  I want to hear your story from your own lips.”

Israel immediately began, and related to the Doctor all his adventures up to the present time.

“I suppose,” said the Doctor, upon Israel’s concluding, “that you desire to return to your friends across the sea?”

“That I do, Doctor,” said Israel.

“Well, I think I shall be able to procure you a passage.”

Israel’s eyes sparkled with delight.  The mild sage noticed it, and added:  “But events in these times are uncertain.  At the prospect of pleasure never be elated; but, without depression, respect the omens of ill.  So much my life has taught me, my honest friend.”

Israel felt as though a plum-pudding had been thrust under his nostrils, and then as rapidly withdrawn.

“I think it is probable that in two or three days I shall want you to return with some papers to the persons who sent you to me.  In that case you will have to come here once more, and then, my good friend, we will see what can be done towards getting you safely home again.”

Israel was pouring out torrents of thanks when the Doctor interrupted him.

“Gratitude, my friend, cannot be too much towards God, but towards man, it should be limited.  No man can possibly so serve his fellow, as to merit unbounded gratitude.  Over gratitude in the helped person, is apt to breed vanity or arrogance in the helping one.  Now in assisting you to get home—­if indeed I shall prove able to do so—­I shall be simply doing part of my official duty as agent of our common country.  So you owe me just nothing at all, but the sum of these coins I put in your hand just now.  But that, instead of repaying to me hereafter, you can, when you get home, give to the first soldier’s widow you meet.  Don’t forget it, for it is a debt, a pecuniary liability, owing to me.  It will be about a quarter of a dollar, in the Yankee currency.  A quarter of a dollar, mind.  My honest friend, in pecuniary matters always be exact as a second-hand; never mind with whom it is, father or stranger, peasant or king, be exact to a tick of your honor.”

“Well, Doctor,” said Israel, “since exactness in these matters is so necessary, let me pay back my debt in the very coins in which it was loaned.  There will be no chance of mistake then.  Thanks to my Brentford friends, I have enough to spare of my own, to settle damages with the boot-black of the bridge.  I only took the money from you, because I thought it would not look well to push it back after being so kindly offered.”

“My honest friend,” said the Doctor, “I like your straightforward dealing.  I will receive back the money.”

“No interest, Doctor, I hope,” said Israel.

The sage looked mildly over his spectacles upon Israel and replied:  “My good friend, never permit yourself to be jocose upon pecuniary matters.  Never joke at funerals, or during business transactions.  The affair between us two, you perhaps deem very trivial, but trifles may involve momentous principles.  But no more at present.  You had better go immediately and find the boot-black.  Having settled with him, return hither, and you will find a room ready for you near this, where you will stay during your sojourn in Paris.”

“But I thought I would like to have a little look round the town, before I go back to England,” said Israel.

“Business before pleasure, my friend.  You must absolutely remain in your room, just as if you were my prisoner, until you quit Paris for Calais.  Not knowing now at what instant I shall want you to start, your keeping to your room is indispensable.  But when you come back from Brentford again, then, if nothing happens, you will have a chance to survey this celebrated capital ere taking ship for America.  Now go directly, and pay the boot-black.  Stop, have you the exact change ready?  Don’t be taking out all your money in the open street.”

“Doctor,” said Israel, “I am not so simple.”

“But you knocked over the box.”

“That, Doctor, was bravery.”

“Bravery in a poor cause, is the height of simplicity, my friend.—­Count out your change.  It must be French coin, not English, that you are to pay the man with.—­Ah, that will do—­those three coins will be enough.  Put them in a pocket separate from your other cash.  Now go, and hasten to the bridge.”

“Shall I stop to take a meal anywhere, Doctor, as I return?  I saw several cookshops as I came hither.”

“Cafes and restaurants, they are called here, my honest friend.  Tell me, are you the possessor of a liberal fortune?”

“Not very liberal,” said Israel.

“I thought as much.  Where little wine is drunk, it is good to dine out occasionally at a friend’s; but where a poor man dines out at his own charge, it is bad policy.  Never dine out that way, when you can dine in.  Do not stop on the way at all, my honest friend, but come directly back hither, and you shall dine at home, free of cost, with me.”

“Thank you very kindly, Doctor.”

And Israel departed for the Pont Neuf.  Succeeding in his errand thither, he returned to Dr. Franklin, and found that worthy envoy waiting his attendance at a meal, which, according to the Doctor’s custom, had been sent from a neighboring restaurant.  There were two covers; and without attendance the host and guest sat down.  There was only one principal dish, lamb boiled with green peas.  Bread and potatoes made up the rest.  A decanter-like bottle of uncolored glass, filled with some uncolored beverage, stood at the venerable envoy’s elbow.

“Let me fill your glass,” said the sage.

“It’s white wine, ain’t it?” said Israel.

“White wine of the very oldest brand; I drink your health in it, my honest friend.”

“Why, it’s plain water,” said Israel, now tasting it.

“Plain water is a very good drink for plain men,” replied the wise man.

“Yes,” said Israel, “but Squire Woodcock gave me perry, and the other gentleman at White Waltham gave me port, and some other friends have given me brandy.”

“Very good, my honest friend; if you like perry and port and brandy, wait till you get back to Squire Woodcock, and the gentleman at White Waltham, and the other friends, and you shall drink perry and port and brandy.  But while you are with me, you will drink plain water.”

“So it seems, Doctor.”

“What do you suppose a glass of port costs?”

“About three pence English, Doctor.”

“That must be poor port.  But how much good bread will three pence English purchase?”

“Three penny rolls, Doctor.”

“How many glasses of port do you suppose a man may drink at a meal?”

“The gentleman at White Waltham drank a bottle at a dinner.”

“A bottle contains just thirteen glasses—­that’s thirty-nine pence, supposing it poor wine.  If something of the best, which is the only sort any sane man should drink, as being the least poisonous, it would be quadruple that sum, which is one hundred and fifty-six pence, which is seventy-eight two-penny loaves.  Now, do you not think that for one man to swallow down seventy-two two-penny rolls at one meal is rather extravagant business?”

“But he drank a bottle of wine; he did not eat seventy-two two-penny rolls, Doctor.”

“He drank the money worth of seventy-two loaves, which is drinking the loaves themselves; for money is bread.”

“But he has plenty of money to spare, Doctor.”

“To have to spare, is to have to give away.  Does the gentleman give much away?”

“Not that I know of, Doctor.”

“Then he thinks he has nothing to spare; and thinking he has nothing to spare, and yet prodigally drinking down his money as he does every day, it seems to me that that gentleman stands self-contradicted, and therefore is no good example for plain sensible folks like you and me to follow.  My honest friend, if you are poor, avoid wine as a costly luxury; if you are rich, shun it as a fatal indulgence.  Stick to plain water.  And now, my good friend, if you are through with your meal, we will rise.  There is no pastry coming.  Pastry is poisoned bread.  Never eat pastry.  Be a plain man, and stick to plain things.  Now, my friend, I shall have to be private until nine o’clock in the evening, when I shall be again at your service.  Meantime you may go to your room.  I have ordered the one next to this to be prepared for you.  But you must not be idle.  Here is Poor Richard’s Almanac, which, in view of our late conversation, I commend to your earnest perusal.  And here, too, is a Guide to Paris, an English one, which you can read.  Study it well, so that when you come back from England, if you should then have an opportunity to travel about Paris, to see its wonders, you will have all the chief places made historically familiar to you.  In this world, men must provide knowledge before it is wanted, just as our countrymen in New England get in their winter’s fuel one season, to serve them the next.”

So saying, this homely sage, and household Plato, showed his humble guest to the door, and standing in the hall, pointed out to him the one which opened into his allotted apartment.

 

CHAPTER VIII.

WHICH HAS SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT DR. FRANKLIN AND THE LATIN QUARTER.

The first, both in point of time and merit, of American envoys was famous not less for the pastoral simplicity of his manners than for the politic grace of his mind.  Viewed from a certain point, there was a touch of primeval orientalness in Benjamin Franklin.  Neither is there wanting something like his Scriptural parallel.  The history of the patriarch Jacob is interesting not less from the unselfish devotion which we are bound to ascribe to him, than from the deep worldly wisdom and polished Italian tact, gleaming under an air of Arcadian unaffectedness.  The diplomatist and the shepherd are blended; a union not without warrant; the apostolic serpent and dove.  A tanned Machiavelli in tents.

Doubtless, too, notwithstanding his eminence as lord of the moving manor, Jacob’s raiment was of homespun; the economic envoy’s plain coat and hose, who has not heard of?

Franklin all over is of a piece.  He dressed his person as his periods; neat, trim, nothing superfluous, nothing deficient.  In some of his works his style is only surpassed by the unimprovable sentences of Hobbes of Malmsbury, the paragon of perspicuity.  The mental habits of Hobbes and Franklin in several points, especially in one of some moment, assimilated.  Indeed, making due allowance for soil and era, history presents few trios more akin, upon the whole, than Jacob, Hobbes, and Franklin; three labyrinth-minded, but plain-spoken Broadbrims, at once politicians and philosophers; keen observers of the main chance; prudent courtiers; practical magians in linsey-woolsey.

In keeping with his general habitudes, Doctor Franklin while at the French Court did not reside in the aristocratical faubourgs.  He deemed his worsted hose and scientific tastes more adapted in a domestic way to the other side of the Seine, where the Latin Quarter, at once the haunt of erudition and economy, seemed peculiarly to invite the philosophical Poor Richard to its venerable retreats.  Here, of gray, chilly, drizzly November mornings, in the dark-stoned quadrangle of the time-honored Sorbonne, walked the lean and slippered metaphysician,—­oblivious for the moment that his sublime thoughts and tattered wardrobe were famous throughout Europe,—­meditating on the theme of his next lecture; at the same time, in the well-worn chambers overhead, some clayey-visaged chemist in ragged robe-de-chambre, and with a soiled green flap over his left eye, was hard at work stooping over retorts and crucibles, discovering new antipathies in acids, again risking strange explosions similar to that whereby he had already lost the use of one optic; while in the lofty lodging-houses of the neighboring streets, indigent young students from all parts of France, were ironing their shabby cocked hats, or inking the whity seams of their small-clothes, prior to a promenade with their pink-ribboned little grisettes in the Garden of the Luxembourg.

Long ago the haunt of rank, the Latin Quarter still retains many old buildings whose imposing architecture singularly contrasts with the unassuming habits of their present occupants.  In some parts its general air is dreary and dim; monastic and theurgic.  In those lonely narrow ways—­long-drawn prospectives of desertion—­lined with huge piles of silent, vaulted, old iron-grated buildings of dark gray stone, one almost expects to encounter Paracelsus or Friar Bacon turning the next corner, with some awful vial of Black-Art elixir in his hand.

But all the lodging-houses are not so grim.  Not to speak of many of comparatively modern erection, the others of the better class, however stern in exterior, evince a feminine gayety of taste, more or less, in their furnishings within.  The embellishing, or softening, or screening hand of woman is to be seen all over the interiors of this metropolis..  Like Augustus Caesar with respect to Rome, the Frenchwoman leaves her obvious mark on Paris.  Like the hand in nature, you know it can be none else but hers.  Yet sometimes she overdoes it, as nature in the peony; or underdoes it, as nature in the bramble; or—­what is still more frequent—­is a little slatternly about it, as nature in the pig-weed.

In this congenial vicinity of the Latin Quarter, and in an ancient building something like those alluded to, at a point midway between the Palais des Beaux Arts and the College of the Sorbonne, the venerable American Envoy pitched his tent when not passing his time at his country retreat at Passy.  The frugality of his manner of life did not lose him the good opinion even of the voluptuaries of the showiest of capitals, whose very iron railings are not free from gilt.  Franklin was not less a lady’s man, than a man’s man, a wise man, and an old man.  Not only did he enjoy the homage of the choicest Parisian literati, but at the age of seventy-two he was the caressed favorite of the highest born beauties of the Court; who through blind fashion having been originally attracted to him as a famous savan, were permanently retained as his admirers by his Plato-like graciousness of good humor.  Having carefully weighed the world, Franklin could act any part in it.  By nature turned to knowledge, his mind was often grave, but never serious.  At times he had seriousness—­extreme seriousness—­for others, but never for himself.  Tranquillity was to him instead of it.  This philosophical levity of tranquillity, so to speak, is shown in his easy variety of pursuits.  Printer, postmaster, almanac maker, essayist, chemist, orator, tinker, statesman, humorist, philosopher, parlor man, political economist, professor of housewifery, ambassador, projector, maxim-monger, herb-doctor, wit:—­Jack of all trades, master of each and mastered by none—­the type and genius of his land.  Franklin was everything but a poet.  But since a soul with many qualities, forming of itself a sort of handy index and pocket congress of all humanity, needs the contact of just as many different men, or subjects, in order to the exhibition of its totality; hence very little indeed of the sage’s multifariousness will be portrayed in a simple narrative like the present.  This casual private intercourse with Israel, but served to manifest him in his far lesser lights; thrifty, domestic, dietarian, and, it may be, didactically waggish.  There was much benevolent irony, innocent mischievousness, in the wise man.  Seeking here to depict him in his less exalted habitudes, the narrator feels more as if he were playing with one of the sage’s worsted hose, than reverentially handling the honored hat which once oracularly sat upon his brow.

So, then, in the Latin Quarter lived Doctor Franklin.  And accordingly in the Latin Quarter tarried Israel for the time.  And it was into a room of a house in this same Latin Quarter that Israel had been directed when the sage had requested privacy for a while.

 

CHAPTER IX.

ISRAEL IS INITIATED INTO THE MYSTERIES OF LODGING-HOUSES IN THE LATIN QUARTER.

Closing the door upon himself, Israel advanced to the middle of the chamber, and looked curiously round him.

A dark tessellated floor, but without a rug; two mahogany chairs, with embroidered seats, rather the worse for wear; one mahogany bed, with a gay but tarnished counterpane; a marble wash-stand, cracked, with a china vessel of water, minus the handle.  The apartment was very large; this part of the house, which was a very extensive one, embracing the four sides of a quadrangle, having, in a former age, been the hotel of a nobleman.  The magnitude of the chamber made its stinted furniture look meagre enough.

But in Israel’s eyes, the marble mantel (a comparatively recent addition) and its appurtenances, not only redeemed the rest, but looked quite magnificent and hospitable in the extreme.  Because, in the first place, the mantel was graced with an enormous old-fashioned square mirror, of heavy plate glass, set fast, like a tablet, into the wall.  And in this mirror was genially reflected the following delicate articles:—­first, two boquets of flowers inserted in pretty vases of porcelain; second, one cake of white soap; third, one cake of rose-colored soap (both cakes very fragrant); fourth, one wax candle; fifth, one china tinder-box; sixth, one bottle of Eau de Cologne; seventh, one paper of loaf sugar, nicely broken into sugar-bowl size; eighth, one silver teaspoon; ninth, one glass tumbler; tenth, one glass decanter of cool pure water; eleventh, one sealed bottle containing a richly hued liquid, and marked “Otard.”

“I wonder now what O-t-a-r-d is?” soliloquised Israel, slowly spelling the word.  “I have a good mind to step in and ask Dr. Franklin.  He knows everything.  Let me smell it.  No, it’s sealed; smell is locked in.  Those are pretty flowers.  Let’s smell them:  no smell again.  Ah, I see—­sort of flowers in women’s bonnets—­sort of calico flowers.  Beautiful soap.  This smells anyhow—­regular soap-roses—­a white rose and a red one.  That long-necked bottle there looks like a crane.  I wonder what’s in that?  Hallo!  E-a-u—­d-e—­C-o-l-o-g-n-e.  I wonder if Dr. Franklin understands that?  It looks like his white wine.  This is nice sugar.  Let’s taste.  Yes, this is very nice sugar, sweet as—­yes, it’s sweet as sugar; better than maple sugar, such as they make at home.  But I’m crunching it too loud, the Doctor will hear me.  But here’s a teaspoon.  What’s this for?  There’s no tea, nor tea-cup; but here’s a tumbler, and here’s drinking water.  Let me see.  Seems to me, putting this and that and the other thing together, it’s a sort of alphabet that spells something.  Spoon, tumbler, water, sugar,—­brandy—­that’s it.  O-t-a-r-d is brandy.  Who put these things here?  What does it all mean?  Don’t put sugar here for show, don’t put a spoon here for ornament, nor a jug of water.  There is only one meaning to it, and that is a very polite invitation from some invisible person to help myself, if I like, to a glass of brandy and sugar, and if I don’t like, let it alone.  That’s my reading.  I have a good mind to ask Doctor Franklin about it, though, for there’s just a chance I may be mistaken, and these things here be some other person’s private property, not at all meant for me to help myself from.  Cologne, what’s that—­never mind.  Soap:  soap’s to wash with.  I want to use soap, anyway.  Let me see—­no, there’s no soap on the wash-stand.  I see, soap is not given gratis here in Paris, to boarders.  But if you want it, take it from the marble, and it will be charged in the bill.  If you don’t want it let it alone, and no charge.  Well, that’s fair, anyway.  But then to a man who could not afford to use soap, such beautiful cakes as these lying before his eyes all the time, would be a strong temptation.  And now that I think of it, the O-t-a-r-d looks rather tempting too.  But if I don’t like it now, I can let it alone.  I’ve a good mind to try it.  But it’s sealed.  I wonder now if I am right in my understanding of this alphabet?  Who knows?  I’ll venture one little sip, anyhow.  Come, cork.  Hark!”

There was a rapid knock at the door.

Clapping down the bottle, Israel said, “Come in.”

It was the man of wisdom.

“My honest friend,” said the Doctor, stepping with venerable briskness into the room, “I was so busy during your visit to the Pont Neuf, that I did not have time to see that your room was all right.  I merely gave the order, and heard that it had been fulfilled.  But it just occurred to me, that as the landladies of Paris have some curious customs which might puzzle an entire stranger, my presence here for a moment might explain any little obscurity.  Yes, it is as I thought,” glancing towards the mantel.

“Oh, Doctor, that reminds me; what is O-t-a-r-d, pray?”

“Otard is poison.”

“Shocking.”

“Yes, and I think I had best remove it from the room forthwith,” replied the sage, in a business-like manner putting the bottle under his arm; “I hope you never use Cologne, do you?”

“What—­what is that, Doctor?”

“I see.  You never heard of the senseless luxury—­a wise ignorance.  You smelt flowers upon your mountains.  You won’t want this, either;” and the Cologne bottle was put under the other arm.  “Candle—­you’ll want that.  Soap—­you want soap.  Use the white cake.”

“Is that cheaper, Doctor?”

“Yes, but just as good as the other.  You don’t ever munch sugar, do you?  It’s bad for the teeth.  I’ll take the sugar.”  So the paper of sugar was likewise dropped into one of the capacious coat pockets.

“Oh, you better take the whole furniture, Doctor Franklin.  Here, I’ll help you drag out the bedstead.”  “My honest friend,” said the wise man, pausing solemnly, with the two bottles, like swimmer’s bladders, under his arm-pits; “my honest friend, the bedstead you will want; what I propose to remove you will not want.”

“Oh, I was only joking, Doctor.”

“I knew that.  It’s a bad habit, except at the proper time, and with the proper person.  The things left on the mantel were there placed by the landlady to be used if wanted; if not, to be left untouched.  To-morrow morning, upon the chambermaid’s coming in to make your bed, all such articles as remained obviously untouched would have been removed, the rest would have been charged in the bill, whether you used them up completely or not.”

“Just as I thought.  Then why not let the bottles stay, Doctor, and save yourself all this trouble?”

“Ah! why indeed.  My honest friend, are you not my guest?  It were unhandsome in me to permit a third person superfluously to entertain you under what, for the time being, is my own roof.”

These words came from the wise man in the most graciously bland and flowing tones.  As he ended, he made a sort of conciliatory half bow towards Israel.

Charmed with his condescending affability, Israel, without another word, suffered him to march from the room, bottles and all.  Not till the first impression of the venerable envoy’s suavity had left him, did Israel begin to surmise the mild superiority of successful strategy which lurked beneath this highly ingratiating air.

“Ah,” pondered Israel, sitting gloomily before the rifled mantel, with the empty tumbler and teaspoon in his hand, “it’s sad business to have a Doctor Franklin lodging in the next room.  I wonder if he sees to all the boarders this way.  How the O-t-a-r-d merchants must hate him, and the pastry-cooks too.  I wish I had a good pie to pass the time.  I wonder if they ever make pumpkin pies in Paris?  So I’ve got to stay in this room all the time.  Somehow I’m bound to be a prisoner, one way or another.  Never mind, I’m an ambassador; that’s satisfaction.  Hark!  The Doctor again.—­Come in.”

No venerable doctor, but in tripped a young French lass, bloom on her cheek, pink ribbons in her cap, liveliness in all her air, grace in the very tips of her elbows.  The most bewitching little chambermaid in Paris.  All art, but the picture of artlessness.

“Monsieur! pardon!”

“Oh, I pardon ye freely,” said Israel.  “Come to call on the Ambassador?”

“Monsieur, is de—­de—­” but, breaking down at the very threshold in her English, she poured out a long ribbon of sparkling French, the purpose of which was to convey a profusion of fine compliments to the stranger, with many tender inquiries as to whether he was comfortably roomed, and whether there might not be something, however trifling, wanting to his complete accommodation.  But Israel understood nothing, at the time, but the exceeding grace, and trim, bewitching figure of the girl.

She stood eyeing him for a few moments more, with a look of pretty theatrical despair, and, after vaguely lingering a while, with another shower of incomprehensible compliments and apologies, tripped like a fairy from the chamber.  Directly she was gone Israel pondered upon a singular glance of the girl.  It seemed to him that he had, by his reception, in some way, unaccountably disappointed his beautiful visitor.  It struck him very strangely that she had entered all sweetness and friendliness, but had retired as if slighted, with a sort of disdainful and sarcastic levity, all the more stinging from its apparent politeness.

Not long had she disappeared, when a noise in the passage apprised him that, in her hurried retreat, the girl must have stumbled against something.  The next moment he heard a chair scraping in the adjacent apartment, and there was another knock at the door.

It was the man of wisdom this time.

“My honest friend, did you not have a visitor, just now?”

“Yes, Doctor, a very pretty girl called upon me.”

“Well, I just stopped in to tell you of another strange custom of Paris.  That girl is the chambermaid, but she does not confine herself altogether to one vocation.  You must beware of the chambermaids of Paris, my honest friend.  Shall I tell the girl, from you, that, unwilling to give her the fatigue of going up and down so many flights of stairs, you will for the future waive her visits of ceremony?”

“Why, Doctor Franklin, she is a very sweet little girl.”

“I know it, my honest friend; the sweeter the more dangerous.  Arsenic is sweeter than sugar.  I know you are a very sensible young man, not to be taken in by an artful Ammonite, and so I think I had better convey your message to the girl forthwith.”

So saying, the sage withdrew, leaving Israel once more gloomily seated before the rifled mantel, whose mirror was not again to reflect the form of the charming chambermaid.

“Every time he comes in he robs me,” soliloquised Israel, dolefully; “with an air all the time, too, as if he were making me presents.  If he thinks me such a very sensible young man, why not let me take care of myself?”

It was growing dusk, and Israel, lighting the wax candle, proceeded to read in his Guide-book.

“This is poor sight-seeing,” muttered he at last, “sitting here all by myself, with no company but an empty tumbler, reading about the fine things in Paris, and I myself a prisoner in Paris.  I wish something extraordinary would turn up now; for instance, a man come in and give me ten thousand pounds.  But here’s ‘Poor Richard;’ I am a poor fellow myself; so let’s see what comfort he has for a comrade.”

Opening the little pamphlet, at random, Israel’s eyes fell on the following passages:  he read them aloud—­

“’So what signifies waiting and hoping for better times?  We may make these times better, if we bestir ourselves.  Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hope will die fasting, as Poor Richard says.  There are no gains, without pains.  Then help hands, for I have no lands, as Poor Richard says.’ Oh, confound all this wisdom!  It’s a sort of insulting to talk wisdom to a man like me.  It’s wisdom that’s cheap, and it’s fortune that’s dear.  That ain’t in Poor Richard; but it ought to be,” concluded Israel, suddenly slamming down the pamphlet.

He walked across the room, looked at the artificial flowers, and the rose-colored soap, and again went to the table and took up the two books.

“So here is the ‘Way to Wealth,’ and here is the ‘Guide to Paris.’  Wonder now whether Paris lies on the Way to Wealth? if so, I am on the road.  More likely though, it’s a parting-of-the-ways.  I shouldn’t be surprised if the Doctor meant something sly by putting these two books in my hand.  Somehow, the old gentleman has an amazing sly look—­a sort of wild slyness—­about him, seems to me.  His wisdom seems a sort of sly, too.  But all in honor, though.  I rather think he’s one of those old gentlemen who say a vast deal of sense, but hint a world more. ^Depend upon it, he’s sly, sly, sly.  Ah, what’s this Poor Richard says:  ^{c} God helps them that help themselves:’  Let’s consider that.  Poor Richard ain’t a Dunker, that’s certain, though he has lived in Pennsylvania.  ‘God helps them that help themselves.’  I’ll just mark that saw, and leave the pamphlet open to refer to it again—­Ah!”

At this point, the Doctor knocked, summoning Israel to his own apartment.  Here, after a cup of weak tea, and a little toast, the two had a long, familiar talk together; during which, Israel was delighted with the unpretending talkativeness, serene insight, and benign amiability of the sage.  But, for all this, he could hardly forgive him for the Cologne and Otard depredations.

Discovering that, in early life, Israel had been employed on a farm, the man of wisdom at length turned the conversation in that direction; among other things, mentioning to his guest a plan of his (the Doctor’s) for yoking oxen, with a yoke to go by a spring instead of a bolt; thus greatly facilitating the operation of hitching on the team to the cart.  Israel was very much struck with the improvement; and thought that, if he were home, upon his mountains, he would immediately introduce it among the farmers.

 

CHAPTER X.

ANOTHER ADVENTURER APPEARS UPON THE SCENE.

About half-past ten o’clock, as they were thus conversing, Israel’s acquaintance, the pretty chambermaid, rapped at the door, saying, with a titter, that a very rude gentleman in the passage of the court, desired to see Doctor Franklin.

“A very rude gentleman?” repeated the wise man in French, narrowly looking at the girl; “that means, a very fine gentleman who has just paid you some energetic compliment.  But let him come up, my girl,” he added patriarchially.

In a few moments, a swift coquettish step was heard, followed, as if in chase, by a sharp and manly one.  The door opened.  Israel was sitting so that, accidentally, his eye pierced the crevice made by the opening of the door, which, like a theatrical screen, stood for a moment between Doctor Franklin and the just entering visitor.  And behind that screen, through the crack, Israel caught one momentary glimpse of a little bit of by-play between the pretty chambermaid and the stranger.  The vivacious nymph appeared to have affectedly run from him on the stairs—­doubtless in freakish return for some liberal advances—­but had suffered herself to be overtaken at last ere too late; and on the instant Israel caught sight of her, was with an insincere air of rosy resentment, receiving a roguish pinch on the arm, and a still more roguish salute on the cheek.

The next instant both disappeared from the range of the crevice; the girl departing whence she had come; the stranger—­transiently invisible as he advanced behind the door—­entering the room.  When Israel now perceived him again, he seemed, while momentarily hidden, to have undergone a complete transformation.

He was a rather small, elastic, swarthy man, with an aspect as of a disinherited Indian Chief in European clothes.  An unvanquishable enthusiasm, intensified to perfect sobriety, couched in his savage, self-possessed eye.  He was elegantly and somewhat extravagantly dressed as a civilian; he carried himself with a rustic, barbaric jauntiness, strangely dashed with a superinduced touch of the Parisian salon.  His tawny cheek, like a date, spoke of the tropic, A wonderful atmosphere of proud friendlessness and scornful isolation invested him.  Yet there was a bit of the poet as well as the outlaw in him, too.  A cool solemnity of intrepidity sat on his lip.  He looked like one who of purpose sought out harm’s way.  He looked like one who never had been, and never would be, a subordinate.

Israel thought to himself that seldom before had he seen such a being.  Though dressed a-la-mode, he did not seem to be altogether civilized.

So absorbed was our adventurer by the person of the stranger, that a few moments passed ere he began to be aware of the circumstance, that Dr. Franklin and this new visitor having saluted as old acquaintances, were now sitting in earnest conversation together.

“Do as you please; but I will not bide a suitor much longer,” said the stranger in bitterness.  “Congress gave me to understand that, upon my arrival here, I should be given immediate command of the Indien; and now, for no earthly reason that I can see, you Commissioners have presented her, fresh from the stocks at Amsterdam, to the King of France, and not to me.  What does the King of France with such a frigate?  And what can I not do with her?  Give me back the “Indien,” and in less than one month, you shall hear glorious or fatal news of Paul Jones.”

“Come, come, Captain,” said Doctor Franklin, soothingly, “tell me now, what would you do with her, if you had her?”

“I would teach the British that Paul Jones, though born in Britain, is no subject to the British King, but an untrammelled citizen and sailor of the universe; and I would teach them, too, that if they ruthlessly ravage the American coasts, their own coasts are vulnerable as New Holland’s.  Give me the Indien, and I will rain down on wicked England like fire on Sodom.”

These words of bravado were not spoken in the tone of a bravo, but a prophet.  Erect upon his chair, like an Iroquois, the speaker’s look was like that of an unflickering torch.

His air seemed slightly to disturb the old sage’s philosophic repose, who, while not seeking to disguise his admiration of the unmistakable spirit of the man, seemed but illy to relish his apparent measureless boasting.

As if both to change the subject a little, as well as put his visitor in better mood—­though indeed it might have been but covertly to play with his enthusiasm—­the man of wisdom now drew his chair confidentially nearer to the stranger’s, and putting one hand in a very friendly, conciliatory way upon his visitor’s knee, and rubbing it gently to and fro there, much as a lion-tamer might soothingly manipulate the aggravated king of beasts, said in a winning manner:—­“Never mind at present, Captain, about the ‘Indien’ affair.  Let that sleep a moment.  See now, the Jersey privateers do us a great deal of mischief by intercepting our supplies.  It has been mentioned to me, that if you had a small vessel—­say, even your present ship, the ’Amphitrite,’—­then, by your singular bravery, you might render great service, by following those privateers where larger ships durst not venture their bottoms; or, if but supported by some frigates from Brest at a proper distance, might draw them out, so that the larger vessels could capture them.”

“Decoy-duck to French frigates!—­Very dignified office, truly!” hissed Paul in a fiery rage.  “Doctor Franklin, whatever Paul Jones does for the cause of America, it must be done through unlimited orders:  a separate, supreme command; no leader and no counsellor but himself.  Have I not already by my services on the American coast shown that I am well worthy all this?  Why then do you seek to degrade me below my previous level?  I will mount, not sink.  I live but for honor and glory.  Give me, then, something honorable and glorious to do, and something famous to do it with.  Give me the Indien”

The man of wisdom slowly shook his head.  “Everything is lost through this shillyshallying timidity, called prudence,” cried Paul Jones, starting to his feet; “to be effectual, war should be carried on like a monsoon, one changeless determination of every particle towards the one unalterable aim.  But in vacillating councils, statesmen idle about like the cats’-paws in calms.  My God, why was I not born a Czar!”

“A Nor’wester, rather.  Come, come, Captain,” added the sage, “sit down, we have a third person present, you see,” pointing towards Israel, who sat rapt at the volcanic spirit of the stranger.

Paul slightly started, and turned inquiringly upon Israel, who, equally owing to Paul’s own earnestness of discourse and Israel’s motionless bearing, had thus far remained undiscovered.

“Never fear, Captain,” said the sage, “this man is true blue, a secret courier, and an American born.  He is an escaped prisoner of war.”

“Ah, captured in a ship?” asked Paul eagerly; “what ship?  None of mine!  Paul Jones never was captured.”

“No, sir, in the brigantine Washington, out of Boston,” replied Israel; “we were cruising to cut off supplies to the English.”

“Did your shipmates talk much of me?” demanded Paul, with a look as of a parading Sioux demanding homage to his gewgaws; “what did they say of Paul Jones?”

“I never heard the name before this evening,” said Israel.

“What?  Ah—­brigantine Washington—­let me see; that was before I had outwitted the Soleby frigate, fought the Milford, and captured the Mellish and the rest off Louisbergh.  You were long before the news, my lad,” he added, with a sort of compassionate air.

“Our friend here gave you a rather blunt answer,” said the wise man, sagely mischievous, and addressing Paul.

“Yes.  And I like him for it.  My man, will you go a cruise with Paul Jones?  You fellows so blunt with the tongue, are apt to be sharp with the steel.  Come, my lad, return with me to Brest.  I go in a few days.”

Fired by the contagious spirit of Paul, Israel, forgetting all about his previous desire to reach home, sparkled with response to the summons.  But Doctor Franklin interrupted him.

“Our friend here,” said he to the Captain, “is at present engaged for very different duty.”

Much other conversation followed, during which Paul Jones again and again expressed his impatience at being unemployed, and his resolution to accept of no employ unless it gave him supreme authority; while in answer to all this Dr. Franklin, not uninfluenced by the uncompromising spirit of his guest, and well knowing that however unpleasant a trait in conversation, or in the transaction of civil affairs, yet in war this very quality was invaluable, as projectiles and combustibles, finally assured Paul, after many complimentary remarks, that he would immediately exert himself to the utmost to procure for him some enterprise which should come up to his merits.

“Thank you for your frankness,” said Paul; “frank myself, I love to deal with a frank man.  You, Doctor Franklin, are true and deep, and so you are frank.”

The sage sedately smiled, a queer incredulity just lurking in the corner of his mouth.

“But how about our little scheme for new modelling ships-of-war?” said the Doctor, shifting the subject; “it will be a great thing for our infant navy, if we succeed.  Since our last conversation on that subject, Captain, at odds and ends of time, I have thought over the matter, and have begun a little skeleton of the thing here, which I will show you.  Whenever one has a new idea of anything mechanical, it is best to clothe it with a body as soon as possible.  For you can’t improve so well on ideas as you can on bodies.”

With that, going to a little drawer, he produced a small basket, filled with a curious looking unfinished frame-work of wood, and several bits of wood unattached.  It looked like a nursery basket containing broken odds and ends of playthings.

“Now look here, Captain, though the thing is but begun at present, yet there is enough to show that one idea at least of yours is not feasible.”

Paul was all attention, as if having unbounded confidence in whatever the sage might suggest, while Israel looked on quite as interested as either, his heart swelling with the thought of being privy to the consultations of two such men; consultations, too, having ultimate reference to such momentous affairs as the freeing of nations.

“If,” continued the Doctor, taking up some of the loose bits and piling them along on one side of the top of the frame, “if the better to shelter your crew in an engagement, you construct your rail in the manner proposed—­as thus—­then, by the excessive weight of the timber, you will too much interfere with the ship’s centre of gravity.  You will have that too high.”

“Ballast in the hold in proportion,” said Paul.

“Then you will sink the whole hull too low.  But here, to have less smoke in time of battle, especially on the lower decks, you proposed a new sort of hatchway.  But that won’t do.  See here now, I have invented certain ventilating pipes, they are to traverse the vessel thus”—­laying some toilette pins along—­“the current of air to enter here and be discharged there.  What do you think of that?  But now about the main things—­fast sailing driving little to leeward, and drawing little water.  Look now at this keel.  I whittled it only night before last, just before going to bed.  Do you see now how”—­

At this crisis, a knock was heard at the door, and the chambermaid reappeared, announcing that two gentlemen were that moment crossing the court below to see Doctor Franklin.

“The Duke de Chartres, and Count D’Estang,” said the Doctor; “they appointed for last night, but did not come.  Captain, this has something indirectly to do with your affair.  Through the Duke, Count D’Estang has spoken to the King about the secret expedition, the design of which you first threw out.  Call early to-morrow, and I will inform you of the result.”

With his tawny hand Paul pulled out his watch, a small, richly-jewelled lady’s watch.

“It is so late, I will stay here to-night,” he said; “is there a convenient room?”

“Quick,” said the Doctor, “it might be ill-advised of you to be seen with me just now.  Our friend here will let you share his chamber.  Quick, Israel, and show the Captain thither.”

As the door closed upon them in Israel’s apartment, Doctor Franklin’s door closed upon the Duke and the Count.  Leaving the latter to their discussion of profound plans for the timely befriending of the American cause, and the crippling of the power of England on the seas, let us pass the night with Paul Jones and Israel in the neighboring room.