[F4] "The Bread Crust Papers, Part Second," Spirit of the Times, March 28, 1842

THE BREAD CRUST PAPERS,

Part Second.

THE DUEL AT CAMDEN.

            As the State House bell swung off the hour of one, while the rain pouring down in torrents, was flooding the gutters and dashing along the pavement, a figure of well proportioned dimensions, attired in a short classic cloak and cap, with a wrecked umbrella above its head, came sailing round the corner of —— street, into Chestnut street, and bearing gallantly against the blast, made up the latter street, with a perseverance and desperate courage truly commendable for its very energy.

            Some ten or twenty paces might have been passed, when the figure suddenly wheeled round, and the light of the corporation lamp fell strongly upon a face of peculiarly hard and mahogany cut features, relieved or rather distressed by tangled frowsy masses of stiff bilious hair, which struggled from under the figure's cap, and saturated cloak, the wet poured down in one incessant pour, and glistened beautifully as it poured.

            "By the spirit of Shakespeare, I'd like to have forgot the place!" exclaimed a half gruff, half grating voice, as the figure turned and inspected a door plate—"Here it is, Mrs. H-U-dowble B-S—Missers Hubbs.  Yes, it's the, the location.  I'm not—not toddied, not I.  Ee-ee-cup—I can stand as straight as a lamp post.  Missers Hubbs, boarding house; I see the very spot.  How could I miss it; over a wholesale and retail flour store, too.  Ha-ha-ha—I'll ring."

            Extending a hand that seemed a little nervous in its movements, he pulled the door bell, and again and again he tortured the wires.  Still no signs of life or animation appeared.

            "What a fine subject for the next number of the Amaranth!  Genius kept waiting out in the rain—rain?  pooh!  Lord how it's dashing down the roofs of the houses, sweeping in a young Niagara up—Eee-ee-cup-cup—Chestnut street; by the spirit of Shakspeare! what a torrent!  D—n the bell, do the lazy d—ls think I'm goin' to wait here all night?  By the—Eee-cup—"

            "Wad mought you want, sah?" said an African voice.  The cloaked figure turned, and beheld the shining, well rounded features of an African's head peering thro' the half-opened door.

            "This is Mrs. Hubb's boarding house?"

            "Yes, sah.  Dah can be no doubt of dat fac."

            "Show me to Mr. Henry Bread Crust's room."

            "Wad mought yuh name be, sah?" inquired the negro, with unmoved gravity.

            "My name—you know me.  I've given you many a quarter.  My name is

THOMAS DONE BROWN.

Jist hurry me to Harry's room.  Quick—ee-ee-cup."

            "I ab no doubt ob yuh nam been done Brown, but I don't rimimber de qua-tar.  Debbil a bit."  The negro made as though he would close the door.

            "Haa-oh-pa-oh-One, and o star light morn"—cried a sleepy watchman passing the lamppost.

            "Here," cried Mr. Brown in utter desperation, "Here is a quarter for you, now show me to his room," he continued pushing himself into the door.  "On consideration I'll not be so mean as to offer you a quarter.  I'll make it a half to-morrow.  Go on—Ee-ee-cup.  By the spirit of Shakspeare"—

            "Bell if dat don't beat me out!"—muttered Jerry, the negro, to himself, as taking up a small taper he proceeded to lead the way up a number of stairs, assuring Mr. Brown, the Rhymester, that Mr. Crust had gone to bed two hours before, and that he had given especial orders not to be disturbed, "or," Continued Jerry, "anyting ob dat."

            "Never mind, Mister Jerry.  But show me up.  Three pairs of stairs past already—good.  Keep a showing me up.  Three pairs and a half—better—Eee-ee-cup.  Four-four pairs—best of all, by the spirit of Shakspeare.  Here we are.  Stand aside, Jerry, and let me play Yankee Doodle on the door."

            This he did with great success for about fifty seconds, when a gruff voice answered, "come in," and trying the door, the Bilious Rhymester did walk in, having first blown out Jerry's light in a playful fit, by way of a practical joke, in return for his kindness.

            As he opened the door, a small thinly furnished apartment was discovered, and in a small uncurtained bed in—not one corner, but in one half of the room, the form of the poet, Mr. Crust, was discovered with the bed clothing thrown half aside, while the light of a small taper on the wash-stand showed that his hair was very red, his eyes very sleepy, and the prominent expression of his features rather distressing in its character.

            "How d'ye do, Harry!  Such a spree!  Lord, I've been up at Harmer's, with a dozen good fellows—fried oysters—champagne—cold slaw—roast duck—such a blow out, and they paid for it all, too!  By the spirit of Shake—"

            "How d-a-a-md annohing," exclaimed the sanguine Poetaster, in a voice half exquisite, and half womanish—"To be disturbed in such a vee-sion!  Ah! to be su-ah!" continued he, restlessly poking among the bed clothes—"Such a dream, a perfect angel of beauty, swimming in golden light, with silvery wings, with a fascinating tracer-y of fawn, flew befaw me couch, and was just about to 'light in these arms when your knock disturbed—d-a-m it.  What's your important be-siness, he Tom?  You sent me a note this evening, saying your aunt was dying?  Is that true?"

            "Not a word of it!" replied Mr. Done Brown, drawing the washstand and a chair to the bedside.

            "Then what in the devil's name are you knocking me up at this hour of the night for?"

            Bread Crust's features grew redder than his hair, as he spoke, and he threw a denuded leg out of the bed, and he clenched his fist as if meditating an attack on the sconce of his friend.

            "Why Crust how red you are in the face," exclaimed Done Brown, as drawing the two chairs, the only sitting furniture that the room contained to the bedside, he seated himself on one of them, and placed his legs on the other, with his face toward the discomposed Crust. "I declare if I didn't know you, I should say you were angry—exceedingly.  There.  Let me pull that washstand closer to the bed.  What a fine light the taper throws around the room, or garret—oh; it's a room, excuse me, I thought it was a garret.  I say, Harry, I've got a treat in store for you—I have."

            "What is it?" asked Crust as his features lighted up with an eager expression—"Anything about the-the mysterious fair—the merino shawl?  Eh, Tom?"

            "Not just yet, Harry.  Wait a bit.  In the mean time I am going to favor you with a mark of my unlimited confidence.  I'm go"—he drew closer to the bed and placed his mouth to Henry's ear, "I'm going to read my Ocean-Shore to you."

            "Well, by g-d, I like that!" shouted Bread Crust in a tone that plainly showed he didn't like it at all. "I like it amazingly.  You first send me a note declaring that the old rich aunt of ours in Germantown is sick; the aunt you expected all that money from; you tell me that you will call on me to-night to advise with me about the matter, and now by heaven, not satisfied with declaring all this a hoax, you expect me to listen, and at midnight too, to that d—d poem of yours!  Tom Done Brown, you shall answer to me for this!"

            Crust was unmitigatedly mad.

            "Now that's very good!" answered the Bilious Rhymester with great coolness, and in a quiet tone, as though he were admiring an effort of histrionic genius—"very good.  Wouldn't it make a capital scene in a novel!  By the spirit of Shakspeare!"—the taper standing in the wash-stand throwing its softened beams around a small half decently furnished apartment, a coal stove rusted and time eaten placed in the fire place, with three bits of coal near it—a dingy carpet on the floor, and a dingier coating of superannuated white-wash on the cracked ceiling—an old bed with an older coverlid with the excited Bread Crust placed inside of it.

            "Yes—yes," screamed Crust, maddening at the picture, "and a d—d blackguard mass of carbuncled visage, and stiff pigs hair, and a shabby genteel figure resting upon two chairs!  Personified impudence, concentrated self-conceit—"

            "Pooh!  Harry!" said Done Brown, as his features wrinkled into a smile, and his gray eyes shared in the sport, "now I know you're deeply in love with the mysterious fair-Merino Shawl as you call her.  I can excuse any little improprieties in your speech.  Now just listen to my poem, the Ocean-Shore.  I've been at it twelve months.  Listen."

            "Well, well Tom, go ahead.  Only cuss the thing you shouldn't provoke me.  Go on Tom."  And so Bread Crust sank into a leaning position, and listened to the Ocean-Shore.  It was a good poem.  Such a mingling of invocations to this or that muse, with such descriptions of sun-sets, on this or that sea shore, such great big words, dragged neck-and-heels into the service, of poor, weak, sickly, consumptive ideas, and such graphic portraitures of fairy islands, placed a long way off in the middle of the sea, inhabited by fairies, and frequently visited by angels—it was a good poem, was that Ocean-Shore, and what added to its originality, was the fact of its being written on the Spenzerian stanza.  It was a very grand poem.

            "Ah, stop"—said Harry, at the conclusion of the first Canto, as he relapsed into his "lithping" dialect—"s-top! by Jove, that's as good as the piece I intend to send over to Bentley.  Damme, Tom, its fine.  Bew-tifully fine."

            "Now you don't say so?" inquired the Bilious Rhymester, as the cool impudence of his look was softened by the olive oil of flattery.  "Well Harry I do think it's good—indeed I do.  Ah, Harry, hello.  By the spirit of Shakespeare!  A thought strikes me!"

            He sprung on his feet, and rushed across the room, flung open a closet on one side of the mantle piece, dragged something out of it, and in an instant stood by the bedside, something white in his hand.

(To be continued.)