The Primpenny Family, Chapter V [pp. 61-64]

FEBRUARY 9, 1861.1 ANIT PAJ. 61
THE
P'tll"PttlNY FAMILY,
BY FITZ-HUGH LUDLOW.
(CONiTINUED.)
CHAPTER V.
For the last three chapters we have been in a basement in
Bleecker Street! I confess it with shame and confusion of
face. At the rate we are getting on, this biographyof a highly
respectable private family will outlast the annals of the public
Government, and our young friends who began it with so much
cheerfulness about the time of their debut in, society wilt sleep
with their fathers before they get to the middle of the first third,
previously, however, assembling their grandchildren around them
to leave valedictory directions about erecting a house for the
preservation of the back numbers, and injunctions to see Mr.
Primpenny through if it takes ten more generations. The fact is
that the grandeur of the theme originally stretched itself into
Infinity before the biographer's mind, and in attempting to daguerreotype this impression upon the pages of VANITY FAIR, he forgot
that two per week of those pleasant surfaces were an inadequate
number for the purpose. To be sure, there is not a doubt in the
mind of any sensible man that VANITY FAIR will be eternal-it is
an equally established fact that the beloved proprietors thereof
are extremely obliging-fact the third is a permanent intention
on the part of this biographer to contribute thereto from his
modest repertory, but the question whether a permanent contributor be also an eternal and infinite contributor is one which
the courts have yet to settle. At any rate-(I mean at the rate
we have been going) some of us will be called off by other engagements before Mr. Primpenny comes to a conclusion at the commencement of the 22d century, A.D.
We must therefore be concise hereafter. This porpoise of a
biographer who has been accustomed heretofore to flounder hugely
through the mighty sheets of the daily and the monthly, must
henceforth condense his bulk into that delicate animalcule which
can disport itself in a drop of VANITY'S exquisitely pungent and
aromatic vinegar.
We left Mr. Primpenny holding the tender hand of Miss Ann
Eliza McCrowder. What happened directly after that he has
never been able to recollect with anything approaching mathematical accuracy. He knows that he awoke beneath the paternal
roof at eleven o'clock of the next morning. That he perceived
the remarkable sensation of a piece of hoop-iron nicely secured
around his forehead. That he dressed himself, put his hand into
the pocket of his paletot to get a handkerchief, and brought with
that a curl of soft brown hair. That he rushed to the glass and
found a decidedly uneven place among the locks on his own right
temple. That an indistinct apparition of scissors-the sound of a
kiss —and the odor of spiced Jamaica, blended all at once before
his confused memory. That he came finally to the distinct conclusion that he had gone and done it.
He had scarcely completed his toilette when the waiter knocked
at his door and told him that a person was below insisting on an
interview with him.
"Any body you've ever seen before, George?" asked Mr. Primpenny.
"No sir."
"Haven't the least idea who he is, hey?"
"'E's Hirish, that's hall I know, sir."
"Show him up."
The next moment Teague entered. He had shed the dirty canvass cocoon in which Stuyvesant last saw him, and was out in
the complete butterfly-the Irishman of fair and holiday occasions,
glorious in a scarf of plaided red and green, waistcoat of the same
colors appropriately varied a shade or two from the scarf, yellow
corduroys, a mulberry coat of the time and size of Brian Boru,
and a pair of immense brogans, blacked to such a degree that
Stuyvesant felt a return of vertigo in looking at their vast shiny
surface. Teague had evidently been getting himself up for inspection, and the modest way in which he carried his antique
beaver before him was so deprecatory of all unkind criticism, that
Stuyvesant, in spite of himself, immediately felt prepossessed in
his favor.
"Well, Teague-how did you get away from Mrs. McCrowder at
this hour of the morning?" began Mr. Primpenny.
"It was like pullin' tathe," replied Teague, "i'd have brought
the dare craychure along with me, sir, but she was too busy to
come out for an airin'. A gintleman couldn't compel her, you knowv
sitr.
"But what did you come for?"
"The lady axed me, Misther Primpenny. I niver refuse the
swate ladies, God bliss'em!"
"Oh! An errand from Mrs. McCrowder!" said Stuyvesant, trying
not to appear startled as he thought of the curl.
"Well, not that jist. It's an errand from meself I came on.
It's a bizness I've just tuk up fur a thrial, this runnin' on errands
for meself, and it's aisy, so it is, and ye has yer time to yerself an'
gets lave the whole o' Sundays, an' it's nate althegither, barrin'
that it doesn't pay well."
"You don't mean to say you've lost your place?"
"No sir-it isn't lost-it's right where it was in Blaker-strate,
but there's another bye: in it. An' two byes is one too many for a
single bed, (bad look to the wasteful scoundhrel that thrashed the
sthraw and didn't get the swate lumps o' whate out o' it!) so, ses
I to meself, it's a hint that! An' I always was delicate about takin'
hints."
"The long and short of it is that Mrs. McCrowdei's dispensed
with you?"
"That's the short o' it, Misther Primpenny. On me faith it
was mighty short too. Divil a bit longer than it tuk me to put
me things in a clane pocket-handkerchief. And the long of it is
that if ye'll only spake the word I'll serve ye till the day o' me
death, chaper, an' better than any bye in me own line o' bizness
that ye'll find in the city of New York!"
Stuyvesant lit a pipe and walked the length of his room with his
hands in his pockets. Returning, he faced Teague, who still stood
wearing an inviting smile on his countenance, and asked him why
he had quarrelled with Mrs. McCrowder. Wasn't she a good, generous mistress? " "Ginerous? So she was!" replied Teague. "She'd divide her
last crust with the poor-and ate the croomb by herself. An' as
to quarrelin' with the lady-it's a thing I couldn't do an' keep me
own self-respact. But she said I talked too much. Tare an ages!
Wasn't she angry when she heard that I'd been spakin' aboot the
gintleman's back board-bill before the like o' yes last night? But
it was ordhers-an' suppose I'd carried up the claret without askin'?
As to talkin', I always was an'orathor. When I wint to thle praste's
school in Killmedaddy, didn't Father Murphy tell me I ought to
inter the church? So he did! At tin months I talked as well as I
do now, and seein' I larned it so young I niver forgot it."
"Can you black boots, Teague.?"' -said Mr. Primpenny.
"Look at me own!" replied Mr. Ryan, proudly advancing one of
the brogans.
"And brush hats?"
"So I can! Me own bayver's not a pattern be any means, for
I'm lift-handed, and whin I put the bristles to it the nap goes the
wrong way before I know it. But whin I take a thrue gentleman's
into me fist, like yer honor's, the brush makes a nathral turn in
the right direction."
"And how aboutit coats?"
"Whin ye find a spack o' lint on yer broadcloth, call Teague
Ryan a beggar!"
"Did you ever take care of horses?"
"Horses is it? An' perhaps I niver tinded the darlints? An'
wasn't it meself that was sint away from the Bishop o'Clonmel's
for givin' his favorite racer sich a shiny coat that the saddle
wouldn't stay on him, an' his Riverence wint tumblin' down
among the dogs by the dyke at Whishywillagh? Horses?
Wasn't it me father had the best sate in all Ireland, an' me thray
sicond brothers nixt to meself that lost him his property by the
expinse o' kapin' whole backs to their throusers? The swate
craychures! Don't I remimber how I was cryin' one day at the
age o' eighteen months, an' me mother handed me a potato to
stop me mouth, an' I crawled away to the stables to give it to a
big black hoonter that the groom had chated o' his oats? That's
what I was cryin' for! An' me mother said I should jine the
dhragoons, an' me father broke his neck in a ditch while he was
savin' money to buy me a commission? Horses, is it? Faith an'
I don't know whether I'd like to take care 0' yer honor's. The
bayste has such a natheral affiction for me that whin I've been
kind to him a bit, he mightn't let onybody else dhrive him."
Before Mr. Primpenny could speak, a servant knocked again,
bringing a letter. Mr. Primpenny opened it, and read the following contents.
PRDIsENIY & SAVEALL, No. -,- Greenwich-street, New-York.
Coal-scuttles, f Country orders promptly attended to.
l Liberal discounts given to the trade.
STUYVESANT PRIMPENNY, ESQ.
MY SON:-. -
As per agreement have concluded contract for house to be occupied by you.
Abominable habit of wasting early morn'g hours in bed prevented conference
with you on subject before. (Vide Watt —excellent remn'ks to the point
FEBRUARY 9, 1861.1
VANITY FAIR.
61