F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 21
as does a father his child. The old hostess gets no profit of his
visits, for "he is only a moralist," she says, and his name is Solon
--; and better people love him more as more they know him.
Madame Flamingo has returned, followed by a colored gentleman in
bright livery, bearing on a silver tray two seductive bottles of the
sparkling nectar, and sundry rich-cut goblets. "There! there!" says
the old hostess, pointing to the centre-table, upon which the
colored man deposits them, and commences arranging some dozen
glasses, as she prepares to extract the corks. Now she fills the
glasses with the effervescing beverage, which the waiter again
places on the tray, and politely serves to the denizens, in whose
glassy eyes, sallow faces, coarse, unbared arms and shoulders, is
written the tale of their misery. The judge drinks with the
courtesan, touches glasses with the gambler, bows in compliment to
the landlady, who reiterates that she keeps the most respectable
house and the choicest wine. The moralist shakes his head, and
declines.
And while a dozen voices are pronouncing her beverage excellent, she
turns suddenly and nervously to her massive, old-fashioned
side-board, of carved walnut, and from the numerous cut glass that
range grotesquely along its top, draws forth an aldermanic decanter,
much broken. Holding it up to the view of her votaries, and looking
upon it with feelings of regret, "that," she says, "is what I got,
not many nights since, for kindly admitting one-I don't know when I
did such a thing before, mind ye!--of the common sort of people. I
never have any other luck when I take pity on one who has got down
hill. I have often thought that the more kind I am the more
ungrateful they upon whom I lavish my favors get. You must treat the
world just as it treats you-you must."
To your simple question, reader, more simply advanced, she replies
coquettishly: "Now, on my word of honor, Tom Swiggs did that. And
the poor fellow-I call him poor fellow, because, thinking of what he
used to be, I can't help it-has not a cent to pay for his pranks