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Updated: April 30, 2025
Indeed, the Swiggs family, while it lived and enjoyed the glory of its name, was very like the Barnwell family of this day, who, one by one, die off with the very pardonable and very harmless belief that the world never can get along without the aid of South Carolina, it being the parthenon from which the outside world gets all its greatness.
"Madame Flamingo!" ejaculates the man, grasping her hand. "Tom Swiggs!" exclaims the woman, burying her face for a second, then pressing his hand to her lips, and kissing it with the fondness of a child, as her eyes swim in tears. "How strange to find you thus " continues Tom, for truly it is he who sits by the forlorn woman.
He thanks kind Providence for the happy escape of Sister Swiggs this generous woman whose kindness of heart has brought her here from among the hardened wretches who inhabit that slough of despair, so terrible in all its aspects, and so disgraceful to a great and prosperous city.
"Never go into Broadway," repeats Mrs. Swiggs, her fingers wandering to her spectacles. Turning into Orange street, Mr. Toddleworth tenders his services in piloting Mrs. Swiggs into Centre street, which, as he adds, will place her beyond harm. As they advance the scene becomes darker and darker. Orange street seems that centre from which radiates the avenues of every vice known to a great city.
You must go your way, young man!" And she twitches her head, and pulls closer about her lean shoulders the old red shawl. "But you should have brought a letter from the Bishop! and upon that based your claims to a favorable reception. Then you have read of Sir Sunderland Swiggs, my ancestor? Ah! he was such a Baron, and owned such estates in the days of Elizabeth.
Of course, with all this to "back" them, the Swiggs at once became people of note. Their entrance into society was easy enough, and no one was sufficiently impolite to remember their past lives against them. Mr. Swigg's coarse red face was attributed to his fine health, his rudeness of manner was called eccentricity, and his frequent breaches of etiquette were passed over in polite silence.
Lady Swiggs wears that same faded silk dress; her black crape bonnet, with two saucy red artificial flowers tucked in at the side, sits so jauntily; that dash of brown hair is smoothed so exactly over her yellow, shrivelled forehead; her lower jaw oscillates with increased motion; and her sharp, gray eyes, as before, peer anxiously through her great-eyed spectacles.
Snivel with a modest snore rouses from his nap, says he is always ready to do a bit of a good turn. "If you are, then," interposes the fair girl, "let it be made known now. Grant me an order of release for Tom Swiggs. Remember what will be the consequence of a refusal!" "Tom Swiggs! Tom Swiggs! why I've made a deal of fees of that fellow.
Duly appreciating all these difficulties, Brother Spyke chose a mission to Antioch, where the field of his labors would be wide, and the gates not open to restraints. While Mrs. Swiggs is being entertained by Sister Scudder and her clerical friends in New York, Mr. Snivel is making good his demand on her property in Charleston.
As for her little old house, the last abode of the last of the great Swiggs family, that, like numerous other houses of our "very first families," is mortgaged for more than it is worth, to Mr. Staple the grocer. We must, however, turn to Mr. Snivel. Mr. Snivel is seen, on the night after the secret interview at the Charleston Hotel, in a happy mood, passing down King street.
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