My Uncle Florimond

by Henry Harland

  CHAPTER IV--AT MR. FINKELSTEIN’S.

  So you see me installed at Mr. Finkel-stein’s as clerk, errand boyand general assistant. Next morning I entered upon the discharge of myduties, my kind employer showing me what to do and how to do it. Underhis supervision I opened and swept out the store, dusted the counter,polished up the glass and nickel-work of the show-cases, and, in a word,made the place ship-shape and tidy for the day. Then we withdrew intothe back parlor, and sat down to a fine savory breakfast that the oldhousekeeper Henrietta had laid there. She ate at table with us, bututtered not a syllable during the repast; and, much to my amazement, Mr.Finkelstein talked to me about her in her very presence as freely and asfrankly as if she had been stone deaf, or a hundred miles away.

  “She ain’t exaictly what you call hainsome, Kraikory,” he said; “butshe’s as solid as dey make ‘em. She was a second cousin of my deceasedvife’s, and she’s vun of de graindest cooks in de United States ofAmerica. May be you don’t believe it, hey? Vail, you shust vait tillsome day you eat vun of her big dinners, and den you’ll see. I tellyou what I do. When Solly gets back from de road I’ll invite him and mydaughter to dinner here de first Sunday aifternoon, shust on purposefor you to see de vay Henrietta can cook when she really settles down topusiness. It’s simply vunderful. You’ll be surprised. De vay she cooks araisined fish, sveet and sour--ach! it makes my mout vater shust to tinkof it. Vail, she’s awful _goot_-hearted-too, Kraikory; but so old--_dulieber Herr!_ You couldn’t hardly believe it. It’s fearful, it’saictually fearful. Why, she’s old enough to be my mudder, and I’m goingon sixty-seven already. Dot’s a solemn faict.”

  “Is she deaf?” I asked.

  “Daif?” he repeated. “Vail, my kracious! What put dot idea in your head?What in de vorld made you tink she’s daif? She ain’t no more daif as youare yourself.”

  “Why,” I explained, “I thought she might be deaf, because she doesn’tseem to notice what you’re saying about her.”

  “Oh! Vail, dot beats de deck. Dot’s pretty goot. O, no! dot ain’tbecoase she’s daif, Kraikory; dot’s becoase she’s so funny. She’s vunof de funniest ladies in de city of New York. Why, look at here; she’slived in dis country going on forty years already; and she’s so funnydot she ain’t learned ten vorts of de English lainguage yet. Dot’s astrue as I’m alife. She don’t understand what me and you are talkingabout, no more as if we spoke Spainish.”

  After we had folded our napkins, “Vail, now, Kraikory,” began Mr.Finkelstein, “dis morning you got a lesson in being sheneral assistantalready, don’t you? Vail, now I give you a lesson in being errantboy. Come along mit me.” He led me to the front door of the shop, and,pointing to a house across the street, resumed, “You see dot peeldingofer dere, what’s got de sign out, Ferdinand Flisch, photo-graipher? Yousee it all right, hey? Vail, now I tell you what you do. You run alongofer dere, and you climb up to de top floor, which is where Mr. Flisch’sestaiblishment is situated, and you aisk to see Mr. Flisch, and you sayto him, ‘Mr. Flisch, Mr. Finkelstein sents you his coampliments, andchaillenges you to come ofer and play a little game of pinochle mit himdis morning’--you understand? Vail, now run along.”

  Following Mr. Finkelstein’s instructions, I mounted to the top story ofthe house across the way, and opened a door upon which the name Flischwas emblazoned in large gilt script. This door admitted me to a smallante-room; carpeted, furnished with a counter, several chairs, anda sofa, hung all round the walls with framed photographs, presumablyspecimens of Mr. Flisch’s art, and smelling unpleasantly of thechemicals that photographers employ. A very pretty and very tiny littlegirl, who couldn’t have been a day older than I, if she was so old, satbehind the counter, reading a book. At my entrance, she glanced up; andher eyes, which were large and dark, seemed to ask me what I wished.

  “Please, I should like to see Mr. Flisch,” I replied to her tacitquestion.

  “I’ll go call him,” said she, in a voice that was as sweet as the tinkleof a bell. “Won’t you sit down?” And she left the room.

  In a minute or two she came back, followed by a short, plump, red-faced,bald-pated little old gentleman, with a brisk and cheery manner, who,upon seeing me, demanded, “Well, Sonny, what you want?”

  I delivered the message that Mr. Finkel-stein had charged me with, andMr. Flisch responded, “All right. I’ll come right along with you now.” So in his company I recrossed the street. On the way he remarked, “Well,Sonny, I guess I never seen you before, did I? Was you visiting by Mr.Finkelstein, perhaps?”

  “O, no, sir!” I answered, and proceeded to explain my status in Mr.Finkelstein’s household.

  “Well, Sonny, you’ll have a mighty easy time of it,” Mr. Flisch informedme. “You won’t die of hard work. Mr. Finkelstein don’t do no business.He don’t need to. He only keeps that store for fun.”

  “Now, Kraikory,” said my employer, when we had reached his door, “meand Mr. Flisch, we’ll go in de parlor and play a little game of pinochletogedder; and now you sit down outside here in de store; and if anycustomers come, you call me.”

  I sat in the store, with nothing to do, all the rest of the forenoon;but, idle though I was, the time passed quickly enough. What betweenlooking out of the window at the busy life upon the street--a spectacleof extreme novelty and interest to me--and thinking about my own affairsand the great change that had suddenly come over them, my mind hadplenty to occupy it; and I was quite surprised when all at once theclocks, of which there must have been at least a dozen in the shop,began to strike twelve. Thus far not one customer had presented himself.Just at this instant, however, the shop door opened, and the bell aboveit sounded. I got up to go and call Mr. Finkelstein; but when I lookedat the person who had entered, I saw that it was no customer, afterall. It was that same pretty little girl whom I had noticed behind thecounter at Mr. Flisch’s.

  “I came to tell Mr. Flisch that his dinner is ready,” she announced, inthat clear, sweet voice of hers.

  “I’ll go tell him,” said I.

  I went into the back room, where the air was blue with tobacco smoke,and where the two old gentlemen were seated over their cards, and spoketo Mr. Flisch.

  “All right, Sonny; I come right away,” he answered; and I returned tothe store.

  The little girl was still there, standing where I had left her.

  “Mr. Flisch will come right away,” said I.

  “Thank you,” said she.

  And then, with undisguised curiosity, she and I just stood and scannedeach other for a moment from the corners of our eyes. For my part, I wastoo bashful to make any advances, though I should have liked to scrapeacquaintance with her; but she, apparently, had more courage, for,pretty soon, “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “My name is Gregory Brace. What’s yours?”

  “Mine is Rosalind Earle. How old are you?”

  “I’m twelve, going on thirteen.”

  “I’m eleven, going on twelve.”

  And the next instant she had vanished like a flash.

  Mr. Flisch shortly followed her; and it may have been a quarter of anhour later on, that my attention was suddenly arrested by the sound ofmusic issuing from the back room, where Mr. Finkelstein remained alone.I recognized the tune as the Carnival of Venice; and it brought my heartinto my mouth, for that was one of the tunes that my grandmother hadused to play upon her piano. But now the instrument was not a piano.Unless my ears totally deceived me, it was a hand-organ. This struck meas very odd; and I went to the door of the parlor, and looked in. Theresat Mr. Finkelstein, a newspaper open before him, and a cigar betweenhis fingers, reading and smoking; while on the floor in front of him,surely enough, stood a hand-organ; and, with his foot upon the crank ofit, he was operating the instrument just as you would operate the wheelof a bicycle.

  0121]

  Well, I couldn’t help smiling, though I knew that it was unmannerlyof me to do so. The scene was really too ludicrous for anything. Mr.Finkelstein appeared a little emb
arrassed when he spied me looking athim, and stopped his playing, and said rather sheepishly, with somewhatof the air of a naughty child surprised in mischief, “Vail, Kraikory, Isuppose you tink I’m crazy, hey? Vail, I cain’t help it; I’m so fond ofmusic. But look at here, Kraikory; don’t you say nodings to Sollyabout it, will you? Dere’s a goot poy. Don’t you mention it to him. Hevouldn’t naifer let me hear de laist of it.”

  I having pledged myself to secrecy, Mr. Finkelstein picked thehand-organ up, and locked it away out of sight in a closet. But afterwe had had our dinner, he brought it forth again, and, not without somemanifest hesitation, addressed me thus: “Look at here, Kraikory; dere’sa proverp which says dot man is a creature of haibits. Vail, Kraikory,I got a sort of a haibit to lie down and take a short naip every dayaifter my meals. And say, Kraikory, you know how fond of music I am,don’t you? I simply dote on it, Kraikory. I guess maybe I’m de fondestman of music in de United States of America. And--vail, look at here,Kraikory, as you ain’t got nodings in particular to do, I tought maybeyou vouldn’t mind to sit here a few minutes, and--and shust turn dotcraink a little while I go to sleep--hey?”

  I assented willingly; so Mr. Finkelstein lay down upon his lounge, and Ibegan to turn the crank, thereby grinding out the rollicking measures ofFinnigan’s Ball.

  “My kracious, Kraikory, you do it splendid,” the old gentlemanexclaimed, by way of encouragement. “You got a graind tailent formusic, Kraikory.” Then I heard him chuckle softly to himself, andmurmur, “I cain’t help it, I aictually cain’t. I must haif my shoke.” Very soon he was snoring peacefully.

  Well, to cut a long story short, my first day at Mr. Finkelstein’spassed smoothly by, and so did the next and the next. In a surprisinglyshort time I became quite accustomed to my new mode of life, and allsense of strangeness wore away. Every morning I opened and tidied upthe shop; then we breakfasted; then the routine of the day began. AsMr. Flisch had predicted, I had a very easy time of it indeed. Everyafternoon I played the hand-organ, while Mr. Finkelstein indulged inhis siesta; almost every forenoon I tended the store, while he and Mr.Flisch amused themselves with pinochle in the parlor. Mr. Marx and hiswife dined with us I should think as often as once a week; Henriettasurpassed herself on these occasions, and I came to entertain as high anopinion of her skill in cookery as my employer could have wished.

  Between little Rosalind Earle and myself a great friendship rapidlysprang up. On week-days we caught only fleeting glimpses of each other;but almost every Sunday I used to go to see her at her home, whichwas in Third Avenue, a short distance above our respective places ofbusiness. Her father, who had been a newspaper reporter, was dead; andher mother, a pale sad lady, very kind and sweet, went out by the dayas a dressmaker and seampstress. They were wretchedly poor; and thatwas why little Rosalind, who ought to have worn pinafores, and goneto school, had to work for her living at Mr. Flisch’s, like a grownupperson. But her education proceeded after a fashion, nevertheless. Inher spare moments during the day she would study her lessons, and inthe evening at home she would say them to her mother. Though she was myjunior by a year and more, she was already doing compound interest inarithmetic, whereas I had never got beyond long division. This made mefeel heartily ashamed of myself, and so I invested a couple of dollarsin some second-hand schoolbooks, and thenceforth devoted my sparemoments to study, too. Almost every Sunday, as I have said, I used to goto see her; and if the weather was fine, her mother would take us foran outing in Central Park, where we would have a jolly good time racingeach other over the turf of the common, or admiring the lions and tigersand monkeys and hippopotamuses, at the Arsenal. Yes, I loved littleRosalind very dearly, and every minute that I spent at her side was thehappiest sort of a minute for me.

  Mr. Finkelstein, when he first noticed me poring over my school-books inthe shop, expressed the liveliest kind of satisfaction with my conduct.

  “Dot’s right, Kraikory,” he cried. “Dot’s maiknificent. Go aheadmit your education. Dere ain’t nodings like it. A first-claisseducation--vail, sir, it’s de graindest advantage a feller can haifin de baittle of life. Yes, sir, dot’s a faict. You go ahead mit youreducation, and you study real hard, and you’ll get to be--why, you mightget to be an alderman, no mistake about it. But look at here, Kraikory;tell me; where you got de books, hey? You bought ‘em? You don’t sayso? Vail, what you pay for dem, hey, Kraikory? Two tollars! Two aictualtollars! My kracious! Vail, look at here, Kraikory; I like to make youa little present of dem books, so here’s a two tollar pill to reimburseyou. Oh! dot’s all right. Don’t mention it. Put it in de baink. Do whatyou please mit it. I got anudder.” And every now and then during thesummer he would inquire, “Vail, Kraikory, how you getting on mit youreducation? Vail, I suppose you must know pretty much aiferydings bydis time, hey? Vail, now I give you a sum. If I can buy fife barrels ofaipples for six tollars and a quowter, how much will seventeen barrelsof potatoes coast me, hey?... Ach, I was only shoking, was I? Vail,dot’s a faict; I was only shoking; and you was pretty smart to find itout. But now, shoking aside, I tell you what you do. You keep right onmit your education, and you study real hard, and you’ll get to be--why,you might get to be as big a man as Horace Greeley, aictually.” HoraceGreeley was a candidate for the presidency that year, and he had no moreardent partisan than my employer.

  After the summer had passed, and September came, Mr. Finkelstein calledme into the parlor one day, and began, “Now, look at here, Kraikory; Igot somedings important to talk to you about. I been tinking about dotlittle maitter of your education a good deal lately; and I talked mitSolly about it, and got his advice; and at laist I made up my mind dotyou oughter go to school. You got so much aimbition about you, dot ifyou get a first-claiss education while you’re young, you might get to bevun of de biggest men in New York City aifter you’re grown up. Vail, meand Solly, we talked it all ofer, and we made up our mind dot you bettergo to school right avay.

  “Vail, now I tell you what I do. I found out de public schools open forde season next Monday morning. Vail, next Monday morning I take you upto de public school in Fifty-first Street, and I get you aidmitted. Andnow I tell you what I do. If you study real hard, and get A-number-vunmarks, and cratchuate all right when de time comes--vail, den I send youto college! Me and Solly, we talked it all ofer, and dot’s what we madeup our minds we oughter do. Dere ain’t nodings like a good education,Kraikory; you can bet ten tousand tollars on dot. When I was your age Ididn’t haif no chaince at vun; and dot’s why I’m so eeknorant. But nowyou got de chaince, Kraikory; and you go ahead and take advaintage ofit. My kracious! When I see you cratchuate from college, I’ll be soprout I von!t know what to do.”

  I leave you to form your own opinion of Mr. Finkelstein’s generosity, aswell as of the gratitude that it inspired in me. Next Monday morning Ientered the public school in Fifty-first Street, and a little lessthan two years later--namely, in the spring of 1874--I graduated. I hadstudied “real hard,” and got “A-number-vun” marks; Mr. Finkelstein wasas good as his word, and that same spring I passed the examinations foradmission to the Introductory Class of the College of the City of NewYork.

  Well, there! In a couple of sentences I have skipped over as many years;and not one word about the hero of my story!

  “But what,” I can hear you ask, “what of your Uncle Florimond in allthis time? Had you given up your idea of going to him? had you forgottenyour ideal of him--had he ceased to be a moving force in your life?”

  No; to each of these questions my answer must be a prompt and emphaticno.

  I had not by any means given up my idea of going to him; but I had, forreasons that seemed good, put off indefinitely the day of my departure.Two or three weeks after my arrival at Mr. Finkelstein’s I wrote UncleFlorimond a letter, and told him of the new turn that my affairs hadtaken. I did not say anything about my Uncle Peter’s treatment of me,because I felt somehow reluctant to let him know how unjust and unkindhis own sister’s son, my own father’s brother, could be,
and because,also, I thought it would be scarcely fair and above-board for me to telltales, now that our bygones were bygones. I simply said that I hadleft Norwich, and come to New York, and gone into business; and that mypurpose was to earn a lot of money just as quickly as I could, and thento set sail for France.

  I received no answer from him till about six months afterward; and inthis he said that he was glad I meant to come to France, but he thoughtit was a pity that I should go into business so early in my youth, forthat must of course interrupt my education.

  I hastened to reply that, since I had written my former letter to him,my outlook had again changed; that my kind and liberal employer hadsent me to school, where I was working as hard as I knew how, withthe promise of a college course before me if I showed proper zeal andaptitude.

  I had to wait more than a year now for his next epistle; but it came atlast one day towards the close of the vacation that intervened betweenmy graduation from school and the beginning of my career at college.

  “I have been ill and in trouble, my dear little nephew,” he wrote,“since the reception of thy last letter so good and so gentle; andI have lacked both the force and the heart to write to thee. At thismoment at length it goes better; and I seize the first occasion to takemy pen. The news of the progress which thou makest in thy studiesgives me an infinite pleasure, as does also thy hope of a course atthe university. And though I become from more to more impatient to meetthee, and to see with my proper eyes the grandson of my adored sister, Iam happy, nevertheless, to force myself to wait for an end so precious.That thou mayst become a gentleman well-instructed and accomplished,it is my sincere desire; for it is that, I am sure of it, which mycherished sister would most ardently have wished. Be then industrious;study well thy lessons; grow in spirit as in body; remember that, thoughthy name is different, thou art the last of the la Bourbonnaye. Iastonish myself, however, that thy Uncle Peter does not charge himselfwith the expenses. Is it that he has not the means? I have believed himvery rich.

  “Present my respects to thy worthy patron, that good Finkelstein, who,though bourgeois and shopkeeper, I must suppose is a man of heart; andthink ever with tenderness of thy old devoted uncle, de la Bourbonnaye.

  “Paris, the 3 7ember, 1874.”

  7ember was Uncle Florimond’s quaint French way of writing September,_Sept,_ as you know, being French for seven.

  And now as to those other questions that you have asked me--so far was Ifrom having forgotten my ideal of him, so far was he from having ceasedto be a moving force in my life, I have not any doubt whatever thatthe thought of my relationship with him, and my desire to appear toadvantage in his eyes, had a great deal to do with fostering myambition as a scholar. Certainly, the nephew of Florimond Marquis de laBourbonnaye must not let any boy of ordinary lineage stand above himin his classes; and then, besides, how much more highly would UncleFlorimond consider me, if, when we met, he found not an untutoredignoramus, but, in his own words, “a gentleman well-instructed andaccomplished!”

  During the two years that I have skipped over in such summary-fashion,my friendship with little Rosalind Earle had continued as active and ascordial as it had been at the beginning. She had grown quite tall, andeven prettier than ever, with her oval face and olive skin, her softbrown hair and large dark eyes, and was really almost a young lady. Shehad kept pace with me in my studies also, I having acted as her teacher.Every Sunday at her home I would go over with her all my lessons for thepast week, imparting to her as intelligently as I was able what I myselfhad learned. This would supply her with subject-matter for her studyduring the week to come; so that on the following Sunday she would beready for a new send-off. This was capital drill for me, because, inorder to instruct another, I had to see that my own knowledge wasexact and thorough. And then, besides, I enjoyed these Sunday afternoonconferences with Rosalind so heartily, that they lightened the labor oflearning, and made what to a boy is usually dull grind and drudgery, tome an abundant source of pleasure. Rosalind retained her situation atMr. Flisch’s, but her salary had been materially increased. She was onlythirteen years old, yet she earned the dazzling sum of six dollars everyweek. This was because she had acquired the art of retouching negatives,and had thus trebled her value to her employer.

  But I had made another friend during those two years, whose influenceupon my life at that time was perhaps even greater than Rosalind’s.Among my classmates at the school in Fifty-first Street there was a boynamed Arthur Ripley, older than I, taller, stronger, a very handsomefellow, with blue eyes and curling hair, very bright, and seemingly verygood-natured, whom I had admired privately from the moment I had firstseen him. He, however, had taken no notice of me; and so we had nevergot especially well acquainted, until one day I chanced to hear himspeak a few words of French; and his accent was so good that I couldn’thelp wondering how he had come by it.

  “Say, then, Ripley,” I demanded, in the Gallic tongue, but with Saxonbluntness, “how does it happen that you speak French so well? Yourpronunciation is truly extraordinary.”

  “And why not?” he retorted. “I have spoken it since my childhood. Mygrandmother--the mother of my father--was a French lady.”

  “Hold,” cried I. “Really? And so was mine.”

  Thereupon we fell into conversation. We got on famously together. Fromthat hour we were intimates. I was admitted into Ripley’s “set,” whichincluded all the nicest boys of the school; and Ripley invited me to hishome, which, with its beautiful pictures and books and furnishings, andgeneral air of comfort and refinement, struck me as the loveliest placeI had ever set my foot in, and where his mother and father made me feelinstantly and entirely at my ease. They talked French to me; and littleby little drew from me the whole story of my life; and when I had done,“Ah! my poor little one,” said his mother, with a tenderness that wentstraight to my heart, “how thy lot has been hard! Come, let me kissthee.” And, “Hold, my little man,” said his father. “You are a good andbrave boy, and I am glad that my son has found such a comrade. Moreover,do you know, you come of one of the most illustrious families notonly of France, but even of Europe? The la Bourbonnaye are of themost ancient nobility, and in each generation they have distinguishedthemselves. At Paris there is an important street named for them. AMarquis de la Bourbonnaye won great celebrity as an admiral under Louisxv.; another, his son, I believe, was equally renowned as a royalistgeneral during the revolution.”

  “Yes, sir,” I put in, delighted at his familiarity with the history ofour house; “they were the father and the grandfather of my grandmother.”

  “But I had supposed that the family was extinct. You teach me that itsurvives still in the person of your Uncle Florimond. I am content ofit.”

  Arthur Ripley and I became as intimate as only boys, I think, canbecome. We were partners in tops, marbles, décalcomanies, and postagestamps. We spent the recess hour together every day. We walked hometogether every afternoon. We set out pleasure hunting almost everySaturday--now to watch or to take part in a base-ball match, now toskate in Central Park, now to row on the Harlem River, now to fish inthe same muddy stream, where, to the best of my recollection, we neverso much as got a single bite. He was “Rip,” to me, and to him I was“Greg.” We belonged, as has been said, to the same set at school; atcollege we joined the same debating society, and pledged ourselves tothe same Greek-letter fraternity.

  He was the bravest, strongest fellow I ever knew; a splendid athlete;excelling in all sports that required skill or courage. He wasfrankness, honesty, generosity personified; a young prince whom Iadmired and loved, who compelled love and admiration from everybody whoknew him. In the whole school there was not a boy whom Ripley couldn’twhip; he could have led us all in scholarship as well, only he wascareless and rather lazy, and didn’t go in for high standing, or thatsort of thing. He wrote the best compositions, however, and made thebest declamations. I tell you, to hear him recite Spartacus’s address tothe gladiators--“Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call h
im chief whofor twelve long years has met upon the bloody sands of the arena everyshape of man and beast that the broad empire of Rome could furnish”--Itell you, it was thrilling. Ripley’s father was a lawyer; and he meantto be a lawyer, too. So far as he was responsible for it, Ripley’sinfluence over me was altogether good. What bad came of my associationwith him, I alone was to blame for.

  Some bad did come, and now I must tell you about it.

  He and the other boys of our circle were gentlemen’s sons, who livedwith their parents in handsome houses, wore fine clothes, had plenty ofpocket-money, and generally cut a very dashing figure; whereas I--I wasthe dependent of a petty Third-Avenue Jewish shopkeeper; I had scarcelyany pocket-money whatever; and as for my clothes--my jackets wereusually threadbare, and my trousers ornamented at an obtrusive pointwith two conspicuous patches, that Henrietta had neatly insertedthere--trousers, moreover, which had been originally designed for theperson of Mr. Marx, but which the skillful Henrietta had cut down andadjusted to my less copious proportions.

  And now the bad, if perhaps not unnatural, result of all this was topique my vanity, and to arouse in me a certain false and quite wrong andimproper shame of my condition. I was ashamed because I could not spendmoney as my companions did; I was ashamed of my shabby clothing; Iwas ashamed of my connection with Mr. Finkelstein; I was even a littleashamed of my intimacy with Rosalind Earle, for she too occupied a veryhumble station in the world.

  And, as the obverse of this false shame, I became inflated with a pridethat was equally false and wrong. I was as good a gentleman as anybody,if not better. I was the dependent of a Third-Avenue shopkeeper, trueenough. But I was also the nephew of the Marquis de la Bourbonnaye. AndI am afraid that I got into the habit of bragging a good deal about myrelationship with that aristocratic person. Anyhow, my state of mindwas not by any means a wholesome or a happy one; and by and by it borepractical consequences that were not wholesome or happy either.