第56章

John Brown, buttoning his surtout over the snug rotundity of hisperson, and drawing on his gloves. "You positively refuse to let mehave this crazy old house, and the land under and adjoining, at theprice named?""Neither at that, nor treble the sum," responded the gaunt,grizzled, and threadbare Peter Goldthwaite. "The fact is, Mr. Brown,you must find another site for your brick block, and be content toleave my estate with the present owner. Next summer, I intend to put asplendid new mansion over the cellar of the old house.""Pho, Peter!" cried Mr. Brown, as he opened the kitchen door;"content yourself with building castles in the air, where house-lotsare cheaper than on earth, to say nothing of the cost of bricks andmortar. Such foundations are solid enough for your edifices, whilethis underneath us is just the thing for mine; and so we may both besuited. What say you again?""Precisely what I said before, Mr. Brown, answered PeterGoldthwaite. "And as for castles in the air, mine may not be asmagnificent as that sort of architecture, but perhaps assubstantial, Mr. Brown, as the very respectable brick block with drygoods stores, tailors' shops, and banking rooms on the lower floor,and lawyers' offices in the second story, which you are so anxiousto substitute.""And the cost, Peter, eh?" said Mr. Brown, as he withdrew, insomething of a pet. "That, I suppose, will be provided for,off-hand, by drawing a check on Bubble Bank!"John Brown and Peter Goldthwaite had been jointly known to thecommercial world between twenty and thirty years before, under thefirm of Goldthwaite & Brown; which co-partnership, however, wasspeedily dissolved by the natural incongruity of its constituentparts. Since that event, John Brown, with exactly the qualities of athousand other John Browns, and by just such plodding methods asthey used, had prospered wonderfully, and become one of the wealthiestJohn Browns on earth. Peter Goldthwaite, on the contrary, afterinnumerable schemes, which ought to have collected all the coin andpaper currency of the country into his coffers, was as needy agentleman as ever wore a patch upon his elbow. The contrast betweenhim and his former partner may be briefly marked; for Brown neverreckoned upon luck yet always had it; while Peter made luck the maincondition of his projects, and always missed it. While the meansheld out, his speculations had been magnificent, but were chieflyconfined, of late years, to such small business as adventures in thelottery. Once he had gone on a gold-gathering expedition somewhereto the South, and ingeniously contrived to empty his pockets morethoroughly than ever; while others, doubtless, were filling theirswith native bullion by the handful. More recently he had expended alegacy of a thousand or two of dollars in purchasing Mexican scrip,and thereby became the proprietor of a province; which, however, sofar as Peter could find out, was situated where he might have had anempire for the same money- in the clouds. From a search after thisvaluable real estate Peter returned so gaunt and threadbare that, onreaching New England, the scarecrows in the cornfields beckoned tohim, as he passed by. "They did but flutter in the wind," quothPeter Goldthwaite. No, Peter, they beckoned, for the scarecrows knewtheir brother!

At the period of our story his whole visible income would nothave paid the tax of the old mansion in which we find him. It wasone of those rusty, moss-grown, many-peaked wooden houses, which arescattered about the streets of our elder towns, with a beetle-browedsecond story projecting over the foundation, as if it frowned at thenovelty around it. This old paternal edifice, needy as he was, andthough, being centrally situated on the principal street of thetown, it would have brought him a handsome sum, the sagacious Peterhad his own reasons for never parting with, either by auction orprivate sale. There seemed, indeed, to be a fatality that connectedhim with his birthplace; for, often as he had stood on the verge ofruin, and standing there even now, he had not yet taken the stepbeyond it which would have compelled him to surrender the house to hiscreditors. So here he dwelt with bad luck till good should come.

Here then in his kitchen, the only room where a spark of firetook off the chill of a November evening, poor Peter Goldthwaite hadjust been visited by his rich old partner. At the close of theirinterview, Peter, with rather a mortified look, glanced downwards athis dress, parts of which appeared as ancient as the days ofGoldthwaite & Brown. His upper garment was a mixed surtout, wofullyfaded, and patched with newer stuff on each elbow; beneath this hewore a threadbare black coat, some of the silk buttons of which hadbeen replaced with others of a different pattern; and lastly, thoughhe lacked not a pair of gray pantaloons, they were very shabby ones,and had been partially turned brown by the frequent toasting ofPeter's shins before a scanty fire. Peter's person was in keeping withhis goodly apparel. Gray-headed, hollow-eyed, pale-cheeked, andlean-bodied, he was the perfect picture of a man who had fed onwindy schemes and empty hopes, till he could neither live on suchunwholesome trash, nor stomach more substantial food. But, withal,this Peter Goldthwaite, crack-brained simpleton as, perhaps, he was,might have cut a very brilliant figure in the world, had he employedhis imagination in the airy business of poetry, instead of making it ademon of mischief in mercantile pursuits. After all, he was no badfellow, but as harmless as a child, and as honest and honorable, andas much of the gentleman which nature meant him for, as an irregularlife and depressed circumstances will permit any man to be.