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A circle of negroes also, at the window, expressed their amusement at the scene in the guttural manner of their race. I could not refrain from tears at these unhappy exhibitions on the part of my betrothed. They augured ill for the harmony of our married life. "Hit him again, Rissy! he's got no friends," that vulgar Plickaman urged.
He was evidently abashed, and covered his confusion by lighting a cigar and smoking it with the lighted end in his mouth. This is a habit of many persons in the South, who hence are called Fire-Eaters. Mellasys Plickaman here changed the subject to horses, which I do understand, and my visitors presently departed. "How happily the days of Thalaba went by!" as the poet has it.
But, alas! we have no hereditary legislators; and though I feel myself competent to wear the strawberry-leaves, or even to sit upon a throne, I have not been willing to submit to the unsavory contacts of American political life. Mr. Mellasys Plickaman took advantage of my ignorance. When several gentlemen of the neighborhood were calling upon me in the absence of Mr.
I have also heard you state that the immortal Breckenridge, Kentucky's favorite son, was the same to you as the tiger Lincoln, the deadly foe of Southern institutions. Silence, culprit!" Here Saccharissa moaned, and wafted a slight flavor of musk to me from her cambric wet with tears. "Colonel Plickaman," continued the Judge, "produce the letters and papers of the culprit."
I need not say that I was suffering extremities of apprehension all this time; but still I could not refrain from a slight sympathetic smile of triumph as the others roared with laughter at my accurate analysis of my rival. "You'll pay for this, Mr. A. Bratley Chylde!" says Plickaman. So long as my Saccharissa was on my side, I felt no special fear of what my foes might do.
But to the last, these chivalric, but prejudiced and misguided gentlemen declined to listen to my explanations. Mellasys Plickaman had completely perverted their judgments against me. The last object I saw was Saccharissa, looking more like a Hottentot Venus than ever, waving her handkerchief and kissing her hand to me. Did she repent her brief disloyalty?
I am aware that a rival has rights, and that a defeated suitor may, according to the code, calumniate and slander the more fortunate one. I have done so myself. But it seems to me that there should be limits; and I cannot but think that Mr. Mellasys Plickaman overstepped the limits of fair play, when he took advantage of my last night's inebriety to possess himself of my journal and letters.
I resolved to repeat them again, on our arrival there, at my bride's expense. My reading and my reverie were interrupted by the tramp of horses without. Six persons in dress-coats rode up, dismounted, and approached. All were smoking cigars with the lighted ends in their mouths. Mellasys Plickaman led the party. I recognized also the persons who had questioned me as to my politics.
They entered the apartment where I sat alone with Saccharissa. "Thar he is!" said Mellasys Plickaman. "Thar is the d d Abolitionist!" Seeing that he indicated me, and that his voice was truculent, I looked to my betrothed for protection. She burst into tears and drew a handkerchief. An odor of musk combated for an instant with the whiskey reek diffused by Mr. Plickaman and his companions.
"Arthur!" shouted that atrocious Plickaman, "the loafer's name's Aminadab, after that old Jew, his grandfather." Saccharissa looked at him and smiled contemptuously. I tried to smile. I could not. Aminadab was my name. That old dotard, my grandfather, had borne it before me. I had suppressed it carefully. "Aminadab's his name," repeated the Colonel.
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