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

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VANITY FAIR.
['EBlUARY 9, 18,ti.
" Voice of Sluggard, heard him complain.") Edifice situated at No.- 34th St.,
Freestone front, all modern improvements, English basement, three stories and
attic, furnished by family'who will let reasonable, on acc't of going abroad.
You will now be beyond the healthful restraints of home roof. Cellar contains
five baskets green seal Madeira-S do. same brand champagne. Remember that
virtue is the foundation of solid happiness. You may send your butcher's bills
to undersigned. Go and look at the premises to-day. If you ever experience
compunctions for unfilial conduct, return and the reception of prodigal shall be
yours. Am informed that gas is all right. If the carpets do not suit, can supply new ones. Visit frequently the parents who love'you. Allowance goes on as
before and will be paid semi-monthly by applying to y'r
.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Afflicted Father,
ISAIAH PRIMPENN'.
BUSINFS NOTICE.
Coal-scuttles of every pattern for hotel and household use. Celebrated exhaustfeed and back-action manufactured by this firm alone.
P.S. I had forgotten to say that your mother wishes you to wear woolen
stockings and send them home to be darned. I. P.
A tear stole down from the inner angle of Stuyvesant's left eye,
as he read the missive indited on one of Primpenny & Co.'s business sheets, and enclosed in the envelope of the firm. But he
naturally enough reflected that his father, like his father's umbrella, was so far behind the age that only the extreme tip of its
chronological coat-tail was visible to him, and thus he-made allowances for the dear old Governor. Whatwas wealth if not the sub
stratum of luxury? He would honor the creator of his being by
keeping the finest bachelor establishment in the city of New
York! And to those who knew what was what-a knowledge of
the nature of the interrogative pronoun only acquired through
long acquaintance with fashionable society-would not this display of elegance be a far nobler advertisement for the paternal
name, than any connection of his own initials with the tedious
and obscure business of coal-scuttle manufacture? Of course!
But Te'Lgue was still standing as another kind of interrogative
pronoun, without any answer in the remotest degree relative.
"I will take you, Teague," said he. "You may come along
with me now, and help to put my house in order. What do you
say to twelve dollars a month?"
" Let her spake to me," replied Teague, " an' I'll be doomb for
smilin'! Say to twilve dollars a month, is it? Perhaps the beauty
won't be afther oondersthandin' me though, for I niver talked to
the like o' her before. An' isn't there ony knives I kin clane fur
ye dhiractly?"
"Never mind the knives, Teague," said Mr. Primpenny
"You'll have enough to do in that way when I give my oyster
parties. I'll take my breakfast now. You may wait on me and
I'll give you instructions. After that we'll go over to my house
in 34th St., and you may help me in getting it ready for my reception."
Thus Teague Ryan completed his invaluable connection with
the Primpenny Family.
It happened to Isaiah Primpenny that the same afte, noon, not
far from four o'clock, he had business in Park Row. This being
finished it struck him that he might as well return home on foot
through the Bowery. That old promenade had'been a fashionable
one in his early years-the day was fine, and what was the iuse of
taking the cars? They were always such close stuffed-up affairs,
and exercise was so necessary to a middle-aged gentleman, that he
eventually concluded to walk.
Near the corner of Houston-street he was startled by the apparition of a facefamiliar to him. Could that red, round face, so different from his pale, thin and wrinkled visage, those pepper and
salt locks at least fifteen shades darker than his own scanty hair,
be the evidences of Reuben Kineboy? Yes-it must be! He had
not seen Reuben since they separated at tihe threshold of life, himself to leave the Yankee village school for an apprenticeship in the
New York hardware business, and his next neighbor on the spelling bench to take employment with a farmer in Vermont. Isaiah
Primpenny had changed. There was the stoop-there were the
wrinkles-there the glasses bought of Pike. Without knowing it,
he had slightly altered the fashion of his clothes also. Not that
he meant to-but the tailors have a sly way of making things fashionable, even for weasel-eyed old gentlemen, before they know it,
of bagging the pantaloons which ought to be narrow, and giving
an artistic lappel to the waistcoat which was once straight-breasted.
But Reuben Kineboy had not altered a particle! When I say
that, I expect the license of the poet to be granted me. The poet
knows nothing of time, d'ye see? Time, merely in his toughening,
grizzling, and corrugating tendencies. If a man has been worked
hard, or vicious, or a great sufferer-then the poet knows it, and
sees the difference between him and a cloudless young lad. But
other changes the poet knows nothing of, and when there's the
same expression of goodness, and truth, and unworldly simplicity
on a man's face that marked him when he sat on the district school
benches, then the poet remembers him as the same everlasting old
youth, -and just as Isaiah Primpenny did, says to him,
"Bless my soul! How are you? How do you do, Reuben Kineboy!"
"Who are you. any-heow?" replied Mr. Kineboy.
" Don't you know me? lsaiah Primvenny?" replied the coalscuttle dealer.
"Isaiah Primpenny?" Honest naow? Air you Isaiah?"
"To be sure I am Don't you know me? I'd have known you
any where!"
"Wal! Isaiah-I was jist a comin' down Broadway to see ye.
Broadway's a mighty purty street. That's the City Hall up yonder
-isn't it?"
"What? Oh! Yes-the Cooper Institute! This isn't Broadway,
you know-this is the Bowery."
"s ow raly! Ain't yew mistaken? A man told me this was
Broadway. I put up at the Lverett House last night. He's from
New England, Everett is, and he writ the papers in the Ledger..
I thought I'd stop at his haouse, becase I like the papers. We
read'em on Saturday nights to hum, and there isn't a time when
I read them papers that I daon't feel the country's safe enough to
go to sleep in. So I-asked for the Everett jist the first moment I
came tew town. I had toast and biled eggs for breakfast-to be
sure the eggs isn't quite as fresh as I'd like-and then I put straight
for your store. Arter breakfast I kept straight daown town from
the eatin' house,'-cause tbey said that went down Broadway.
Well,'Sarah, how d'ye do?"
"I want you to come right up to my house!" said the father
of the Primpennys. "I'll talk to you there. I-don't know a
man I'd rather see, just this minute, than you. Send for your
baggage to the Everett House, and spend'the rest of your time in
New York with me."
So Mr. Primpenny thrust his arm through that of Mr. Kineboy's,
and began walking up the Bowery with him. It was at first
difficult to persuade him that this street was not Broadway. Mr.
Kineboy, though exceedingly fond of the aquisition of new knowledge, was a man exceedingly tenacious of his opinions, and he
had become so thoroughly convinced that the magnificent thoroughfare on which he traveled from the Everett House was really the
principal street of the metropolis, that it required elaborate
argument on the senior Mr. Primpenny's part to persuade him
that it was not Broadway but the Bowery.
The two old schoolmates of forty years ago reached the yellow
building dedicated to Washington's filial biographer on Union
Square, and the baggage of Mr. Kineboy was sent to Mr. Primpenny's residence on the Avenue.
The senior Mr. Primpenny then hailed a stage passing up the
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