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CHAPTER IV.
IN WHICH SHEPPARD LEE HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH A LADY, WHO TELLS HIM A SECRET

"In and mount," said Tickle: "I see Jem Puddle in the street yonder, and I have an idea I can borrow fifty dollars of him. I will drop round on you by-and-by."

So saying, Tickle started off and left me at the door of my lodgings. I had a sort of confused recollection of the place, though I had never seen it before in my life; – the dingy bricks and weather-stained marble, the rickety old iron railing on the steps, and the ugly, worn-out brass plate, with the "J. SNIGGLES" engraved thereon, rose on my memory like old acquaintances who had grown out of it. The house might have been a fashionable one in its day; nay, for the matter of that, it was not so humble in appearance but that a gentleman might have lived in it, if too poor to inhabit a better; and though out of the world, being in a street called Eighth, it was within hail of Chestnut: nevertheless, it was but a poor place compared with my late dwelling, my house, in Chestnut; the recollection of which, together with the reflection that I entered this only as a lodger, somewhat abated the transport of my joy. "Ah!" thought I, "what a pity, in giving up John H. Higginson's gout and wife, I had also to give up his house and money!" But the recollection of the two first-named possessions was fresh upon me, and I ceased to murmur.

I ascended the steps and rang the bell, somewhat faintly, I must acknowledge; for though I had my friend Tickle's assurance, and a confused consciousness of my own, that I was at the right place, there was a certain strangeness in it, naturally arising from my situation, that made me hesitate. The door, however, opened, and the reception that followed convinced me I was not intruding where I was not known.

The door was opened by a bouncing Irish wench, of some twenty-five years or thereabouts, with hair as yellow as a broom-whisk, and shoulders twice as broad as my own; besides which, she was not handsome; she had staring gray eyes, brick-coloured cheeks, a nose that looked up at her forehead, and a mouth not so ugly as spacious.

I was about to pass by this fair apparition with no further notice than a nod, which I made somewhat instinctively; but I was not fated to get off so easily. No sooner did she lay eyes upon me than she set up a squeak, "Oh, hubbuboo! and is it you, Misther Dawkins, dear?" and threw her great beef-steak arms round my neck.

An embrace from a creature of her attractions I could have easily dispensed with; yet I might have been affected by her joy at seeing me return alive from the bottom of the river, it was so truly natural and exuberant, had she not been in a great hurry to qualify it. "Oh, murder, dear!" she cried, "and I'm glad; for they said, bad luck till'em, the vagabones! you was drownded, dear, and was after chating me out iv my money for the washin' and mindin'!"

"The washing and mending?" thought I. "Do I patronise such a tasty body as this? and do I owe her money?"

But while I muttered thus within, the girl, giving me another hug that I thought would have made my shoulders change place with one another, roared out, in continuation, —

"Och, throth, but the man must drown dape that chates Nora Magee of her own! Musha, hinny darlint, jist pit yer finger into yer pocket and pull me out the tin dollars and seventy cents that you owe me."

"Certainly, Nora," said I; "and Succuba let me go. But, ged now, Nora," I cried, for well I knew my pockets were as empty as the promises I intended to make her, and I was driven by a sort of instinct upon the proper course for pacifying the harpy, – a course, I suppose, that I, – that is, my prototype, the true Dawkins, – had often practised before; – I say, "Nora, don't talk of dollars and cents; for I intend to pay you in eagles and half-eagles some of these days, when my uncle comes; and besides, Nora, you jade you, I intend to give you a buss into the bargain, as, ged, I believe I will now."

And with that I returned the compliment she had paid me, took the great creature by the neck, and (yea, faith, and I presume I should have done the same thing with my tailor, if he could have been managed the same way) absolutely kissed her.

"Och! blessings on yer pritty face!" said she, looking pleased and disappointed together, but wiping her mouth as if to prepare for a second salute, "and that's the way you bamboozles me wid your uncles and your thricks upon a poor cratur's modesty! But, oh, Misther Dawkins, dear, ye'r lookin' sick and pokey; and so I'll not be after throubling you; and I hopes your uncle will be soon in Phillydelphy; for there's our ould Sniggles, the hungry ould nagur (that I should be saying so of the master o' the house, that gives me a dollar a week and a new bonnet at Christmas!) he's been rampin', and roarin', and swearin' like a Turk, my heavy hathred on him, he'll be havin' you up before the constables and squires for the dirty rint-money, the ould divil! that you owe him."

"The rent-money?" thought I; and I began to have a sort of feeling about me, I do not know what, but it was not agreeable. I clapped my hand into my pocket; there was a pocketbook there, but I had examined it before, and there was nothing in it. My mind began to misgive me a little; it was apparent the worthy I. D. Dawkins had not yielded me his body without leaving me some of his debts to pay: and as to what means of discharging them he might have bequeathed, I was yet in the dark.

I ascended to my rooms, of which I discovered I had a brace; but I was in some dudgeon to find them in the third story. "Very odd," said I to myself, "that I should be a fashionable man and a dandy, and live in a third story!" My instincts had gone nigh, as I climbed the stairs, to carry me into a chamber on the first floor; but, "Arrah, now, hinny," said Nora, "you'd be after forgetting you agreed to give up the best chambers till yer uncle comes to town – bad luck to him for keeping me so long out iv my tin dollars!"

"This uncle of mine," thought I, "will settle all pothers." But who he was, or what sort of claim I had upon him, I knew no more than the man in the moon. My associations acted but slowly and imperfectly, and when I strove to look back upon the past history of my new body, I felt like a man who has clapped upon his nose his grandmother's spectacles, through which he can behold objects indeed, but all so confused, distorted, and mystified, that they serve only to bewilder his vision. Thus I beheld, when I made the effort, a jumble of events and persons crowded together on my memory, but without being able to seize upon any one and examine it to my satisfaction. I had an uncle, it seemed, but I could not recall any thing like a recollection of having ever seen him. "But time," thought I, "will set these things right."

CHAPTER V.
AN INVENTORY OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN'S EFFECTS, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF MR. SNIGGLES, HIS LANDLORD

My chambers were but meanly furnished, and this – But it needs not I should acquaint the reader with the divers proofs that rose every moment to convince me Mr. I. D. Dawkins, though a dandy, was not a rich one. Before I had rummaged an hour among his chattels, I discovered enough to set me into a cold shiver, and almost make me repent having taken possession of his body. I found lying upon his table no less than thirty-seven folded papers – the tribute doubtless of the two days of his absence – of which, eight were either billetsdoux or mere cards of invitation to ladies' parties, and twenty-nine were letters from tailors, shoemakers, &c., all of them requesting payment of money owed, and most of them as ferocious in spirit as they were original in style and grammar. In an old trunk, which I ransacked, as well as every chest of drawers and closet in the rooms (the keys were ready at hand in my pocket), I discovered a bushel or two of bills – I suppose there may have been a thousand of them, for they were of all dates – not one of which had a receipt to it.

But, to make amends for this evil, I found Mr. I. D. Dawkins's wardrobe in pretty good condition, except in the article of shirts; of which I discovered but six, and those none of the best. However, there were three dozen good dickeys, and a great abundance of loose collars and wristbands; with which, I perceived, I might do without shirts altogether.

But what gave me most pleasure, and indeed quite consoled me under the feelings of disappointment and doubt that had begun to rise, was a marvellous great quantity of love-letters, locks of hair, finger-rings, odd gloves, &c., that I found scattered about; each, as was apparent, the tribute or spoil of some admiring fair. "Aha!" said I, "I am a devil of a fellow among the girls: who can resist me?" The idea of being a favourite among the women, and the prospect I had of shooting conquests among them, right and left, were infinitely agreeable. "Ged and demmee," said I, "I will look about me now, and fix for life. I will pick out the finest creature I can find who has a fortune, and marry her; and then, I say, demm all tailors and other people. I will marry a wife, eged!"

It was doubly remarkable I should make such a resolution, having had but lately such a lesson of the joys of matrimony. But I found myself fast growing another man. I still retained a lively recollection of Mrs. Higginson, but fancy pictured an angel in the anticipated Mrs. Dawkins. Dim visions – which seemed to be made up as much of crude recollections as of half-formed anticipations – dim visions of lovely eyes and noses floated over my brain; I sank into a soft, elysium-like revery; when I suddenly heard a voice, somewhat tremulous and feeble, but rude as the screech of a strawberry-woman in spring, saying,

"Sir, I say, sir, Mr. Dawkins, I shall trouble you, I say, for the amount of that 'ere small account."

The accents were more horrible to my soul than the grating of a dentist's file upon the tenderest of grinders. I looked up from my feet, which I had been admiring, and beheld a visage somewhat iracund and savage, but so vulgar and plebeian in all its lineaments, that my fear was changed into contempt.

"And I say, sare! whoever you ah," said I, looking the fellow to the soul, "what do you want he-ah? who ah you?"

At these questions the man looked petrified; he opened his mouth till I thought his under jaw would drop off, and stared at me in dumb amazement. I had some hopes he was about to fall down in a fit. I am not naturally of a bloodthirsty turn; but I knew he was a dun, and such persons one always wishes the devil would snatch up. But he recovered his tongue, and, to do him justice, I must confess he used it with a spirit I did not look for in such a mean, shrivelled-up body as he had.

"Don't go for to insult me," said the Goth, gritting his teeth, and spluttering his words through them as through a watering-pot; "I'll let you know who I am. I'll have my money, or I'll have the worth on it out on you; for I won't be cheated no more for nothing. And as for what I'm doing here, I'll let you know as how I'm master in my own house; and, as Mrs. Sniggles says – "

"Sniggles!" said I, recollecting that the rascal was my landlord and creditor. I started up, and seizing the enraged little man by the hand, I begged his pardon.

"Really, my dear soul," said I, "I was in a brown study, and I didn't know you. Pray how d'ye do? how is Mrs. Sniggles? You must know I have hardly yet got over my unfortunate fall into the water. Really, sah, I was almost drowned, and I had the misfortune to lose my pocketbook."

"None on your gammon on me!" said Mr. Sniggles, looking as intrepid as ever; "for I don't believe none on it; and I don't believe you're no gentleman neither, or you wouldn't keep me out of my money. You see, Mr. Dawkins, do you see, you've had my rooms five months, and I ha'n't seen the colour on your money over once; it's all promise and no pay. And so, as I was saying, I won't be diddled no longer, or I'll see the end of it; for, as Mrs. Sniggles says, we can't afford to be diddled for nothing."

"Come, Sniggles," said I, "don't be in a passion; I'll pay you. What's the amount?"

"Seventeen weeks on the second story, seven dollars a week – monstrous cheap at that, considerin' there's breakfast in – one hundred and nineteen dollars – and taking off the ten dollars you paid me, as per account, one hundred and nine dollars; four weeks on the third story, at five dollars and a half (and good rooms too), twenty-two dollars; and adding the ten dollars I paid the shoe-maker, and the five dollars sixty cents I loaned you to pay the fine at the mayor's office, for smashing the lamp, makes jest a hundred and forty-one dollars sixty cents, no halves nor quarters, precise; and the sooner you shows me the money the better."

"A confounded long bill that, Sniggles," said I; "but I don't dispute it; and the moment my uncle comes to town – "

The mean, avaricious fellow had begun to look happy, as he conned over the hateful particulars of his account, which he held in his hand; but no sooner had the words "my uncle" left my lips, than he began to jump up and down, pulling his hair, gritting his teeth, and shaking his fists like a mad-man; and to my astonishment the contemptible fellow waxed profane, and actually cursed me and my uncle too. His oaths, as may be supposed, only made him appear more low-lived and vulgar than before; for cursing and swearing are the hardest things to do genteelly that I know: there are but few persons in the world who can produce an oath with any thing like elegance; it is the truest criterion of gentility, and in consequence I would recommend no person to attempt one who is not confident of his high breeding.

My landlord, Mr. Sniggles, fell to cursing and swearing, and insulted me very grossly; first, by affecting to believe that no such person as my uncle existed; secondly, by threatening to turn me out of his house; and thirdly, by assuring me he would have his account in an attorney's hands before I was an hour older. It was in vain I exhorted him to moderate his passion, and strove to wheedle him into a better humour; I had forgotten (or rather I did not yet know) the true secret of his character, which was cowardice, by addressing my arguments to which I might have readily brought him to reason. But, in truth, I was frightened myself; how I was to pay a bill of a hundred and forty-one dollars sixty cents was a thing only to be guessed at; and the prospect of taking up my lodgings in the debtors' apartments up Arch-street, was as vinegar and wormwood to my imagination.

The more I strove to sooth the wrath of Mr. Sniggles, the more ferocious he became; until at last he did nothing but dance round and round me, like a little dog barking at a big one that is tied to a post, crying out all the time, frantic with despair and fury, "Pay me what you owe me! pay this here bill here! pay me my money, or I'll have you in jail!" with other expressions equally foolish and insulting.

CHAPTER VI.
SHEPPARD LEE HEARS NEWS OF HIS UNCLE, AND MR. SNIGGLES IS BROUGHT TO HIS SENSES

In the midst of my troubles, up comes my friend Tickle and pops into the room. He gave a stare at Sniggles, and next a grin; and then, just as I was looking to be laughed at, he made a spring and caught me round the neck, crying, with uncommon exultation and eagerness, —

"I congratulate you, Dawkins, you dog! and, mind, you must lend me five hundred dollars tomorrow!"

Before I could answer a word to this surprising address, he turned upon Sniggles, and, looking black as a thunder-cloud, cried, —

"Hah! Sniggles? What is the fellow doing here? dunning you for his money? The scoundrel! Hah! What!"

I thought he would have kicked the poor man out of the room, and so thought Sniggles also; for, though he exclaimed, "Touch me if you dare!" he ran to the door, where he looked vastly alarmed, and was able to muster only a single expression of resolution. "I asks my money," said he, "and dang me but I'll have it; for, as Mrs. Sniggles says, I'll not be diddled for nothing."

"Pay the rascal his dirty money, and then be done with him; leave his house, and patronise him no more," said Jack. Then turning to me, he made three skips into the air, clapped his hands, and running up to me and giving me a second embrace, cried, —

"Angels, horses, and women! hug me, kiss me, and lend me that five hundred dollars – your uncle has arrived!"

"Uncle! what uncle?" said I.

"Why your uncle Wiggins – your rich old uncle – your dad of an uncle – your bank and banker – your – But I say, Dawky, you'll lend me that five hundred, won't you? Saw him at the hotel – just arrived – asked anxiously for his nephew Dawkins; – bad look about the eyes – will die in a month; and then – then, my fellow! fourteen thousand a year, if it's fourteen hundred!"

"Fourteen thousand a year!" echoed I; the words were also muttered over by Sniggles. I caught the fellow's eye; he looked confounded and uneasy.

"If that's so," said he, "then I hope Mr. Dawkins will pay me my money, and not take no offence, for none wasn't intended."

"Pay you your money!" said Jack Tickle, stepping up to him in a rage; "no, you rapacious dun, he sha'n't pay you a cent. You shall sue him, and get judgment, and wait six months for your money."

"No, you rascallion!" said I, "I won't take that revenge of such a low fellow. I'll pay you your money, and be done with you. But, Jack, I say, demmee, let's be off; let's run down to my uncle Wiggins."

"Wiggins!" said my landlord; "why, you always said his name was Wilkins!"

"And so it is," said Tickle; "Wiggins P. Wilkins, the rich and well-known Wiggins P. Wilkins. But what do you want here? Have you had your answer? What do you mean by intruding here? You'll get your money; and so, if you please, do Mr. Dawkins and me the favour to walk down stairs, or – "

"Well," said my amiable creditor, whose fury was quite overcome by Tickle's violence, and his report of my uncle's arrival, "I always said Mr. Dawkins was a gentleman, and would pay me one day or another; and one day's just as good as another; and so I hopes he'll take no offence. But as for you, and the likes of you, Mr. Tickle," said the little man, endeavouring to assume courage, "I don't like to be abused in my own house; but, howsomever, as you're Mr. Dawkins's friend, I'll say no more about it."

And with that my gentleman walked down stairs.

"Let us go!" said I. "Let us run – let us fly!"

"Where?" said Tickle.

"Why, to my uncle. Where is he?"

"Where!" cried Tickle, bursting into a roar of laughter. "Are you as big a fool as Sniggles? You didn't believe me! Ah, lud! is there nobody witty but myself?"

"And my uncle a'n't come, then?" said I. "What made you say so?"

"To rid you of a dun, my fellow," said Jack. "I saw the rascal had worked himself into a phrensy, and that you were at your wit's end. I had pity on your distresses, and so ran in with a huge lie, as irresistible as a broadsword, to the rescue. Victory and Jo Pæan! I have routed the enemy, and you are no longer in fear. Keep up the fire, and you are easy for a week."

"But my uncle really intends to leave me that fourteen thousand a year?" said I.

"Has he got it?" said Jack, giving me a comical stare.

"Jack," said I, after pausing a little, "I want to ask you a favour."

"Have but twenty-five in the world," said Tickle, pulling out his pocketbook; "but you shall have ten."

"It isn't that," said I; "I want you to tell me my history."

"Your history!" said Tickle, staring at me in surprise.

CHAPTER VII.
IN WHICH SHEPPARD LEE IS TOLD HIS HISTORY

An idea had suddenly seized me; and I must say, that up to this time, it was the most brilliant one that ever entered my mind. My ignorance of Mr. I. D. Dawkins's affairs was still highly inconvenient and oppressive, and I was determined, with my friend's assistance, to remove it.

"Tickle," said I, "I really believe the doctor has only half resuscitated me; my body is pretty well, but my mind is only so-so. Would you believe it, my memory is quite gone?"

"As to your debts, certainly," said Jack; "so is mine."

"Ged," said I, "'tis gone altogether. Really, it seems to me as if I had only begun existence this morning; my recollection of all events (and even persons known) anterior to my sop in the river, is so imperfect, you can't conceive. Would you believe it, I really didn't know that rogue Sniggles, and had to ask him his name! The ladies, too, Jack – Miss Smith, Miss Small, and the rest that you were talking about – who the deuse are they? I have heard much talk of my uncle, too. Have I an uncle? and if so, who and what is he? for I swear, 'pon honour, Jack, I know no more than the man in the moon. In a word, Jack, demmee, I am in my second childhood, and you must help me out of it. Give me, therefore, my history, my whole history, and tell me all about me; for may I be dunned to death if I rightly know who I am!"

"You don't?" said Jack; "well, that's funny; but I have heard of such things before. Is a dip in cold water, then, so hard on the memory? I say, Dawky, my fellow, couldn't we contrive some way to dip our creditors? But, eged now, Dawky, you a'n't serious?"

"I am," said I; "and I beg you'll give me an idea who I am, and all other things appertaining."

"Oh!" said Tickle, who seemed vastly diverted by my embarrassment, "that is soon done. You are a dandy of pure blood, and poor as a church mouse, but not yet out of favour. Your father, who was a dandy before you, and in prime esteem, having bought his way into notice with two or three cargoes of indigo and young hyson (for he was an India merchant), properly laid out in elegant entertainments, gave up trade to live a gentleman, and died one; leaving you, an elegant fellow and ignoramus, as a gentleman's son should be, to spend his leavings. This you have done, Dawky, and most gloriously. For five years, none of us, the sons of nabobocracy, could compare with you in dash, flash, and splash. But even Phaeton fell! Horses galloped away, buggies and curricles rolled into the gutter, and tailors looked alarmed – stocks flew out at the window, bricks and mortar took to themselves wings, and your stockings began to want darning. Then said Dawkins, 'I will marry a wife,' and he looked loving at Periwinkle's fair daughter; and Periwinkle's fair daughter looked loving at Dawkins; and Dawkins calling counsel of his friend, John Tickle, of Ticklesbury Manor, beheld and lo! Periwinkle's fair daughter's father's fine estate was fenced round with rows of mortgages, as thick and thorny as prickly-pears. Whereupon the inconstant swain, forgetting his vows, ran to the elegant Miss Small, who smiled on him, and married another; and the loss of this adorable fair, fortune and all, together with an uncommon fit of dunning, so affected my friend's spirits, that he threw himself into the Schuylkill, whence he was fished by a fellow called What-d'-ye-call-it, a brewer."

"Well," said I; "but do you mean to say I have squandered all my property?"

"Every sous," said my friend; "it is just six weeks since you spent the last dollar of the last term of your annuity."

"What annuity?" said I.

"Why, the five years' annuity you bought of old Goldfist. Is it possible you don't recollect him? Don't you remember the row of negro-houses you owned down in Southwark?"

"I don't," said I.

"A piece of arrant cheating! sheer swindling!" said Tickle; "but when did old Skinner ever make an honest bargain? The houses and lot of ground worth two thousand, as they stood; but title good and indefeisible, and capable of being made worth twenty thousand: I remember you offered 'em to old Goldfist for seven. What said the old hunks? 'Give me immediate possession, and thereupon you shall have a bonus of a thousand on the nail, together with the same sum yearly for five years, provided you live so long – if not, then as long as you live.' Snapped like a gudgeon, and was bit; and on the fifth year – beginning of August last, had the last integer of payment, with comfort of seeing a property you had sold for six thousand, yielding its possessor just that much a year."

"The geds!" said I; "has old Goldfist six thousand a year?"

"Say sixty," replied Jack.

"Tickle," said I, "the old curmudgeon has a daughter: I'll marry her."

"No you won't," said my friend, shaking his head mournfully: "old Goldfist is too well acquainted with your affairs; and unless you have his consent, what will you get by her?"

"Tickle," said I, "I must marry somebody, or be ruined. But stay, there's my uncle; now, my dear fellow, who is he?"

"Faith," said Tickle, "I don't know; always supposed he belonged to the Apocrypha, and was used to argue duns into good manners: nobody sues a young fellow that has good expectations from a rich uncle. But, now I think of it, I believe you did once tell me you had an uncle – some vagabond trading fellow or other – in the west; but I never heard you say you expected any thing of him. I thought you called him Wiggins; but Sniggles says Wilkins. All's one, however; for I remember you said he had brats of his own."

I began to feel uncomfortable; and, upon questioning my friend further, I discovered that my situation was far from being agreeable. I had a horrible quantity of debts on my shoulders, and no fund to discharge them; and, what was worse, I found that my means of subsistence were not only precarious, but I had good reason to fear they were any thing but reputable. My dear friend John Tickle, though a gentleman and dandy, it was plain, was a personage who lived by his wits; and I began to see that Mr. I. D. Dawkins was another. From Tickle's expressions, I perceived that our chief dependance lay in the noble trade of pigeon-hunting. As this is a word some of my readers may be too unsophisticated to understand, I will explain it, and in very few words. As there are in the world young fellows of plebeian origin but full pockets, who are ambitious to figure in elegant society, so there are also in elegant society sundry youths of better fame than fortune, who are willing to patronise them, provided any thing can be made by their condescension; in which case, the happy Phaeton is taught to spend his money in ways most advantageous to his patrons, though by no means to his own profit. Such a young gentleman is then called a pigeon, and is allowed to flutter in the sunbeams, while his eagle-clawed friends are helping themselves to his feathers; the last of which being abstracted, he is commonly called a fine fellow, and kicked out of their company. I cannot pretend to say what degree of relish my prototype, the true I. D. Dawkins, may have had for such a mode of existence; but I must aver in my own defence, that I had, throughout the whole adventure, while in his body, so much of Sheppard Lee's original sense of honour and honesty hanging about me, that I was more than once shocked at the meanness and depravity of such a course of life; and when I first understood the thing from Tickle, I was so ashamed of myself, that had I lighted upon the body of any decent man at the moment, I do verily believe I should have done my best to get into it, and so put an end to Mr. I. D. Dawkins altogether. But men's bodies are not like the dry-goods dealers' boxes in Market-street, to be stumbled into at any moment.

It was some comfort to me to find that our practice in this particular was so little known, that both Tickle and myself – but myself more especially – were considered in the main very excellent, exemplary young men, as far as dandies could be, and were still allowed to mingle in elegant society.

As for Tickle, indeed, I soon discovered he was in but doubtful odour with the ladies, at least with their mammas; for he had been for some years living on his wits: but I, on the contrary, being pretty universally regarded as the heir-expectant of a rich uncle, and being besides a prettier fellow, was received with general favour and approbation.

Having obtained from Tickle as much of my (or Mr. I. D. Dawkins's) history as was necessary, I gave my worthy friend to understand I should need his advice and assistance in returning into society; "for," said I, and very truly too, "I really sha'n't know anybody, and shall feel very awkward. Here," I added, "are two invitations for this very evening – one from Mrs. Pickup, and the other from the Misses Oldstyle. Now who is Mrs. Pickup? and who are the Oldstyles? and where the mischief do they live?"

"It is very odd you should forget so much," said Tickle; and then proceeded to give me the information I wanted, promising also to go with me to both places himself, and prompt me through all difficulties.