A TEMPERANCE TALE.
MRS. JULIA (McNAIR)i WRIGHT,
Author of "Priest and Nun," "Jugor Not," "The Best Fellow in the World," &c.
PHILADELPHIA:
PORTER & COATES,




Entered according to Azt of Congress, in the year 1871, by
PORTER AND COATES,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, i* Washington.




CONTENTS.
CHAPTER  I.
PAOB
What his Pacents did for him                      i
CHAP TER H
What the Nurse did fbr him                        27
CHAPTER IHI.
How Aunt Debby helped Matters.                   45
CHAP TER IV.
Literary Assistance.                     63
CHAPTER V.. His Friends lend a Hand.              79
CHAPTER  VJ.
The Young Ladies mend Matters                     97
(9)




x                     CONTENTS.
CHAP TER VII.
PAGE
The HB.ovy Fathers strengthen the Position         I I
CHAP TER VIII,
The Law does its Part.                    O ~  133
CHAPTER IX.
The Devil does his      5.. 
CHAPTER X.
P. reaches a Crisis.                              169
CHAPTER XI.
Police Court to the Rescue...                   187
CHAPTER XII.
The Asylum undertakes P....          205
CHAPTER XIII.
Reasonable Principles applied..             223
CHAPTER  XI.'
Society renders a Verdict...             241
CHAPTER XV.
And so does the Coroner...  0    259




CHAPTER FIRST.
"' Born of Fortunatus's kin,
Another comes tenderly ushered in
To a prospect all bright and burnished:
No tenant he for life's back slums;
He comes to the world as a gentleman comes
To a lodging ready furnished."








CHAPTER FIRST.
that his Parents left hiza.
0 say that one is born with a silver, or a
golden spoon, in one s mouth, has been supposed to assert a rare good fortune. Has
anybody ever questioned whether the human
being so dowered, may not be most miserably
strangled by that beautiful spoon? Even if the victim does not swallow the spoon himself, the nurse may
strangle him with it, or some amiable enemy fill it
with poison, or admiring friends may hold its shining
bowl so near the heir's eyes, that all that is good and
grand in nature or in grace may be shut out; and the
hopeless prey of a splendid fortune may see nothing
but his own distorted image in it.
(13)




14           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
There are spoons and spoons-to be born with the
golden one, is not always to be happy, nor good, nor
wise. We are moved to these reflections on spoons
in general, by meditating on the history of a youth
whose spoon was of the very goldenest.
To begin as early as is possible with our hero-notice
him; he is too young for the ceremony of an introduction; but you see first a cambric robe, the length
two yards and a half; trimming Valenciennes; tucks
thirty-four; moreover you behold a blanket, of which
the ground-work is French flannel, but that is hidden
by silk embroidery-some poor wretch made it wearily
for the trifle of twenty dollars-for she who bought it,
although extravagant, was not above making " a bargain" with the seamstress.  In the folds of the
blanket you may find'something' with a soft bald
head, a toothless mouth, and a wrinkled red phiz.
I give you my word it is a genuine human baby six
hours old.  The doctor calls it a fine child, and
although it resembles the supposed ancestral ape, the
nurse is ready to take oath that it is the "finest infant she ever laid eyes on."  Being a nurse, her
veracity is unimpeachable, and we think of this new
baby in the superlative ever after.
This lady in brown silk gown and lace cap who
holds the fresh arrival, is Aunt Debby Dean. The




A MILLION TOO MUCH.              15
tears which have swollen Aunt Debby's eyelids and
reddened her thin face are not the gushings of joy
which welcomes this heir to the house; they are the
agonized outbreaking of a most bitter woe.
This elegant little apartment that will only remind
one of a jewel case, so costly and dainty is its fitting
up, is the ante-room to that quite royal bed-chamber,
whence comes now and then a subdued  and very
solemn whisper. The door is partly open; the rich
Axminster carpet is scattered with clothing tossed
about in haste, and towels dropped here and there;
the lace and silken drapery of the bed has been
twisted high up out of reach; on the toilette tables
bottles are open, or broken or carelessly upset.
There is a tread of feet, and oh, they are carrying out'something,' which but now was' some one!' Here is
a wide board draped in a linen sheet, and a figure
stretched out upon it stiff and still; there is another
linen covering above this form, and you can see where
the face is outlined, and the hands are clasped, and
the feet are stiffly placed so near together; the dra.
pery has been pulled aside, here is a mass of black
curls falling down, a deadness even now dimming their
silken sheen: as they pass along, striving not to jar
their burden, a corner of the linen sweeps over the
red face of the new-born babe that lies on Aunt




16            A MILLION TOO MUCIH.
Debby's knee, and there is a quick cry at the strange
chill, We hope no more of that mother's mantle,
than this one cold corner, fell upon her child: but
time will show.
As'these bearers go cautiously down stairs, preceded by the nurse, to carry to the grim stately parlors
the mistress who now cares not a whit for their splendors, the servant maidens left behind begin to pick up
garments and napery, incontinently wiping off their
flowing tears on whatever chances to be in hand. Out
of the region of their short sobs and ejaculations,
walks a thoughtful middle-aged man and stands before
Aunt Debby, gazing at the bundle on her lap. It is
not the father of this babe —oh no, there has been a
double trouble in this gorgeous home. It is the doctor, the family physician, in whose brain our story
is now being dimly foreshadowed.
This is not the first time Aunt Debby's tears have
fallen; she has had cause to do a deal of weeping in
her day, and she strives now to check the expression
of her grief. Aunt Debby cannot understand matters. She has not even " a good hope for her dead."
She could not possibly tell you whether it is God's
will or the Devil's that has just been done. But
there is one thing whereof the certainty never falters,
she has a living, a loving and a sympathizing Redeemer.




A BILLION TOO 1MiUCH.          17
He has been with her in six troubles-he will yet
succor in seven; and though Aunt Debby is no grand
saint, though she has done, and, alas! will do evil in
her day, she has a sure refuge in the Saviour of sinners.'Here is a young heir, Miss Dean," says the
doctor.'Ah yes," sobs Aunt Debby, "and all his great
property is not worth to him what parents would be:
poor orphaned lamb!"
"He is an heir to more than money."
"C Truly, indeed. To immortal life?" suggests Miss
Debby cautiously, as thinking she may be mistaken in
her inference, for she knows the physician is not a
6 church member."
"Well, to that-I hope; but I had not that in my
thoughts.  It is my custom to take time by the forelock, and no time is better than to-night to speak my
mind to you about this boy."
"' I feel that I need your advice, I am sure," says
Aunt Debby, upon whose maiden shoulders a terrible
responsibility has fallen.
46 You are doubtless aware, that traits of character
-appetites-sins even-may be hereditary."
"Heaven forbid!" shrieks Aunt Debby.
" But Heaven has not forbidden, has rather ordained;




18            A MILLION TOO MUCH.
and humanity is no loser, for the good can descend as
well as the. evil; and for the evil, in its indulgence
and in fostering it for transmission to our children,
we are ourselves to blame, while great virtue and
genius are God's gifts."
Aunt Debby felt all at once as if this so costly burden that she was holding, were a coiled serpent, and
that she must spring up and cast it away. She
reproached herself severely, for in the child's veins
ran the only blood akin to hers.
"It might be better," said the doctor,' that this
child had been heir to the penury of some sober ditchdigger, than that it had entered into possession of all
this magnificence, and with it the taint of parental
intemperance.''
"Ah, poor dear, how much better for it to die i"
wails Aunt Debby, before whom that word Intemperance stands in letters of fire.
s" It is not at all likely to die," said the doctor;
"the question before it is in what manner it shall
live. Over the child's infancy you will have rule.
Now, Miss Debby, of all things remember that the one
great danger of this child's life will be alcoholic drinks;
and you must keep it from them with a vigilance that
shall never cease. There is every hope in a correct
training: if you begin right and go on right, our baby




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             19
will end right. You may better expose your little
nephew to every contagious disease that stalks abroad,
abandon it to the tender mercies of the city charities,
or give it for adoption to the pickpocket guild, than
Nwaken any slumbering appetite within it, by the use
of alcohol!"
" Doctor," replies Aunt Debby with dignity, " you
know I would do nothing of the kind."
"'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure," retorts the doctor; " and you must not only be
circumspect yourself, but you must see to it that
others are so."
The body of the dead mother had been laid in state
in the parlor; the blaze of the chandeliers had been
softened to a pearly twilight; the nurse and the
housekeeper began the usual exploration for that
mysterious race of cats, who are supposed to haunt
the dead, and they then retreated to the hall, carefully closing the doors.
"' Mrs. Jillet," said Mrs. Bently the nurse, " I've
borne more this day than human nature can survive.
I'm completely beat out; and being as our orphan
has his aunt to look out for him while I take some
refreshment, I quite owe it to myself to do so."
" Ah, you may say so," responded the housekeeper,
rejoicing in the prospect of a gossip.'"A morsel of




20            A HMILLION TOO MIAUCH.
cold fowl, a. few pickled oysters, and a cup of cof.
fee, may quite set you up, if it is twelve o'clock at
night."
"Mrs. Jillet," said Mrs. Bently  with  pathos,
"I must have something even more refreshing than
that."
These two excellent women having settled their cap
strings and seated themselves in the housekeeper's
room, on either side of a table covered with the
refection Mrs. Jillet had suggested, the countenance
of Mrs. Bently still expressed a morbid dissatisfaction
with life.
"Mrs. Bently dear," urged Mrs. Jillet, " is there
anything more I can get to set you up with?"
" I quite owe it to my responsible position," said
Mrs. Bently, who it seems had a conscience, " to have
a sup of brandy, if there is any in the house."
"-If there is any in the house!" cried Mrs. Jillet,
falling back in her chair and lifting both hands; "if!
Why I may say, feeling it right at this solemn hour
to tell the truth, that this house is founded, and built
up, and walled, and roofed with brandy-and similar.
I do not know many things you could ask for here
and not get, but I'll take my affidavit if there was one
thing missing it wouldn't be brandy," added Mrs.
Jillet with some pride, and unlocking a closet in the




A JILLION TOO irUC;L.          21
side of the chimney, she took out a decanter of the
precious fluid. Mrs. Bently judiciously added some
of this nectar to her coffee, and her face began to'brighten.
"I feel that I owe it to our precious orphan to
know something of the history of his dear parents,"
remarked Mrs. Bently, " don't you see it in that light,
MBrs. Jillet?"
"I believe it is my duty to tell you what I know,
to make you feel at home with the blessed babe, and
open your heart to him," quoth Mrs. Jillet. Mrs.
Bently hastened to say that'her heart was open
already.'
"You mentioned the brandy," said the housekeeper, " and you bear in mind what I replied to you.
Miss Debby's father began life in the liquor business.
He had a constitution of iron, every nerve in his
body was steel, his heart was as cold as a lump of
lead; and I will say for him that he had as much
brass in his countenance as ere a man ever I saw."
Mrs. Jillet paused and gave a few moments to memories of this metallic individual.
"' Once he said to me,' Mrs. Jillet, you're exorbitant on the matter of salary.' He did indeed. As
you may suppose, such a man didn't drink his own
liquor —but he sold and sold, until truly for r'chcs a




22           A MJIJLLION 0TOO,!IUCM.
Jew is not to be named in comparison of him. When
he died and left the money to Mr. Luke Dean, all the
son he had, truly he left a pretty sum; and though
Mr. Luke put a good deal of the stock down his own
throat-made quite a wholesale matter of it —the
money has held out, and our orphan's got a million if
he's got a penny."
The nurse took more brandy, and the orphan's
consequence grew in her esteem.
"Every one do say that Mr. Luke was not his own
man for drink, when he shot his brains out three
months ago, in the second story front chamber, where
you may see marks of it this minute, he then standing
at the dressing bureau, and that being the reason
Missis had the back room at this present occasion.
Yes, Mr. Luke was not in his senses when he did that
deed, poor soul-may God forgive him!-A fine figure
of a man, and of his property, to put a ball through
his head and fall without a cry! I heard that shot,
Mrs. Bently, and how I lived I can't tell."
"Neither can I-I'm  sure you need a taste to keep
your spirits up thinking of it. There, that's right.
Now about the mother, my dear?" said the nurse.
"It is not for me ever to say a lady got drunk,
and that lady as handsome, and amiable and altogether well dressed, as the Missis; but she took a




A -MILLION TOO MUCH.            23
deal of brandy, wine and similar, for medicine, and
sometimes she slept heavy and sometimes was cross,
as is not to be wondered at, poor dear-and now she's
dead! It's very hard on me, Mrs. Bently."
" So it is-ah! what a dispensation, a mysterious
dispensation! And she took a good deal, you say?"
"A deal! ah, oceans of it. After Mr. Luke shot
his poor dear brains out, she hardly was herself, what
with opium and brandy, having no other comfort.
I saw Miss Debby go down on her two knees to her,
entreating of her to put it by. More than that, Dr.
Roxwell, says he,'Mrs. Dean, this will be your
death, and your child's death. If you go on this way
I've no more hope for you than for a dead man. Not
one more drop, not one.' He says that a dozen
times, if he said it once; but lo, she could not heed
him, and here's the end. She's gone, just as he said
she would; but the babe's safe, thank fortune! Truly,
Mrs. Bently, when I laid her out there in the parlor,
and thought how he'd gone, and she after him in
three months; why, I considered the way she came
here just married, three years ago, and they had a
wine supper, and everybody toasting and praising;
well to mind it just broke my heart! And on the
top of that, you asking me if we had any brandy in
the house-as if we ever were without-it quite cut me.




24            A MILLION TOO iMUCH.
You may pass me that decanter again, I'll try one
more spoonful to warm my bones."
"Oh! I was sure you had it, Mrs. Jillet, it was
only a way of asking, you know-me being bashful.
But I must go up to our orphan now, poor dear!
I will feel it my duty to give up my other engagements, and stay with him these few years, his mother
being gone, and his life so important, because of the
property."
4' Do you that," said Mrs. Jillet cordially: she had
discerned in Mrs. Bently a kindred spirit.
We have now learned the family history of this
babe which Aunt Debby has faithfully held for some
hours. She has not noticed the lapse of time, for she
has been reviewing the painful past. Aunt Debby's
heart is heavy.  Her father-dying Christless; her
brother, so much her junior that he seemed to her a
darling son, dead by his own crazed act; his beautiful and accomplished wife —quite as surely a suicide,
though she would not call her one. Ah! Aunt
Debby's beloved dead were not in heaven, and their
memories were no benediction.  Miss Dean recalled
the doctor's caution, and was fully resolved never to
permit in the baby a development of its parents'
vices.  Still, having been brought up in an atmosphere of liqulor-drinking and liquor-selling, with every




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             25
penny in her pocket the result of that lawful traffic,
we cannot expect that Aunt Debby had very clear
views of what Dr. Roxwell affirmed to be the danger
and crime of liquor making, selling, and drinking.
In other words, the world called the doctor a fanatic,
and Aunt Debby was conservative; still she was determined to have her nephew a moral, sober, gentlemanly, intelligent, and she truly hoped and prayed, a
thoroughly religious person.
When next day Mrs. Bently conveyed to the
anxious Aunt Debby that it would be quite possible
to retain, for a suitable consideration, her services as
head nurse for the orphan of the house of DeanAunt Debby clutched at that possibility as drowning
people grasp at whatever comes nearest the hand.
An under nurse, a fine young woman in a gay gown,
was engaged to relieve Mrs. Bently in her onerous
duties, and Aunt Debby was supposed to be head over
all; though this theory was soon proved to be but a
pleasing fiction.
Miss Dean having a life interest in the house and
its furnishings-indeed she had lived in this home for
thirty years-she continued therein unmolested with
her servants, the nurses, and the orphan. The parents
having died intestate, there were provided, in behalf
of the infant Dean and his million, three administrators and two guardians; each of these gentlemen




26            A MILLION TOO  MUCH.
had a legal adviser to instruct him in the duties and
liabilities of his position; Miss Debby also retained
an attorney, supposed to look after her interests, and
to prevent any undue advantage being taken of the
heir. The Orphans' Court was expected to see to it
that neither administrators, guardians, attorneys,
aunt, or babe overreached each other in their anxious
care for the million.
It was also evident that the child should have a
name.  Had he lived "when Rome was," he would
have been called Posthumus. To save ourselves the
long research and anxious debating that the matter
of the name caused Aunt Debby, we will imagine him
duly conveyed to church and christened Posthumus
Dean, and as this name is so long as to be cumbersome to our pages, we will content ourselves with
calling him P. P. is a Problem; he has Property;
his life holds Promise; Dr. Roxwell accuses him of
having been born with a Predisposition. If guardians,
friends, teachers, society, and the laws of the land do
an honest part by P., there is no reason why his
name shall not stand gloriously high as any on the
mighty roll of fame-he will found a church; endow
a college; write a book; establish a great business;
live a philanthropist and die a Christian. We have
great hopes of P. The doctor says he has a tremendous vitality, and we know he is heir of a million.




CHAPTER SECOND.
-Wat tQk gRsmt pvtt  0im.
"' Born in wealth, and wealthily nursed;
Capped, napped, papped, and lapped from the first,
On the knees of Prodigality."








CHAPTER SECOND.
W7cat lthe XAturse crave himm..oHILE many a poor babe gets on during the
i9/;tX   first months of its life, with no care but
that hastily given in odd moments by an
over-worked mother, our infant P. was
provided with two nurses, and Aunt Debby had serious
thoughts of engaging a third. Aunt Debby, with the
responsibilities of a baby resting on her soul, was
an object of compassion to all right-minded people.
She sat in nervous excitement watching Mrs. Bently
and her assistant, Ann, wash and array the little
heir. At last she spoke her mind. "Mrs. Bently,
we must get our baby a wet-nurse."
"Not for the world I" cried Mrs. Bently, who
wished no one to dispute her supremacy, or have a
right to the services of Ann.' Wet-nurses is danger-us. We can feed the child beautiful.  Why it is a,rue pleasure to see him eat."
" But I've heard that it causes wind on the stomach
nd'colic, to feed a young babe," said Miss Debby.
6 Oh that's nothing. Suppose there is wind, why
(29)




30            A MILLION TOO MUCH.
a sup of gin and sugar, with a drop of hot water, wil
cure the colic immegit; and the child will fatten on
it wonderful," replied Mrs. Bently.
" Gin? But Doctor Roxwell don't approve of gin.'
" Don't? well, all the wisdom of the world ain't in
doctors. Let me tell you, ma'am, doctors that do
know recommend gin. I've heard them frequent —
besides I've had the care of some two hundred infants,
and Iought to know."' I want everything done for the best for this child,"
said Aunt Debby anxiously.
"That's the very reason I say don't get a wetnurse. I've known children to take the scrofula, or
the tatter, or the clipping mania from them kind."
"What's clipping mania?" demanded Ann, alert
for information.
"It is picking up things, quick like," explained
Mrs. Bently.
" 0, some sort of slight of hand," said Ann.
" But, Mrs. Bently," urged Aunt Debby, "you
know we might get a person who had no troubles of
this kind."
"One never knows the harm that may be in them,"
said Mrs. Bently sententiously.  "Now when you
feed a child milk or farina,, or cracker water —there
it is in the cup before you-you know all about it;




A MILLION TOC MUCH.              31
and if it is ailing, a few drops of cordial, a spoon of
gin, or a taste of brandy in water, will cure it at once,
and that you know is harmless, and will never leave
a trace of evil behind. Indeed, ma'am, one can't be
too careful of babies."
Aunt Debby yielded to Mrs Bently's superior wisdom; but while some infants get through the little
oft-recurring ills of babyhood, physic ked only by dame
Nature, the small Dean had a medical attendant
ever on the watch over him, and that physician was
Doctor Roxwell. The doctor unexpectedly appeared
in the grand nursery, with a healthy young foster
mother in his wake. Our orphan was slumbering in
Ann's lap: he was-too precious to lie in his cradle in
the day-time, so the nursemaid held him while he
slept, and Mrs. Bently sat over against her, severely
watching to see that she held him properly.
Mrs. Bently was a woman of resources; since she
could not prevent the installation of Mrs. Green, she
considered that the best thing to do was to cajole Mrs.
Green into subservience to her wishes. She therefore
welcomed her with effusion, declaring that her arrival
"' set her heart quite at rest."  She also aroused little
P., and handed him over to his new attendant, at once,
secretly hoping that the child would rebel, and refuse
to receive tbh  proffered service.  Unfortunately for




32           A MILL[LON TOO MIUCH.
Mrs. Bently, the orphan took to his legitimate refreshments with avidity.
Thereafter the nursery at the Dean mansion was a
spectacle for mothers. Aunt Debby walked through
it once in two hours, looked about, helplessly conscious of her own ignorance, and departed. Each
of the three nurses was mortally afraid of doing more
for the child than absolutely belonged to her office.
They differed on every point concerning this boywhat he should. wear, how his three hairs should be
brushed, what should be the temperature of his bath
-and when, how often and how far, he should be
taken out for exercise.
On account of these discussions it not unfrequently
happened that the babe's bath was one day very chill,
the next day almost scalding; he was supposed to be
born with an antipathy to water, because he invaria
bly shrieked when he was getting washed.
Mrs. Green thought P.'s mouth should be rinsed out
with clear water; Mrs. Bently thought it should be
sherry and water; Ann thought it should not be rinsed
at all; all these plans were tried. Amid disputes as
to whether nine, one, four, or intermediate hours, were
the most suitable for P. to be taken out, about half
the days in the week he remained in altogether.
When he did go out the procession was a sight to be




A MILLION TOO 2IfUClH.            33
seen. Little P. had a state coach with gilding and
l.ace, ruffles and satin; a coach for a baby king. In
this he was laid, enveloped in a down-bordered cloak,
his head covered in a cap and his face smothered
under a zephyr veil. Ann in her most radiant chintz
went to wheel the coach.  Mrs. Green in her new
poplin walked alongside lest little Master should get
hungry; and Mrs. Bently, grand in black silk dress
and shawl, followed after to see that all was right,
carrying in her pocket a bottle of cordial, for fear
her charge should be attacked with cramp.
When evening came Mrs. Green found it needful
for her health that she should go out for exercise,
also to visit her aged mother, and her own infant.
On these occasions Mrs. Green surreptitiously divided
with her own flesh and blood, the nutriment which
she had duly sold to our orphan, for part of his
million.
While Mrs. Green was thus nefariously absent,
Mrs. Bently,'" to keep her spirits up," devoted herself
to  sitting with the housekeeper, where gossip was
seasoned with drops of "' brandy and similar," to quote
Mrs. Jillet.
Ann was thus left with our P.; but this girl's special
passion was novel reading. With much secrecy she
therefore administered to her nursling certain doses




34           A MILLION TOO MlUCH.
of "Doctor Morbus' Universal Baby Panacea," and
while he slept profoundly thereafter, Ann's innocent
mind was devoted to the mysteries of "' The Robber's
Cave," "The Black Bandit," "Death and Danger,"
and other useful and enlivening works, part of the
swarming progeny of a " free press."
When Mrs. Green was introduced to the Dean
household, she was a tidy, cheerful, healthy woman,
who had lived plainly, worked hard and slept soundly,
all her life. To her, ale, beer, porter, and London
stout were unknown.
"Indeed you must drink something of the kind, or
you'll never be able to nurse our baby," said Mrs.
Bently.
"I have always done well by my own children
without."
" 0, that's different," said Mrs. Bently. "Come
now, you must do your duty; and suppose you don't
take to the taste, it will come more natural by and by.
I'd as soon go without my dinner, as have it without
a glass of ale. Some take tea, but I'm  weakly, and
need what is stronger. It will be very unsocial not to
drink with me and Ann."
Thereafter among the bills sent in by our orphan's
guardians to the administrators of the estate, on
behalf of said orphan's household expenditure, was an




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             35
item of three bottles of best ale daily, for the nursery
table. Under this regime Mrs. Green grew fat and
florid.  "I told you so," said Mrs. Bently with triumph.  "'Now you see that ale agrees with you."
Aunt Debby was one of those gentle natures who
must have some one to love, and her affections were
wrapping themselves about little P.  There were
many hours when the dear lady planned how she would
guide and train her child " when he grew old enough:"
she did not know that her training should have commenced with its first shrill cry of greeting to this
world. Aunt Debby also did a great deal of praying
for her nephew-on her knees she pleaded the case
of the orphan; but she failed to watch as well as
pray. Not only did Aunt Debby fail to watch, but
she had a somnambulistic fashion of not seeing, or
realizing the importance of what passed before her
eyes.
" What are you giving Baby?" Aunt Debby asked
of Ann.
"Just catnip tea, ma'am."
This was harmless truly, but a suspicious odor came
up to Aunt Debby's nose.  "Seems to me it smells of
whiskey."
"Just a little Mrs. Bently put in-she always does
it."




36           A MILLION TOO MIUCH.
"'But why? What is it good for?  Is he sick?"
"No indeed, ma'am, healthy and well; but this is
to keep him so-He's always had it, ma'am, and it is
good for-why pretty near everything -I guess."
"0," said Miss Dean, blankly, and went her way,
unenlightened, unsatisfied, convinced of her shortcomings, but sure, or trying to be sure, that all must
be right with a baby who had a doctor and three
nurses to take care of it.
Even these guardians could not prevent the child
having some sharp twinges over the process of teething.
When the heir was roaring or struggling, or worse,
lying weakly on Ann's arm, Aunt Debby would sit
plaintively sighing, wiping away silent tears, and
making feeble suggestions of peppermint. Over some
idiosyncrasies of this infant's stomach Dr. Roxwell
was greatly puzzled; Ann having never mentioned
the little matter of the " Universal Infant Panacea,"
and Mrs. Bently being ready to take oath that " she
over used the babe accordin' to medical orders," the
doctor failed to suspect the real cause of many physical eccentricities.
Aunt Debby was one day solicitously watching a
hot bath which the doctor had prescribed for his baby
patient.  "Is not that something the doctor did not
mention?" she asked, as Mrs. Bently gave the water




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             37
a liberal dash of Bourbon, and proceeded to put the
child's flannel bandage to soak in brandy.
"0, there are things any good nurse is expected to
do without special orders. Indeed Miss Dean, there
is few things about children that whiskey is not good
for. Take it all in all, I'd as soon be without flannel
or medicine, or water itself, as without a bit of good
whiskey for Baby."
Aunt Debby, if neither convinced nor converted by
this reasoning, was most effectually silenced.
Under Mrs. Bently's tutelage, Mrs. Green had
changed greatly. The bottle of ale at dinner did
not quench a thirst which she affirmed arose from
nursing the orphan. Of course in these refined modern days no nurse thinks for a moment of having
half a glass of brandy and water on rising, ale at
noon, and a night-cap in the form of hot toddy.
These helps to her exhausted nature Mrs. Green
asserted she must have, for the orphan was a ravenous
babe "who took all she ate;" if said child also took
all she drank, he must have been pretty thoroughly
saturated with the particular style of fluids which
Dr. Rxwell had prohibited.
As we have hinted, the morning toilette of Master
P. was a momentous occasion. Mrs. Bently bathed the
baby, because one of the few things on which meek




38           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
Aunt Debby insisted, was, that no less skilful fingers
than those of the Head Nurse should perform this
important task: before Mrs. Bently knelt Ann to
hold pincushion, powder-box and towels, and to hand
over the different garments as they were required:
Mrs. Green sat near, lest the infant should get uproarious and demand refreshments after the fashion of
juvenile Micawbers. In full view was Aunt Debby,
in a dress heavily trimmed with black crape, a deeply
bordered kerchief, jet jewelry, and a mourning-cap.
At Mrs. Bently's hand might ever be seen a goodly
array of bottles. Bottle 1 was best Bourbon, some
of which went into the bath, " to make it safe;" bottie 2 was brandy, wherewith P.'s head was rubbed,
"to prevent his taking cold, and to make his hair
grow;" bottle 3, whiskey of proof,'" to rub the infant's
back and make it strong;" bottle 4, best Hollands,
to make a spoon of toddy for P., "to keep off the
danger of colic after bathing." All this was graciously explained to Aunt Debby by Mrs. Bently.
" But really," said Miss Dean, " it seems to me that
gin must be injurious to Baby. I should think a
child's stomach altogether too delicate fo: such fiery
liquids."
"But it's diluted, ma'am."' Still it is there, a spoonful of it."




A MILLION TOO MlUCH.            39
" Well, ma'am," said Mrs. Bently, with the air of
a martyr, "these things do look strange to those
who do not know much about babies. It needs a
person that has had the care of two hundred of them,
as I have, ma'am, to know how to raise them right.
It is my duty to do my best by this orphan, but if I
ain't permitted, why I ain't-that's all. It may be,
ma'am, as you could find some one who'd suit your
idee better." Mrs. Bently spoke as one who greatly
doubts, and her hint of departure threw Aunt Debby
in despair.  "0, to be sure you know best, Mrs.
]Bently; I would not hinder you from taking any course
that is proper for our Baby. I leave it all to you,
and his life is so precious, you know-the last of his
name, and all this property-the whole family credit
depends on him."
"True indeed, ma'am, and as I was telling Mrs.
Jillet, we are bringing him up to be a credit. A
finer child was never seen. Don't alarm yourself
about the sup of good liquor he gets, Miss Dean. Why,
there's the little Dutch babies as are just reared on
lager and other things of the kind, the finest-looking
children ever one saw."
"I'm sure I didn't know those people used beer
and liquor for their children more than we do," said
Miss Dean.




40            A MIILLION TOO MUCH'.
"Perhaps, ma'am," replied Mrs. Bently with an
injured air, "you haven't been to Chicago like as I
have. Was sent for there, to nurse a baby, ma'am,
and I saw the children, just toddling about, that could
drink off their mug of lager, and scream like Injins
after it, ma'am; they were so fat they were broad as
they were long, and their cheeks had the red on them
like red paint.  0, I've seen something of babies, I
can tell you, ma'am."
About this time Dr. Roxwell began to look
suspiciously at Mrs. Green.  She had been a favorite
of his, because she was an honest, bright, well-tempered woman, with a light step, and a merry smile.
She was growing indolent and heavy-eyed; the pink
on her cheeks had deepened into purple; her laugh
had ceased to ring out clearly as she hugged and
tossed her little nursling.  The old mother who
stayed at home and took care of the two babies that
Mrs. Green had left behind her when she went to
earn good wages from the hungry heir, had come one
evening to Dr. Roxwell.
"Doctor dear, there's something amiss with Jane.
She's not herself at all. I'm fearing somebody is
leading her off to drink, and indeed I always heard
that was an unlucky house for liquor. Sure it's built
with the price of souls, and the young couple went a




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             41
oad way, may the Lord pity them. But look after
Jane, doctor dear, for her husband is off to the mines,
a rare decent lad, and if she goes a wrong gait she'll
break his heart, not to mention me own."
The busy doctor tried to look after Jane. He talked
to her, but she denied the whiskey accusation flatly.
"It is the high living and easy work, doctor. I
never take a drop, barring a sup of ale when I'm
faint, that boy is so hungry, doctor. Sure he eats as
if he was worth a million."
The weather was warm and the doctor dared not
make a change for Master P., although he accepted
Mrs. Green's assertions with qualifications.
Mrs., Green slept in the nursery with P. in a crib
by her side, and used to lift the little one into her
bed at night. There was. a black bruise found one
morning on this orphan, which set Aunt Debby nearly
wild, and for which no one could account, that is, none
but Mrs. Green, who would not say that she had
dropped this little unfortunate between the bed and
the crib, she having taken an unusually large nightcap just before she took the child. Perhaps it was
this mystery that made Aunt Debby restless at night,
and careful overmuch, as she thought of this small
morsel of humanity, her nephew.
One night in October, the little one being then a




42           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
year old, Aunt Debby wandered into the nursery. P.
was not in his crib. She glanced to the bed; thence
came the sound of long-drawn snores from  Mrs.
Green, but no baby was visible. Aunt Debby cautiously moved the bed covers, and there only a pair
of quivering fat legs could be seen from under the
heavy arm and shoulder-of the nurse, who had rolled
over on our baby. Mrs. Green had come very near
ending our history then and there. When Aunt Debby
succeeded in prying her off this unfortunate child's
head, he was seen to be black in the face, and nearly
lifeless.
The little confusion at Babel was nothing to what
reigned for the next few hours in the Dean mansion.
Early in the morning Mrs. Green having awakened
with a clear conscience, and utter ignorance of the
events of the past night, the doctor pronounced the
baby weaned, and sent the nurse home in a carriage,
with as much good advice as she could carry.
That evening Dr. Roxwell discussed our orphan
with his cousin Nancy. Nancy being old was deaffor ten years no sound had penetrated her tympanum.
The doctor liked to talk to her: he had the convenience
of soliloquy without its absurdity.  Cousin Nancy
%lways looked at him fiercely, nodded her head frequently, and never disputed anything, however wild.




A MILLION TOO MUCH.               43
"I wonder if P. is doomed?" said the doctor.
Is his ruin a foregone conclusion, because of his
parents' intemperance? If he escapes a hereditary
danger, have the measures of his nurses insured his
destruction? If he is free of injury from parents and
nurses, what is society going to do for him? P. is not
at all to blame thus far, he is helpless. Will he ever be
to blame however he turns out? If there is in public
sentiment or in civil law any power to save him and it
fails to be exerted, and he goes to perdition, shall we
condemn P. or the power that was not applied?








CHAPTER THIRD.
NkW Iant qehbt    telget mfatterg#
" You can believe
Sordello foremost in the regal class
Nature has broadly severed from the mass
Of men, and framed for pleasure -"








CHAPTER T IRD.
W7hat ~tu7t Debby did for hiurhm.
ABY P. by a miracle survived the reign of
his three nurses.  As we have shown, the
last achievement of Mrs. Green was to suffocate the Heir of a million.
Aunt Debby put in Mrs. Green's place a silver
salver, a silver bowl, and a silver spoon so heavy that
the poor Heir found it very difficult to handle.
Mrs. Bently's rule lasted a year and a half after
Mrs. Green's departure. The longer she remained
the greater privileges she arrogated to herself, and
it was not unusual to. find the nursery filled with the
head nurse's friends, all of whom were getting treated
at the expense of the orphan. On one of these occasions Aunt Debby sent for little P. to be brought
down to the parlor that she might exhibit him to an
admiring acquaintance.  Our P. was a fine-looking
child, tall and strong. Usually very bright in face
and speech, Aunt Debby delighted in his gracious
way of receiving his guests, and in the acuteness of
his replies. But on this unhappy day all was changed.
(47)




48           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
The Heir stood with round, wide-open, owlish eyes
and a stupid stare; his under lip fell, his forefinger
was thrust aimlessly into his throat, he swayed about
with his head on one side, and replied to every word
with an inane grin.
" Dont be silly, my boy," said Aunt Debby. "Why,
how you act! where is our little gentleman? Come,
be polite and speak to us."
But it was evident that P. was doing his very best,
and that it was bad enough. The child had no control over his staring eyes and drivelling mouth. Aunt
Debby gazed in horror. This idol of her soul had
become idiotic; it was apparent that he had been
allowed to fall, and the jar had ruined his brain.
She shrieked to a servant to run for the doctor, and
laying her boy on the sofa hung over him, clasping
the idle hand that would go into his mouth, and looking tearfully into the round silly eyes, her soul
shrinking with horror at the queer "he! he, ha!"
the only sound which the usually bright and merry
P. seemed capable of producing.
The doctor came with speed, and Aunt Debby met
him, wringing her hands, tears streaming over her
face.
"', doctor, our boy is idiotic! My child's brain




A JILL[ON TOO MUCH.             49
is ruined! Oh the bright lovely darling-look at him
-he knows nothing at all!"
The doctor carefully examined his little patient,
and then without a word went up stairs.
" Can't you help him, doctor?  Will he always be
this way?" cried Aunt Debby, when the physician
again stood by the sofa where P. lay.
"He'll come to himself, Miss Dean. The child is
drunk. That fiendish nurse up stairs has been feeding him with whiskey, and her company have let him
eat the sugar out of their glasses of brandy and water
until he is at the silly stage of drunkenness; and to tell
you the truth, Miss Dean, I had as soon have seen him
idiotic; this business is much worse than you imagined.
I have advised that Bently to leave as soon as possible,
and you had better go and enforce that by an order.
If she stays much longer here, there will be a Sensation Murder in to-morrow's paper, and I shall become
known to fame."
A baby drunk! This gibbering infant idiot was
the victim of King Alcohol. Do you wonder that
with the memory of that sharp pistol-shot which had
heralded the father's self-destruction, with the thought
of that young mother's wretched fate, the soul of
Aunt Debby grew sick within her, and that gazing on
D




50            A MIILLION TOO MUCH.
her baby's unmeaning face she entered into the bitter
Valley of the Shadow of Death?
"It is possible that the injury to his mind may
be permanent," said Dr. Roxwell, "or he may be
restored. But look you here, Miss Dean. The use
of liquor renders one physically likely to crave it; it
opens brain cells that do not close. Now tell me, if
you can, will this child ever be held morally accountable for his sins if he becomes a drunkard, or will
the parents who poisoned him before his birth, or that
wretched woman who has thus imposed on his infant
helplessness, be accountable?"
"0, doctor," cried Aunt Debby, smitten with a
sudden dread, "will I be accountable! I wanted to
do what was right, to train him well-and see what
he has come to."
" And how far have you trained him, Miss Dean?"
"Already?  Why he is too little; I have been
waiting for the time to come."
"You have let many precious hours go by," said
the doctor.
P. came out of his imbecility. Next day he seemed
"' as good as new." Mrs. Bently was gone, and the
Heir did not appear to miss her greatly. Aunt Debby
said that Ann was a kind, well-meaning girl, moreover " young and biddable;" and as Ann was supposed




A MILLION TOO MIUH.             51
to have gained experience during her tutelage to Mrs.
Bently, she was now given full sway over the nursery,
with directions not to allow little Master any beer,
brandy, or other intoxicating liquors.
On the second day of the new reign the screams
of the small lord of the mansion pierced every ear.
Miss Dean was receiving morning callers, but as the
outcry rose more furious each instant, she was forced
to excuse herself, and go to ascertain why so great
wrath existed in this celestial mind.
"Deed, ma'am," said Ann, who sat with a flushed
face by the nursery-table spread with conventional
boiled mutton and rice pudding, "it is just because
little Master wants his beer, ma'am, which the doctor
said I wasn't to give him."
"That baby cry for beer!" exclaimed the aunt.
" Why, the taste of it ought to be odious to him."
"Maybe it ought, but it ain't. No indeed, he likes
it far better than milk or water-and me offering of
him both."
Our P. had been performing a war dance about the
room, whooping madly at intervals. He now pointed
an accusing finger at his maid, and stammered, " She
had'um!"
Aunt Debby looked about carefully, and discovered
an empty beer-glass hidden under the table.




52            A MILLION TOO MUCH.
Ann saw that it was time to defend herself, and she
said, "You wouldn't expect me to go without a glass
of ale, ma'am, after taking it regular this two years?"
" You must either go without or' lose your place,'
said Aunt Debby, rising to more firmness than she
had ever dared assume with the august Bently.
"There is nothing of the kind to bh  used in this
nursery, or in the boy's presence."
The impression made on Miss Dean's mind by the
doctor's remark that she had lost many precious hours,
was deepened by a brief visit from a lady with two
children, one a little younger, the other a year older
than the infant Millionaire.  These children, to Aunt
Debby's astonishment, were able to repeat texts and
hymns, and reply intelligently to many questions on
religious subjects and Scripture history. They spent
some time on Sabbath listening to Bible stories,
answering questions and learning something new.
"It is really time to begin with P.," said Aunt
Debby. " I had no idea such small children could learn
anything. He can say his prayers at least after this."
A look of wonder and horror crossed the lady's
face, as she found that the glib-tongued P. had not
yet been taught to pray.  But it was ignorance, not
irreligion, on Aunt Debby's part; and that night and




A JMILLIrON TOO MUG]?.           53
every night thereafter for years, Aunt Debby bent
over her boy's crib, and had him repeat his prayer.
P. had been attracted by the instructions given to
his playmates, and went with them to their mother's
knee to learn. The elder baby concluded to turn
tutor to his child-host, and carefully taught him that
Samson was the strongest man.  Next day he tried
to show off his pupil's proficiency, and asked P. " who
was the strongest man?"
"Ginger!" cried P., who had paid a sly visit to
Mrs. Jillet's store-room, and been nearly strangled as
the result of his explorations.
Aunt Debby was quite ashamed of her nephew,
and began to teach him forthwith.
At five years old you could not find in all the city
a finer-looking child than Mr. P. when he took his
walks with Ann.  He held himself like a king; his
large dark eyes-  and flowing masses of black hair —
just like the curls that had hung about his dead
mother's face-challenged universal attention. Ann
rejoiced in arraying him in velvet suits, patentleather boots with red tops, plumed hats, and frills of
choice lace. She felt that some of the grandeur of
her young charge was reflected upon her.  We must
also say for Ann that she never unduly restrained the
boy, but let him play how, what, and with whom he




54           A MILLION TOO MIIUCH.
woald, provided he left her to an undisturbed flirtation with her young man.
Miss Debby, being of a mild unsuspicious nature,
placed implicit faith in Ann; and when the claims of
society took her away from home in an evening, our
lady went with an easy mind, believing that her darling was quite secure with his maid.
Though Ann was willing to charge the Heir high
wages for her attendance upon him, she did not feel
that his claims upon her time and attention were
equal to those of her young man. She began to have
a penchant for evening walks, finished by an oyster
supper, and for going to the theatre to see the performance of the plays, which she had hitherto been
content to read by the light of midnight gas.
Ann tried first one way and then another to get
our P. to sleep. The "' Universal Baby Panacea"
had failed to be soporific: after a heavy dose P. was
as wakeful as ever.
Miss Debby had gone away one evening, and Ann
oas longing to get off to a dance with her young man.
She hit upon the expedient of frightening the boy to
sleep. She put him in bed, and sat down to readher voice was a loud monotone —and she began with
"A True Account of one Count Le Roy, who was
guilliotined in Paris, and thereafter walked with his




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             55
HIead in his Hands to the Cemetery of St. Genevieve."
Her tones jarred on P.'s nerves; his eyes started
with horror; his fat limbs shook under the bed-covers,
but no sleep came. Ann kept looking at him impatiently.  Her first story ended, she took another,
deepening the tragedy of her expression. " The
Quarry Murder, being the dying confession of one
Wild Walt, who killed eighteen different men."
P. was making various little groans and starts
during this reading; he crouched among the pillows,
and his black eyes glared about, seeing murderous
hands with knives or pistols, in every shadow.
"Why don't you go to sleep, child?" demanded
Ann, when this mild tale was concluded.' O, 0, I can't!"
"And why not, do tell-it's long past time!"
"0! I can't, I'm-I'm  thirsty."  P. scorned to
say he was afraid.
Ann wisely concluded that he must be frightened
yet further. " Come to the bath-room, and I'll get
you a drink," she said; so the trembling child slid out
of bed, and in bare feet and little white gown crept
with her through the hall, clinging to her dress with
all his might.
" I reckon there's ghosts in this house," said Ann,
coolly.  "There ought to be-a man was killed here




56            A MILLION TOO MUCH
once-ah! did you hear anything?  I thought I did.
Here is your drink."
"Where, where was the man killed?" gasped P.,
taking a sip of water.
"Why you ain't a bit thirsty —come back to bed
with you. Where was he killed? Yonder in the
front-room. Ah, don't you see something white? I
do. Ah-h-h!"
The wicked girl darted off at full speed, intent
only in thoroughly frightening her charge, who sped
after her, yelling with terror.
The noise brought up Ann's young man, who
waited below. He came cautiously up stairs and
looked in. P. was clinging to Ann's neck.
" Can't you get that little fool to sleep? We'll be
late. Why don't you give him some laudanum?  It
is the best thing in the world. Try it," cried the
interloper.
" I don't know if there is any, and —i'm afraid of
it."' Pooh! a teaspoonful won't hurt him a hair. Hunt
it up and give it to him, I say, or I'll go without you.
You are as big a fool as he is. Being up so is what
hurts him."
Ann searched the medicine closet for laudaritum,
ard found it; and although some careful druggist had




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             57
marked it " Poison" in red letters, she poured out a
spoonful, and not a small one, for poor P., who todok
it on condition that she would lie on the bed beside
him.  The poor little fellow  crept close to the
treacherous creature, and held by her hand until he
got into a deep sleep, when Ann at last was able to
steal away from him and go to her dance.
Aunt Debby never went to the nursery when she
got home late at night; she took it for granted that
all was right there. She did not come this night
when her nephew's sleep grew deeper and deeper, and
the life of the child-heir trembled in the balance.
Well perhaps for him, if out of the dread shadow of
the coming years he had escaped by some short and
easy road to God's peace and rest. People thought
he trod a golden path; they envied the boy his wealth;
but all behind him lay the blackness of sorrow, shame,
and death, and the future hung dark as a winter
storm; and what a maze was all the present to this
baby's feet! They could not waken P. next morning.
Itis breathing grew fainter and slower still; such a
strange pallor fell over his face; and his full lips were
purple with a dark circle around them, like that
which rimmed his fast-shut eyes.  For the errors of
nurses One and Two, Dr. Roxwell had been called
in haste. He was sent for now by Aunt Debby, who




58            A MILLION TOO MUCH.
was on the verge of distraction; while Ann, with
beautiful candor, was replying to close questions
under the heads of beer and brandy:"Doctor, is it a fit? is it whiskey again? oh what
is it? will he die? our beautiful boy!"
Dr. Roxwell went straight to  the point.  He
looked at the child, at the guilty Ann, and more than
guessed what had been done. He spoke fiercely:" Girl, tell me how much laudanum you gave this
loy! Tell me truly, so that I can save him! Tell
me, or I will have you hung for his murder!"
Ann fell on her knees with a cry, and faltered out
her agonized confession. "Will he die! will he die!"
" Yes, he will die, I haven't a doubt; it has taken a
wonderful hold on him. Die-and you killed him."
Poor Ann, she paid dearly for that bad act, for
Dr. Roxwell had a patient raving in brain fever
at the hospital, long after Master P. was racing about
jubilant and strong. Of course the child saw no
more of Ann, and Dr. Roxwell, quite in despair
of nurses, suggested  a nursery governess.  The
guardians were consulted in due form. They decided
that it would not injure P. to learn his letters, and
Miss Dean was kindly accorded permission to choose
the nursery governess to suit herself. It was one of
the compensations such as are ever occurring in this




A HILLION TOO MUCH.               59
life, that after the direful age of Bently, Green & Co.,
came a good, pious, loving girl to guide this poor child,
who, despite his money, seemed born to misery.
About this time Dr. Roxwell informed his deaf
cousin that he had begun to believe in haunted houses
and in doomed races, and he thought the Dean home
and lineage came in that hapless category-no one
that went near them prospered. He said this because
he had that morning been called to a little babe,
which he found dead. It belonged to Mrs. Green,
once P.'s nurse, and the cause of its death was evident to the doctor; the statement was that it had
fallen out of bed and been killed by the fall; but
Dr. Roxwell was firmly of the opinion that it had
been pushed out by the tossings of its drunken
mother, and had chilled to death on the bare floor,
on that winter night. The doctor shivered as he
thought of the little cold creature wailing its life
away, its mother too drunk to hear it cry.
Mrs. Green had been travelling a downward path
these years.  That "decent lad," her husband,
looked a heart-broken fellow, and the dollars he had
made in mines melted like so many snow-flakes, while
his children were. neglected, and the old mother on
whom the burden of cares fell, grew grayer and more
wrinkled every day. She came to the doctor with a




60           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
piteous appeal. "Can't you do something for our
Jane, sir?  Ah, it was you got her yon drinking
place, bad luck to the day and hour, though you
meant no harm, sir, but kindness all. True, then,
heaven has no bed for the like of the head nurse who
tempted my girl off to drink, and it is only a ruin of
a home is left us; and you know she's a soul, doctor
dear, and what'll become of that if she goes on?"
1" I might help her some if she would help herself.
If she really wants to leave off drinking, perhaps I
could make it easier for her."
" Willin' is it? Sure she's not willin'. And wants,
do you say —why doctor, dear, she wants nothing but
drink. Oh, why ever did I let her go to that house,
where the curse of the Lord lies heavy for the blood
and tears and broken hearts and ruined souls that it
made in making money!"
The doctor had to h-ear many plaints like this from
the old mother, and s'J~ie terse, sharp words from the
miserable husband, who one day would ask if he
might not put his wife in the Insane Asylum, and
another would grimly threaten to kill himself and be
out of his woe.
"I wish," said the doctor to his deaf cousin, "that
I had never seen the Dean house or' any one belonging to it! Yet after all I like and pity Miss Debby;




A M~ILLION TOO MUCH.            61
and I think that boy is one of the most winning and
beautiful creatures that ever God made."
On Sabbath this child, whom the doctor so much
admired, was left in the morning with his governess,
in the afternoon with his aunt.  The governess
found her pupil a "rich and respectable" heathen.
Aunt Debby's teachings had not been of a style to
take hold of his youthful mind. Miss Gale tried a
new system; she procured books of pictures and
Bible stories, cards whereon were texts in such beautiful letters that it was quite a pleasure to learn
them; and more than all, she could sing; and, instead
of Ann's wild love-songs, the nursery now rang to the
notes of those sweet hymns of childhood, which
Christian mothers have loved and sung these many
years. To Aunt Debby's surprise, P. also began to
go to church, and to behave quite well during service;
this Aunt Debby considered the most remarkable
thing she had ever heard of; her nephew being only
five years old.








CHAPTER FOURTH.
4 Iis childhood was one eternal round
Of the game of going on Tickler's ground,
Picking up gold in reality."








CHAPTER FOURTH.
Ciltinary and Literary 8ssisstance.
T was a great satisfaction to Aunt Debby that.4_  her boy "'took kindly" to his letters.  He
conceived an affection for the alphabet at
first sight; his exploits in spelling b-a ba,
and b-o bo, were the admiration of the household,
and neither pains nor payments were spared. Aunt
Debby unfortunately knew no better way of rewarding her little nephew's precocity of intellect, than by
pampering his appetite.
We all know the story of the " Three Boys and
their Three Cakes."  Miss Dean followed the example of the model mothers in that entertaining narrative; and when P. achieved a scraggy A on his slate,
or advanced to another syllable in his spelling, she at
once repaired to Mrs. Jillet and proposed some eatable
as his recompense.
Since P. concluded his first year, he had been giv.
ing birthday parties; or at least his aunt gave them
for him. Mrs. Bently inaugurated this custom, in
order that she might have a grand gossip and supper,
E:              (65)




66            A MILLION TOO MUCH.
with all the stylish nurses in the vicinity.  The nurse
had said that a child with P.'s expectations could not
begin too early to learn to exercise an elegant hospitality; and the strength of custom was on her side;
for, as Aunt Debby knew, fashionable little children
had parties; and our aunt was one of those women
who are always following precedents, doing as others
do, and so saving themselves the trouble of thinking.
Miss Gale, the governess, did not feel at liberty to
give Miss Dean advice, and was obliged to be silent
over what she considered the enormities of the
juvenile party.
Aunt Debby said she did not wish to be over-fashionable in her party. She knew that children ought
to keep early hours; late eating was bad for their
tender constitutions. P.'s guests, therefore, on his
fifth birthday, came at six, supped at eight, and went
home under convoy of nurses or big brothers, at ten
o'clock.
When these thirty children sat down to the table
they were a wonderful company; the eyes that
should have been fast shut in sleep, were gazing
greedily at dishes piled high with nuts and fruit; at
plates and baskets of rich cakes of all kinds; at
bright clear wine, and brandy jellies; at birds and
pat4s, and culinary nonsense of all kinds. The little




A MILLIONV TOO MUCH.            67
girls wore rings and bracelets, necklaces and pins,
shining silk and white puffings of lace; and the little
boys were all velvet and glitter, and one while
they imitated grown peorle, and talked nonsense
about the food and the clothes, and then forgot themselves, and fell in tiffs and rages, and smacked each
other's.pretty little countenances with their teaspoons,
and pulled each other's hair, then went to sobbing and
sulking, were carried away, coaxed and comforted,
and brought back restored.
When all had eaten to repletion, and lolled back in
their chairs, balancing their knives on the teacups,
playing tattoos with their forks, and looking generally
puffy and distressed, having taken too much lobster
and chicken salad, and too many oysters; the butler
pat by every plate a tiny glass, and half filled it with
mine. The small master of the feast was not unversed
in wines; he knew what he liked, and just now " golden
sherry" was his favorite, so that was the wine given.
When all were served, Master P. clambered to a
standing in his chair of state, and in a manner carefully inculcated by the butler, and in a form of speech
originated by that potentate, drank the health and
happiness of his young friends. The little images
drank their wine with zest, though there was some
hard winking to keep back the tears; and then the




68            A MILLION TOO MUCH.
glasses were half filled again, and a six-year-old gen.
tleman who had been drilled for the occasion, stood
up to propose the health of Master P. and many
happy returns of the birthday.
The young orator was confused by so many listeners, and failed in his speech; his sister, interfering
with the mal apropos criticism common to sisters,
cried, "Happy Geordie, happy; you said unhappy."
"iNo, I didn't thay it, Thusy," lisped Geordie; and
all his little friends giggled at his embarrassment,
crying," You did, you did!"
"I don't care," cried Geordie, goaded to wrath;
"I don't care if he has any more of'em or not!"
"'Oh, yes, we do; he has such nice parties!"
shouted the children; for already poor P. was followed for the loaves and the fishes-for the gleanings
of his million, and not for himself.
Aunt Debby came to the rescue, and drank her
nephew's health, so the children got their other halfglass of wine.
After supper, Aunt Debby tried to have them play
"'blindman's-buff," but they were too full and too
cross. Three or four of the wee things could dance,
and Miss Gale played tunes for them, in the midst of
which entertainment the master of the festivity was




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            69
found sobbing behind a sofa in a truly deplorable
manner.
"What is the matter, my darling?" cried Aunt
Debby. When the cause was made apparent, it
proved to be that P. could not dance; he was ir
agonies of envy and-indigestion.
"Indeed, Miss Gale, this is a great oversight," said
Aunt Debby; "we will have the dancing-master come
and teach him. Don't cry, my dear, you can dance
your next birthday."
Miss Gale had a wakeful night. Ier charge was
restless and feverish; he had ill dreams; suffered
with nightmare; talked nonsense; and shrieked in
his sleep. Next morning, his head ached; of course
he had no appetite, and could not get up. Miss Gale
had had time for meditation; she went down to a late
breakfast with Miss Dean, and ventured to suggest
that children's parties were unhealthful-were likely
to make the little ones bilious and dyspeptic.
"They do seem injurious," said Miss Dean; "but
then other people have them, mothers who ought to
know what is right; and I can't be hard on our boy.
HIe will not have another for a year."
"But he will go to several. If he averages one a
month during the year, and each one has this effect.,
I should thlnk he would become a sickly c4 Id. Then,




70            A MILLI)lN TOO MUCH.
Miss Dean, these parties are bad for the temper. The
children get wildly excited, and you saw how cross
they were."
"Yes," said Aunt Debby, tranquilly; " I was sorry
anything happened to vex my child. We must have
him taught to dance, and then he will enjoy it next
year."
"And, ma'am," insisted Miss Gale, " I think the
parties are bad for the morals of the children. See
how envious they are of each other's appearance or
accomplishments-how jealous and covetous. The
parties foster hate and spite, instead of love; and
don't you think it wrong to give children wine?"
0' O, yes," said Miss Dean.  " I never wish it to be
given to our boy. The doctor forbids it. But a glass
of sherry once a year for his birthday, is another
matter; isn't it?"
"But if that is repeated a dozen times a year at
the parties of other little friends, are not the habit
and the love of wine likely to be fostered?"' Dear, dear, I'm  afraid so indeed," said Miss
Dean.
"And the sherry was not the only thing to cultivate that taste.  Those peaches were strong of
brandy; and there were three kinds of wine-jelly on
the table. I know very few think as I do; but safe




A MILLIOiN TOO MUCI.            7
side is best side, and I should advocate giving children
milk to drink, plain food to eat, childish plays, and
early hours; they would be happier and better for it."
"It is a very perplexing question. What can I
do?" sighed Aunt Debby.
"'Find out your duty, and go straight on and
do it."
" Oh, yes; but what is duty, and what would folks
say? and ought I to set myself up against the customs and opinions of my friends? It is very trying
for an inexperienced woman like me to have a child
to rear. I really do want to know mny duty, and I
hope to be able to do it. Miss Gale, when you go out
to-day, would you be kind enough to engage a very
respectable dancing-master to come here and give
that dear child lessons?"
Are we surprised at Aunt Debby?  We must consider that hers had been no religious education; the
influence of her family had been all for worldliness;
she knew literally nothing of any other earthly life
than the one she led among wealthy friends, who
bounded all their expectations with this earthly
horizon.
Aunt Debby had found a something better, loftier,
than these associates; but she had no idea of living
up to the full extent of her deities and privileges as a




72            A MILLION TOO MUCH.
child of God. Indeed, she was ignorant alike of duty
and privilege. There were many who had as high
fortune and position as Miss Dean, in that her native
city, who were children of the light, walking in the
blessing and beauty of their eternal home; but they
were not likely to come within the circle where the
rich liquor-dealer's family moved. The paternal business brought its curse in many ways to Miss Debby,
and here was one of them; under its doleful shadow
she groped painfully along toward heaven, learning
the lessons of God's providence very slowly and
stupidly, seeing hitherto with half-enlightened eyes,
as did he who saw men as trees walking.
And now this woman, who had no fixed principles
to guide herself, no steadfast views of duty, no keen
discrimination between right and wrong, had put into
her hands the training of a child-of a child unhelped
by prayerful strivings of a godly parentage, poor offspring of parents who had committed a double suicide,
and who now stood dizzily balanced between safety
and destruction; great good possible, great ruin
probable; he could be saved by some strong guardianship of parents, teachers, nurses, friends, society,
law, and they seemed likely to fail him one and all.
As for money, P. was like the heiress of the house
of Kilmansegg,




A MILLION TOO MUCH'.            73'Gold, and gold, and gold without end;
He had gold to lay by and gold to spend,
Gold to give, and gold to lend,"
and the worst of it was that he was kept fully in.
formed of his golden virtues and prospects, and was
taught to greatly plume himself thereon. The coachman blessed him as the owner of the horses, and told
him what they were worth a span; the butler displayed the family silver, and told him no one else.
could claim an ounce of it; the books in the nursery
wiled him with tales of the good boy who was very
rich and scattered his money by handfuls among poor
children who were insufficiently grateful.
As Aunt Debby sent for the dancing-master because
other children danced, and gave parties for her boy
because other boys had them, so she lavished toys
without number, and pocket-money in abundance, on
her child.  To get a toy, to delight in it one hour,
weary of it the next, and make it the subject of scientific experiments the third, was an every-day affair.
Miss Gale saw the nursery floor and tables covered
with the debris of playthings on which had been spent
sums that would have been fortunes to many a famished mother whose life was one long " Song of the
Shirt," or to bareboned, scarecrow babies turned adrift
to pick up their own living among the city scavengers.




74           A MILLION TOO M1UCII.
"Miss Dean," remonstrated the governess, "I think
so many toys, and liberty to break them up, will make
him wasteful and extravagant. Would it not be well
to limit him, and give him some responsibility about
the use of what he has?"
" 0, I could not limit the dear boy. It would seem
like sheer robbery, keeping him out of his own."
"Still, I think he ought to be taught self-restraint
and self-denial," urged Miss Gale.
"That sounds so cruel," said Aunt Debby.  "He
will have trouble enough, and be denied enough, when
he grows up. Let him have everything he wants
now.
And so our hero was prepared for the stern reality
of life by being indulged and pampered and made the
veriest little Sybarite in the land.
Had Miss Gale been wise enough to suggest to Aunt
Debby that God, whose love is highest of all, and perfect in all its exercise, does not train his children for
their warfare and their crown by yielding to their
every desire and fostering their every whim; if she
had shown her how to take the dealings of the heavenly
love as the pattern of her culture of her child, she
might have made many dark things clear, and many
crooked places straight. Miss Gale did not thus know
how to take up her parable; she could only suggest




A MfILLICN TOO MUCH.           75
facts, or state her theories, and Miss Dean, replying
vaguely, went on in the old way.
If P. had by any chance objected to his lessons, he
might have been permitted to grow up a dunce; but,
from some innate affinity with books, or because his
teacher had the rare art of making study fascinating,
P. kept steadily at his appointed tasks, and during
them, enjoyed the —to him-exceptional luxury of
being thoroughly well kept in order, and having some
one to obey.
Outside of the short daily sojourn in the schoolroom, life was to the boy a chaos. He was flattered,
coaxed, indulged. If his appetite failed, the household stores were ransacked for some dainty to lure his
wavward palate. If one game ceased to be amusing,




76           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
without considering that whether money is a curse or
a blessing depends on how it is applied.
Still, in view of the fact that Master Dean is at the
mercy of administrators and guardians (of their own
interest), we need not be greatly fearful that he shall,
on attaining his majority, have the temptation of the
possession of great wealth.
As Doctor Roxwell was very frequently called in
to rescue our boy from the dangers consequent upon
over-eating, and as he piloted the young man safely
through the perils of measles, whooping-cough, and
other evils that pursue unsuspecting youth, he of
course came to understand the heir pretty thoroughly,
and concluded that he was a boy who would be good
if he could, and would have practised virtue if he had
had any encouragement to do so.
" The fact is," said Doctor Roxwell'to his cousin
Nancy, "if that boy had been born to honest poverty,
he has a spirit in him that would rise to conquer
obstacles, and he would work his way through the
world like a man. Trying to make a useful citizen
of him in the way Miss Dean is taking, is like endeavoring to train an athlete by wrapping him up in
velvets, feeding him on sweetmeats, and putting him
to sleep in down in a room shut up to otto of roses
and other disguises of impure air. The question is,




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            77
What is responsibility, and who is responsible? and
can that boy be anything great or good with everybody so amiably working against him? The best thing
that could happen to him would be to be stolen by a
gipsey."
H.ere the doctor's deaf cousin nodded vehemently
at the right moment.
During these early years P., having exhausted
every pleasure of his existence, resolved on a treat
quite new, and in the course of a walk with Mrs.
Jillet, insisted on stopping to have his boots polished
in the street, by a bootblack. The boy he beckoned
to do this service was of his own age, a sturdy tatterdemalion, with streaks of French blacking over his
keen countenance. P. put his well-covered foot on
the lad's box, and down on his knees fell the child
who was born to laborious independence, chuckling as
he rubbed and brushed, at the ornate dress and lofty
airs of I" the little swell."
The two were foster-brothers; this kneeling shoeblack was the whilom babe who had secretly shared
with P. the abundance of the maternal fount, during
Mrs. Green's evenings out. If it had not been for
P.'s pecuniary ability to hire nurses and furnish them
with ale, beer, and brandy, Master Green in clean
and well-mended corduroys might now have been




78           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
going daily to the common school; he surely would
not have had cause to blush for the maudlin female
who staggered up, with, he thought, designs on his
earnings, and he held one pocket tight shut while he
rubbed P.'s left boot, and was prepared to fight or fly,
as the case might demand. It was not Teddy Green
who filled the drunken creature's eye just then. She
seized her old crony, the elegant Mrs. Jillet, by the
hand, and cried, " Come now, it is long since you and
I had a treat together; let's go in yonder, and I'll
stand a glass of gin each, if Teddy'll lend me the
money; or maybe the child I nursed like a mother
will give me a shilling for old days' sake, forby he
don't remember them;" and she clasped the disgusted
young gentleman in her grimy, foul-smelling arms.
9 ~ ~ ~  




CHAPTER FIFTH.
gkow tis jituens.e tdp    vim  On
" I have lived so long I am weary of living;
I wish I were dead, and my sins forgiven;
Then I'd be sure I'd go to Heaven —--— "








CHAPTER FIFTH.
Hi;s Friends lend-d  a Hand.
RS. BENTLY felt that she owed it to her
friendship to Mrs. Jillet to pay occasional
visits to the housekeeper, and in doing so,
she was careful to choose such times as were
not likely to throw her in Miss Dean's way. "I must
say," said Mrs. Bently to Mrs. Jillet, "as I don't
feel able to meet that lady in friendship.  It showed
very little consideration for my feelings, and very
little care for that BLESSED ORPHAN, to break up our
agreement all of a sudden so, just because of a little
accident. Well, I lay it to Dr. Roxwell, a man as
is not the least a gentleman. Do you know, Mrs.
Jillet dear, I saw him stop in the street the other
day, and have that miserable Green-our wet-nurse,
you know-put in his own carriage and sent home,
she being too drunk to walk. I don't call that the
act of a gentleman as has a proper opinion of hisself."
4 Well, indeed!" cried Mrs. Jillet, passing the
cake and wine, which greatly endeared her to Mrs.
I                                (81)




82            A MILLION TOO IMUCH.
Bently.  " Do you know, she stopped me and young
master in the street the other day, and he being the
most pertinacious child I ever set eyes on, it took me
all the way home making up tales of her being crazy,
to put him off."
"For my part," said Mrs. Bently, "' I've no patience
with people who go on as she does. When you and I first
asked her in here to a refreshment with us, she was as
innocent as a milkmaid, and had never tasted a thing
stronger than a drop of tea, and now she's in the gutter, or the station-house, half the time off and on. I
did hear that they'd got her reformed once or twice,
but she didn't stay so. I'm quite disgusted with her.
I never look at her if I meet her; and don't you do
it, Mrs. Jillet; we've nothing to do with that sort,
thank fortune!"
" Not I, truly," said Mrs. Jillet, proudly.  "Here
I've lived this twenty years-and a gentleman's housekeeper is no poor body, let me tell you. I'll have
nothing to do with her. It is quite enough I treated
her to toddy and egg-nog time and again.  There's
some people will go on from bad to worse. The butler's coming in after a bit with some brandy and honey
mixed, would make one's mouth water." " Very good,"
replied Mrs. Bently, settling herself complacently.
"I've a good boarding-place, Mrs. Jillet, I can




A MIILLION TOO MUCI.               83
recommend it to you, anytime you happen to get out
of service." This with secret malice.
"That's not likely," said Mrs. J., thrtly.  "They
can't do without me."
"So I thought," said Mrs. Bently. "And you see
how it was, and so it will be with you, my dear."
" Not a bit of it. That young gentleman rules here,
and I know how to get on with him. He gets a deal
here he don't get elsewhere. Wasn't it last Saturday
I let him in to suck a julep through a straw, and that
pleases every child. The governess is a bit strict with
him, and his aunt overmild; for he's a stirring lad,
ever after something new, and he finds that something
in here."
Yes; Mrs. Jillet knew how to charm her young
master. She took him to the circus, and to the ropedancers, under oath of strict secrecy, and that even
surpassed the fascination of the occasion when he had
the organ-grinder and the monkey up in the playroom for an hour, and wound out tunes for himself.
After that, P. sometimes cursed his stars, with good
reason, because he had not been born an organgrinder.
Though Mrs. Jillet supposed that her fabrications
on the subject of Mrs. Green had satisfied Master
Dean's inquiring mind, they had by no means done




84           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
so. He detailed the circumstances to Miss Gale, who
seized the opportunity to give him his nurse's history,
and make her story the text of a small lecture on
temperance. After some searching, they one day
found Teddy Green, and had him follow them to the
gate of a public square, where he polished P.'s boots
and answered questions.
"' I stays home when mum ain't taking on too bad.
Grannie says it's all along of going to your house,
and I wishes she hadn't gone. Yes; pop and me has
ruyther a bad time. The big un, older nor me, he's
bound to the grocer, and he gets on pretty good.
Then the little un, he's dead, and it's good luck for
him, only pap an' me cried'cause he froze, you know,
an' freezing's hard on a baby. Not so bad as growin'
up drunken, grannie says, and likely'taint."
" But who takes care of you?" asked P., with wideopen eyes.' Take care of myself," said the bootblack, coolly.
"And don't you have any one make you wash every
day, and get up, and go to bed, and take you out, and
buy you things, and teach you things, and always
afraid you'll break your neck or get run over?"
"Pooh, no!" said Teddy. "Pop buys me some
clothes winters, and I have a rare time keeping mum
from selling of them. But I'll be bigger after awhile,




A MIILION TOC MUCH.             85
and then mum won't boss me, and I'll go to nightschool. Black your boots agin some day? Oh, my
eye, that's a quarter, and I can keep it all. Now I'll
have a sausage for dinner!"
Teddy being gone, our boy was melancholy because
his lot in life was not that of a bootblack. But he
was growing fast, and one of his guardians purchased
a pony for him, and another had him taught to swim;
and the butler told him there was an art called fishing, which he might exercise in country places in the
summer.
Aside from these new pleasures, there was a high
art called Patronage, which P.'s story-books taught
him was the part for rich boys to exercise toward
small ragamuffins, found lying about loose in the
streets; and P. thought it would be grand indeed to
take Teddy Green into his royal favor. That was
before the palmy days of newsboys and bootblacks;
the good times of the present, when they have lodging-houses, friends, and teachers, and not only lay up
money for themselves in the bank, but are become
rather a fashionable charity.
At first P. contented himself with giving Teddy
money, which the recipient at once laid out in provisions for a good supper for himself, father, and
grandmother, remarking to P., "What we eats we




86           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
has, you see; but what we keeps, mum gets, and
buys gin; so it's no use laying up, or trying for
clothes."
Miss Gale's interest in the Green family grew with
two or three visits she paid them. It was so sad to
see that poor old mother taking up again the burdens
of life, and toiling under them, at eighty years, while
tears returned to eyes that had long ago worn out the
power of weeping; and, with quick-coming sobs, she
bemoaned her daughter's fate.
" Only to think it!" she said to Miss Gale; "the
Deans grow rich on the whiskey that ruins my poor
girl body and soul! Then there's the law, bless you!
they fine her, and she being too poor to pay, goes to
jail, and perhaps to the House of Correction; but
they can't knock the love of drink out of her. They'd
better fine the Deans, and the like of them, that grow
rich on it, and these high and lofty ones that sets the
poor such a bad example. The law had better be for
stopping the sale-that's what it had, miss. The way
they do now is just shutting the pasture-gate after
the cow's strayed, and sending for the doctor after the
man he's dead."
"Come, now, keep your courage up," said Miss
Gale, "and you and I will try and save your
aaughter.'"




A MTILLION TOO MUCL.            87' That's a good word; but hope is clean gone. She
is so full of drink all the time, that there's no getting
her to try against it. She used to take spells of doing
better; but, after what happened the poor baby, I
think she drinks to drown thought"
There might have been no hope for Mrs. Green,
had not the Dean carriage, one day, providentially
run the poor creature down at a street crossing, and
broken her leg. The coachman had been trying some
of the butler's brandy and honey, and had reached a
mental stage when all the world seemed created
simply for himself and his horses. Miss Dean and
Miss Gale were in the carriage, and the governess
saw that here was the hour of opportunity for helping Mrs. Green, and making Miss Debby do something to repair the wrong wrought in her house. It
did not occur to Miss Gale that the nurse had changed
so that the lady failed to recognise her, and that Miss
Dean was personally unknown to the family. They
had the injured woman put in the carriage and taken
to her home, and, when she had been carried in, sent
the coachman for Dr. Roxwell. The old mother kept
the poor place tidy; and, when her child had been
laid on the one bed, she handed two backless chairs
to her guests, and, while striving to undress the suffetere went on bemoaning:'"Here's more trouble




88           A JMILLION TOO vMUCH.
along of rich folks. Rich folks is our ruin. If they'd
a let us alone we'd done well enough; we're first
poisoned, and then killed by them-that we are."
Miss Gale was quietly helping her at the bed, and
Aunt Debby exclaimed, uneasily, "Why, my good
woman, you look as if you needed some rich person to
help you here."
" There'd be no need of their helping, if they had
not first hindered. My girl would not have been
knocked down if she had not been drunk. But how
did she get drunk? All along of rich people, ma'am.
She went out nursing a baby, she being nigh as innocent as a baby, and to the full as sober. Well, ma'am,
they made a drunkard of her, and turned her out like
a dog, blaming her too, ma'am, when they ought to
have blamed theirselves. Well, alack! it is a house
made up on the price of souls; and, mark my words,
ma'am, the Lord's curse will fall on it heavy enough,
for we're not the only ones ruined by them. If the
making of each of their dollars was the ruin of a soul,
they'd have a million to answer for. Their name is
Dean, ma'am."
Miss Gale had been plucking at the woman's sleeve
to try and check the current of her speech, and now
cried, "Hush! oh, hush!"  But Aunt Debby rose in
dismay. "Dean! Dean! Why, who is this?"




A- MILLION TOO MUCH,            89'It's Margaret Green, ma'am; belike you never
heard of her. There was two women, named Jillet
and Bently, who fair forced the liquor down her
throat, and coaxed her on to drink and drink; and,
having ruined her, they scorn her now, and call the
police if she speaks to them in the streets, forby they
often sat hobnobbing with her in other days. Well,
the Lord will judge'em all; and now she's ready, I
wish the doctor'd come. I little thought to see her
lie like this, without even the change of a clean bedgown to put on her."
1" Green! Green i Why, she nursed my boy, and
nearly killed him, too. I remember, she did change
very much in my house; but I had nothing to do in
helping her to change."
"Belike, ma'am," said the old woman, drily, "you
had nothing to do with hindering it. And the. Lord
often holds us as guilty for not doing good as for
doing evil."
Tears swelled in Miss Dean's eyes. "'I never
thought of this. I was shocked at her nearly killing
my poor baby."  " She quite killed her own, ma'am,"
interposed the woman.
" And I did not know she got the habit at my house.
0, I cannot tell you how I feel about this; but we will




90           A MILLION TOO MUCHI.
do everything we can for her now. Will we not, Miss
Gale?"
"It goes agin me to take your help," said the
mother, stiffly; "but we are sore in need."
"And perhaps this will begin a reformation," said
Miss Gale.
"I doubt if she can reform, she takes so much,
ma am.''
"' How much a day?" asked Miss Dean.
The old woman held up a quart bottle, which she
had found among her child's clothes. "This full,
ma'am."
"All that!" cried the ladies in a breath.
" Ay, all that. And she went to your house without knowing the taste of it. She learned to love it
in your house, ma'am. She came away a common
drunkard. Mayhap you know the verse, " Woe unto
him that giveth his neighbor drink, that putteth thy
bottle to him, and maketh him drunken also.' And
there's another, ma'am,'Woe to him that coveteth an
evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his
nest on high. Woe to him that buildeth a town by
blood.' Ah, there's a very many of them, ma'am;
I've read them time and again, and they're all true,
every one."
She stood like a weird old prophetess, one skinny,




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             91
brown hand lifted, the other clutching at the shoulder
of her daughter, who writhed and groaned on the
bed, while, before her, mild-faced, richly-dressed Miss
Debby seemed to shrink away from her denunciations.
When the doctor came. the two ladies went home
to send stores of clothes, food, and bedding to Mrs.
Green; indeed Miss Gale did more, for she thought
here was her chance for gaining influence for good
over that poor sinner, and so returned to watch with
her and care for her all night.
Miss Debby cried nearly all the way home. "She
seems to think it my fault," she sighed. "But how
can she?  I never gave her a drop. I never take
any myself, except wine for my dinner; and those
jellies and other things are not my fault; cook makes
them, and I cannot interfere. Miss Gale, do you
think I am to blame?"
"Dear madam," replied the governess, "I do not
wish to be harsh, but it seems to me that, as God has
set you over a large household, you are responsible
for what is done under your roof. You should absolutely know what is going on, and forbid and prevent
evil. I should say you could interfere with the cook,
if it was right to do so. She is your hired servant,
and owes you obedience. If you banished every drop
of wine, liquor, beer of any kind, from your family,




92           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
you would at least know that no more drunkards
would be made there."
"Every drop?" gasped Aunt Debby. "' Why, the
butler, the cook, and Mrs. Jillet would surely leave
me."
"Others could take their places; and it is better
to lose servants than to lose souls," said Miss Gale,
sinking into her own corner of the carriage, much
discouraged, adding: "It would be a great miei cy to
dear P., and you would feel that you had done your
part to keep him from intemperate habits.  One cannot be too careful in training a child."
" To be sure not. I shall talk to P. when I hear
him say his prayers. But banish everything of the
kind, and be unlike everybody! set oneself up against
society! How very singular!"
It was one of Aunt Debby's misfortunes that she
was unequal to every emergency of her life.
One of the first advantages of Mrs. Green's accident was that Teddy was comfortably dressed, and
sent to school daily, being permitted to exercise his
talent for boot-blacking during the intervals of study.
The worshipful Master Dean had a new enjoyment
springing in the arid desert of his pleasure-scorched
life, when he conducted Teddy to a tailor's establishment, and, after a few hints from Miss Gale, bought a




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             93
suit of clothes for him; then went to the bookstore
for the school-books; and finally escorted him to the
school-room, and consigned him to his teacher. It
was so delightful to have a proteg4 as old and as
large as himself, and moreover a proficient in bootblacking!
Our P. had got to be twelve years old, and had
outgrown his governess. The guardians said he must
be sent to school with other boys.  He was given a
gold watch and chain; he bought desk, portfolio,
writing-case, books, et ceteras unnumbered; he was
enrolled among the pupils of Professor Easy, and
received with the adulation and respect due to a
million.
Until the day when it was decided that he should
go to school, poor P. was ready to die of ennui; life
seemed to him unutterably long. When he read in his
Bible on Sunday to Aunt Debby, that "the years
of men's life are threescore years and ten," he wondered in his soul what men found to do in all that
time. lie coincided with David's view, that their
strength was labor and sorrow. With the rapidity
of Young America he had rushed through Solomon's
experience, and found all vanity and vexation of
spirit. The horse had become an old story; he was
weary of swimmimg; the fish would not bite; and




94           A HMILLION TOO MUCII.
Teddy was so sturdily matter-of-fact, that it was no
fun to patronize him. Story-books had lost their
entertainment; he had outgrown tops, marble, and
fancy toys; his knife cut his fingers, and his soul
loathed sweetmeats; he had eaten the good things
of this life ad nauseam; finally, he wished he was
dead; he had worn out the delights of organ-grinder
and monkey, and would have been glad if he had
never been born —though that seems a curious possibility.
Now came the glory of going to school, and P.'s
spirits revived. Alas! if he had only entered without the prestige of his fortune; if he had been put
on the footing of common boys, and had to work his
own way up in plays and studies! But, no; his wealth
was around about him like the nimbus of the gods.
He went and came with royal disregard of rules. He
was a king above all law.
When P. went on the playground he was allowed
to choose the game, and, whether he played well or
ill, he was applauded-this, not because boys are so
alive to the claims of money, but they are awake to
money's worth; and P. made every day a treat of
nuts, confections, nicknacks, and gingerbeer.
In the school-room, he, singularly enough, got to the
head of the class when he recited well, and did not




A MILLION~ TOO MUCH.            95
come down when he failed. The master never took
up the accusative against him when he had forgotten
the dative; he got perfects whether or no. The tutor
corrected his exercises, and remarked that they were
admirably well done; and no worry was made about
his learning interest, partial payments, and compound
numbers, which indeed were likely to be of little use
as regarded his own fortune-that being in the hands
of administrators.








CHAPTER SIXTH.
gab,  Qe Fong  yaibet  Ijtele  Matters
6' She showed a face
With dangers rife."'She spoke, and lo! her loveliness
Methought she damaged with her tngae;
And every sentence made it less,
false they rung."








CHAPTER  SIXTH.
How the Youznm  Ladies Helped Jtlltaters.
ASTER DEAN wandered out of the regions
B.Lf    of childhood satiated with petting.  Childhood was no fairyland to him; reality had
left no room for imagination. One of the
greatest delights of early days is to invent. It is not
so much luxury to own a real elephant, as to make an
elephant of a chair, or a big brother, draped in a
table-cloth. One does not so much care to be bought
a balloon, as to strive for days to make a balloon of
paste and paper. The joy is not to go to the theatre,
and come home sick and sleepy, but to dramatize
Mother Hubbard or -Dame Crumb, and play it out in
spite of difficulties, with the barn, or the back bedroom, to serve for the grand building with flowers and
footlights. The trouble with our boy-millionaire was,
that he never was allowed to long for anything; never
to toil to obtain; never to wait. The Genius of the
Lamp brought him everything on the instant, and the
real Aladdin was far less happy tear the imaginary
one.
(99)




100          A MILLION TOO MUCH. 
When from childhood our P. passed to youth, new
gratifications awaited him, just as likely to be worn
out as the toys that had gone before. Aunt Debby
had loved and petted her boy-she idolized the young
man. P. had a natural gallantry and courtesy, which
was agreeable to others, and pleasing to himself in its
exercise; and Aunt Debby was truly enchanted with
his winning ways.
P. did not, like Solomon, give himself " to seek and
to search out by wisdom concerning all things that
are done under heaven."  Learning in "'Professor
Easy's Genteel Establishment for Young Men" had
been made so very smooth and effortless, that there
had been no pleasure in acquisition. P. rejected with
scorn the idea of going to college, but gave himself
quite devotedly to novel reading. P.'s grandfather
Dean had built a room for a library, but he did not
know what to put into it. P. solved the difficulty
readily, and found books to fill the vacant shelves.
We are sorry that his books were, many of them, of a
questionable character.
P. tried some of Solomon's plans for killing time.
He had a conservatory and an aviary; instead of the
gardens and orchards, he got him fast horses and
bijou turnouts, and had a morsel of a gingerbread
house just out of town, which was divided into billiard



A MILLION TOO MUCGI            101
room, supper-room, and smoking-room, and where he
took friends as fast as himself, for a forlorn sort of
excitement, which they loathed for its unsatisfactori.
ness, but did not dare to say so, their pleasure being
merely ashes and bitterness, although they hid the
fact in their hearts.
P. had musical instruments, also like Solomon. He
ruined a good piano, and made the fortune of an
Italian teacher, failing to learn to play even the
simplest exercises.  He also'had flutes and violins,
wherewith he made night hideous. As for " the men
singers and women singers," we must not suppose our
young friend to have been behindhand.  He went to
the theatre and opera with great diligence; had his
favorite Stars, of whom he spoke familiarly; invited
them to suppers and to drives; amazed his Aunt Debby
by bowing and speaking to the strangest acquaintances.
For sheer lack of amusement, our young friend
might have taken to backing prize-fighters, going to
races, appreciating dog-fights and cock-fights, and
reading The New York Clipper, had not the ladies
taken him in charge when he reached the age of
eighteen.
P. was rich, amiable, polished in manners, handsome
in persons and unexceptionable in dress. He was pa



102           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
tronized by fashionable young married ladies, and by
elderly belles. He was too young to think of marrying, and the girls from whom he could have selected a
wife were yet in the nursery. He should have been
in college getting ballast for that light mind of his,
now setting sail on seas of folly. Instead of being at
college, learning the "ics" and the "ologies," Master
P. went abroad cultivating the art of flirtation. Here
was the hour when a good woman, sister or friend,
might have been P.'s salvation; instead, women who
"' meant no harm," and did no good, were likely to be
his ruin. Some fair counsellor might have given this
lad's life a grand aim; might have shown him the
responsibilities of his position; urged him to a noble
ambition; bound him to the practice of sobriety —but
no such counsellor appeared. Aunt Debby, being as
weak as she was well-meaning, as soon as manhood
dawned in her nephew, believed him capable of guiding himself, and far more judicious than she was; so,
flattered his abundant vanity, by applauding all that
he did, and appealing to his judgment on every occasion. The friends Qf the Deans were rich and fashionable, a shining circle of dress and display; but the
family of the rich liquor-dealer had not penetrated
those circles where brain, and good-breeding, and
moral greatness, stand supreme. There were noble




A  frILLIOY TOO MUCa.             103
women in the city, any one of whom, as guide and
friend, could have led P. on to the "wisdom which
excelleth folly as light excelleth darkness;" but, ah
me! they did not know our boy.
For these other sirens, what shall I say of them?
They were of the ninety-and-nine half-educated butterflies of society, who deem that woman's only mission
is to claim admiration by a fair face or a pleasing
manner. Degrading thus themselves and their own
mission, it was not to be expected that they could
elevate young Dean by anything they might say or
do. These luckless triflers, whose first thought was
dress, and whose chief desire was to obtain a gaze
of adulation, learned only in the art of setting themselves off to good advantage, might have served very
well as lay figures for milliner or mantua-maker, but
could not have risen even to the place of " moral waxworks."
Our boy! our poor boy! He had had no mother's
love and true example; he had had no sister faithful
in reproof, and tender with comfort. All be knew
of womanhood was here; an image more or less fair;
the head, a triumph of the barber over impossibilities;
the dress, a marvel from the modiste; laugh trained
to ripple out at every nothing; apt in the dance, her
only learning; and when she spoke



104           A MILLION TOO MUCs;,
"The rallying voice, the light demand,
Half flippant, half unsatisfied:
The vanity sincere and bland;
The answers wide."
The young man who learns to speak lightly ot
womanhood is in sore danger, but so P. learned, and
we cannot wonder at it. But while teaching P.
nothing that was good, these young women were bowing seeds of evil. They spoke of fashionable rnvels
of the day; and P. discerned that their hero was not
the man of honest worth, but the reckless, dashing
blade. They laughed at lavish expenditure; applauded
the furious driving that periled life and limb; and
thought it a merry joke when the rich man trampled
on the laws they claimed should only have been made
for the poor. But more than this, these girls' white
hands filled the wine-cup and passed the decanter;
and their eyes shining with excitement of dance and
music, challenged even such a lad as P., whom they
made a pet and a protege', to drink again and again
as toasts went round.' 0, surely, Mr. Dean, you'll drink with me!"
"What! refuse to drink my health?  What a
shame!"
"No, sir; I'll not let you go in that way. That
is my toast, and you are to drink it, like a friend."




A MILLION T00 MUCE             105
Up in the crystal swelled the pink curaroa, shedding its color back on the soft, ringed hand that held
the glass Presented thus, the maraschino had an
appeal more potent than its taste or its sparkle. P.
knew not that each of these bright priestesses at the
shrine of Pleasure was evoking a tremendous devil
that slept in his soul. He could not see that these
taper fingers, jewel-set, were digging wide his early
grave; and he did not hear in the tinkle of glasses,
as the healths went round, the rattle of stone and
thud of sod upon an unblessed coffin. Here, in this
glittering sea of fashionable dissipation, P. was lured
by the song of the sirens of the enchanted and fatal
isle, and he was no brave Ulysses, to stop his ears
and go safely by.
The first time that ever P. got drunk-stupid,
dead, inert from liquor-was at a birthday ball of one
of these belles, where all seemed bent on the poor
lad's destruction.
He had not ordered his own carriage to come for
him, and going home in one with others overtaken by
the strength of wine, they managed to get him laid
on his own doorway, but were all, coachman and companions, too drunk to remember to ring the bell. P.
might have shocked the genteel neighborhood by lying
there until morning-for though genteel people will




106          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
make their friends and fellow-citizens drunk, they do
not wish them to display their drunkenness in publiche might even have frozen, like Nurse Green's baby;
but Teddy Green, going home late from a printingoffice where he worked, saw him, and was moved, not
alone by humanity, but by certain affection for one
who, since childhood, had shown him many favors.
Teddy succeeded in rousing Mrs. Jillet and the butler, and by their aid got the youthful master of the
house to bed.
Next morning P., on awakening, felt some shame
and self-reproach, a little of dread as to the habit he
might be forming. There was a fine chance for some
one to make an impression, but in this world need and
opportunity are often far asunder. There was no one
to speak to P. but Mrs. Jillet. She came in early,
bringing a glass of brandy and water.
"And how are you this morning, sir?  Here's
something to set you up nicely. La, now, don't look
like that. Why, it is nothing but what befalls every
gentleman as is a gentleman. Bless me! but you'll:
get used to it; no use in being so squeamish about
trifles. Oh, dear me! you're not so old yet as you
will be, and youth is the time for enjoyment, as I
was telling Mrs. Bently. There now, that's gone,
shall I bring you a drop  more, or anything else at




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            107
all?  No?  Best go to sleep again, sir, and you'll be
fresh as a lark by noon."
P.'s next social disaster arose from the custom of
New Year's calls.  This is a fashion we inherited
from our Dutch ancestors in the good city of Manhattan, who went about from house to house to wish
the inmates a good year, and were received by the
notable housewives with a treat of " oley koeks" and
other goodies. It was a kindly custom; but, unless
there is soon a new order of exercises connected with
it, it will be "' more honored in the breach than in the
observance."
" Of course, my dear boy," remarked Aunt Debby,'" you will be very careful what you take to-day. I
was pained to see that many of the gentlemen who
came to call on me last New Year's were nearly
intoxicated."
"To be sure," said P., indifferently.  "Every one
knows it is dangerous mixing liquors; and some folks
have the vilest trash, which they believe to be good
port and brandy, because they have paid a big price
for it. I believe there is not a drop of real port wine
in the country, except what is in my cellar.  Then
you know, aunt,'many littles make a mickle;' and
when one takes a glass or half a glass, or even a tasty,




108          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
at each of a hundred calling-places, he can't help
being overloaded."'Dear, dear! Well, P., my son, you must refuse
at some of the places."
"That is easier said than done. There would be a
cry,'0, you must try my wine.''Refuse some one
else, you won't find as good champagne anywhere.''Ah, now you are slighting me, and that is too bad.'
0, you see, aunt, one cannot refuse any of the dear
creatures, and so one goes home drunk."
"' Why, it is a great pity," said Aunt Debby, sincerely.  "I wish some way might be found to do
differently."
"The way is clear enough," replied P.  "If only
the ladies wouldn't offer us drink, we would not be
drunk. What do they have the stuff brought on for?"
"~ Every one would make remarks on our penuriousness, and lack of hospitality, if we offered no wine,"
said Miss Dean, with the utmost innocence.
" O0, yes; and for fear we fellows would sneerand we would not, for the half of us would be glad
from the bottom of our souls if we were not given a
drop —you women run the risk of sending us to sleep
in the station-house."
" The station-house! Oh, my dear boy, don't sug
gest such a thing; you really frighten me!"




A MILLIONv TOO MUCH.            109
When P., in magnificent array, came down the
staircase to set out on his round of calls, he had a
view of his aunt's refection splendidly set forth in
the second drawing-room. Bottles and decanters and
glasses glittered on a side-table. Aunt Debby was
about to do her share in making drunkards. She sat
in the reception-room, a lovely, elderly gentlewoman;
one never saw softer hands, nor a kindlier smile;
there was not a fault to be found with her appearance
from top to toe. You might say the same of her intention; it was perfectly good; not a flaw in it; she
never meant the least harm; she lived in friendship
with all men and women-which is saying a good deal
for her-and yet from her house flowed one of those
rills of evil influence which are poisoning the land.
Aunt Debby went to the window to watch her boy
set off. He had a radiant little shell of a sleigh, with
wolf-skin robes; his pair of prancing black horses
seemed to appreciate the beauty of the silver-mounted
harness, and the clear ringing of their many bells.
The young owner had mounted for the first time a
stiff, high silk hat; his fur coat had been especially
imported for him, and was a Christmas gift from
Auut Debby. Beside him sat a grinning -black boy,
in brillant livery, who rolled his eyes, and showed his
teeth, in the joy of expectation. A stout, respectably



110           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
dressed fellow, with a quick step and honest face, came
by, and cheerily wished "A happy New Year." It
was Teddy Green, who had helped print P.'s morning
paper this year past.  He was going home now, with
a cap and a shawl for a present to his grandmother,
who had grown so old that she could only sit and doze
in her big chair, yet not too old to love Teddy. The
lad had come out of his way in hopes of getting a look
at P., whom he sincerely loved. Taking the look,
with fond pride in his friend's grandeur, he felt a fear
that the return might be less glorious than the going
forth.
All day long the round of conventional good wishes,
the well-worn compliments, the trite responses, the
carefully-conned joke and repartee. P. thought it
all vastly entertaining, for this was but his second
venture in New Year's calls, and last year he had
made his essay in company with one of his guardians.
Long before day was done, P. wished cookery an undiscovered art; he was ready to anathematize each
new invention of the kitchen; and loathed what he
felt bound to praise. As to wine and other drinkables of dangerous variety and quality, the fumes
were mounting to his head. The very elegant mother
who pressed upon him a taste of her sherry, felt compelled to notice to herself that the young man was




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            l  
getting tipsy. Anna Medora, who sweetly handed
him a julep, wondered if P. would not be a very fast
young man, and what his aunt would say if he went
home staggering; and Miss Mary Amanda, with ten
years' experience of belledom, told him her papa was
quite proud of his Madeira, would he try some? and
considered the ways of young men very devious, and
thought it a pity that they would be dissipated.
Nightfall before the last call was finished; and with
an unsteady step P. went down from the last marble
portico, wondering what had happened to his hat-he
having taken the wrong headgear from a servant as
tipsy as himself-able to discover that the world goes
round, if Galileo had not been before him.
P. was warm enough, but the stinging winter air put
the black horses on their mettle; they pranced along,
and P. performed absurd feats of driving. The splendidly-arrayed black boy had probably been treated
by admiring maid servants; he was stupidly intoxicated, and, giving a chuckle, rolled ignominiously out
into the snow. P. drove on without missing his boy,
and, taking any streets where his horses happened to
go, was at last inspired to interfere with their motions,
and drove them furiously at a lamp-post, bringing the
shell of a sleigh to untimely ruin. Away went the
horses, dragging a fragment of the wreck. Our P




112           A 3MILLION TOO fMUH.
sat on the curbstone, his fur cloak and fashionable
boots in the slush of the sewer, not moralizing, but
laughing loudly at the adventure.
In an hour's time, if you had sought the city over
for Mr. P. Dean, millionaire, ward of two first-class
guardians and the Orphans' Court, prey of three
administrators, and source of emolument to six legal
gentlemen, you would have found him nowhere else
but in a station-house  He was not alone; he was
locked up with three other makers of New Year's
calls, each quite as respectable and refined as himself.
A little light struggled in over the door from an outer
room, and showed P. draggled and rumpled; hat and
gloves gone; boots wet; fur dripping; seated on a
hard bench; braced uneasily against the wall; still
finding the world going round at a perilous rate, and
himself in danger of being spun off into infinite space,
falling and falling for ever more.
", Them's a rum set of young bloods to take up in
a police court to-morrow morning," said one policeman to another. " Watches and diamond rings on'em. Won't there be a trying to hush it up!"
" Poor lads I" said an elderly man, compassionately.  "I'll venture not one of them meant a bit
of harm when he set out this morning. It has all
come of meeting their good wishes with a glass of




A MIIILION TOO MUCKT.            113
poison. These mothers and sisters are deliberately
killing their neighbors' sons and brothers. It would
save us a heap of trouble on New Year's Day if there
was a city ordinance forbidding offering wine and such
liquors for refreshments."








C H A P T E R S E  V E N T H.
far. from  Qt   X-e DAPE fatstos' Hundreds of men were turned to beasts,
Like the guests at Circe's horrible feasts,
By the magic of ale and cider:
And each country lass, and country lad,
Began to caper and dance like mad;
And even some old ones appeared to have had
A bite from the Naples spider."








CHAPTER SEVENTH.
MJfateriacl dibd of Heavy Fathers.
URING the eighteen years of his orphanage, P. had doubtless received many favors
and courtesies from  his guardians and
administrators, earnest of good deeds yet
to be done in his behalf. Friendship had first been
shown by handsful of bon-bons to the boy in petticoats; it came next in the guise of miniature uniforms, guns and swords, fireworks, magic lanterns,
and engines that wound up with keys and springs,
presented to the round-faced lad; the horse and the
phaeton followed, and when at sixteen, P. with much
shame-facedness and secret pride put on his first
long-tailed coat, a splendid glossy plum-colored broadcloth; he was duly invited to Saratoga and Cape
May, by administrator No. 1, J. Pincham, Sr.
Saratoga had not then been blessed with a Member
of Congress to open a gambling-saloon for the improvement of the youth who flocked thither to learn
good manners, morals, and statesmanship; but father
(117)




118          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
Pincham found means to make P.'s hours pass
pleasantly and unprofitably.
The dancing-master had faithfully performed his
part, and the "fantastic toe" of young P. was the
most fantastic of its sort. The young man was able
to kill the time between ten and two, when oldfashioned people were sound asleep, with unnumbered
round dances, with Sybil or Seraphina. When these
dear creatures had left the glare of the gaslight, and
soared to higher regions, in the third or fourth stories,
P. had the wine-room to revisit, and like a lad of
spirit must take a cigar in the smoking-room.; it was
late when he found time to sleep, and nearly noon
when he came down stairs to try the waters of his
favorite spring, and get his breakfast.
Well removed from the rest of the public rooms,
was a snug apartment whither J. Pincham, Sr., often
beguiled the ward of the Orphans' Court, and benevolently initiated him into the science of card-playing.
P. had heretofore learned one card from another, and
with more or less judgment handed them over, in
parlor games of euchre and whist; but now he
learned a depth of which he had not dreamed, he was
instructed to gamble as became a gentleman, and
father Pincham  blandly won his money, "just to
show him how the thing was done;" he kept it with




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            119
the same wise intention.  The skilful management
of the "' pasteboards" was invariably accompanied by
sips of brandy and water; the brandy became more,
the water less, and the sips enlarged to drinks as
time went on.
Later in P.'s day, driving was' in order; and fancy
driving, dashing horses, stylish turnouts, racing and
betting, and quarrelling over different beasts, and the
choice vocabulary of the stables, formed a part of
the education for which this young man was deeply
indebted to the administrator.
In the early evening the consequential, bloated,
and profoundly self-satisfied Pincham, Sr., and our
bov, fresh and slender, with already a weary, wondering look at the tiresome shams he had found in life,
seated in close conversation, might have moved the
soul of a philanthropist.  The elder man was fatfaced, small-eyed and leering; he had a huge ring on
his little finger, and a ponderous seal on his watch
chain; he settled his big head comfortably in his
collar, and though he said but little, each speech
seemed somehow a long step toward the devil, whom
this man was ever ready to meet half way. P. had
the innocent frankness of early life; however sick he
might be of the present, he was dowered with the
future, the heritage of all youth. Of this he spoke;




120          A MILL[ON TOO MUCH.
he would do thus and so, buy, sell, journey, enjoy, in
those halcyon days when he had come of age and
received his own.
"All this will take a vast deal of money,' said
his mature companion.
"But I have a great deal; a million is a deal of
money," said P., with calm assurance.
" That is true, but you do not reckon the expenses
of your establishment, and education all these years."
"Those are out of the income," said P., acutely.
"The expenses cannot possibly now outrun the
income."
"Expenses are very heavy," said Pincham, puffing
out clouds of smoke.
"And the income is very great," insisted P.
"0  yes, certainly," replied  the administrator.
"You are doubtless a rich man, still you know, legal
fees and so forth eat great holes, and moreover
estates rarely ever foot up to the first estimate."
If P. had been reasonably trained, these remarks
would have set him thinking. But P. did not like to
take the trouble to think; he left that to Professor
Easy, and others who were paid for it; moreover his
cigar made him stupid, cards and brandy had set his
brain in a whirl, and there was -a ball in prospect.
These days at Saratoga were'ess innocent, and




A MILLIONL TOO MUGCf.         121
truly less'happy, than the quiet years when Aunt
Debby with her pale, loving face had bent over his
bed to hear his evening prayer; had kissed him, and
bade him be a good boy; and on Sunday had taken
him duly to church and had him read her a chapter
from the Bible when they got home. If only Aunt
Debby had known how to be consistent, or if she had
worked as well as wished!
In the city the Orphan was neglected neither by
his own nor his father's friends. He began to be invited to dinner parties, and remained-greatly boredto drink wine on occasions when he would have been
better pleased with the society of the ladies; the
young man having arrived at the sentimental stage
of his existence.
After these dinners P. sometimes went home simply
tired, and wondering what good there was in living;
but once in a while, being young and as yet unused
to these occasions, he left his host and his wits at the
same time, and wandered about maudlin, and', in a
half frenzy, getting home rather by good luck than
good management.
Peregrinating the streets in this unsteady fashion,
and trolling forth a stave of a popular song, P.
attracted the notice of Teddy Green, our young gentleman having wandered away from the ar:stocratlc




122          A MZLION TOO MUCH.
locality of his own abode, and intruded into the
quarter of respectable poverty, where, if people are
out late, it is because they are at their work. P.
was so excited in mind, and so unsteady on his legs,.
that Teddy thought the only sensible course was to
take him to his own humble abode, and let him seek
the lofty Dean mansion when he got better. These
foster brothers accordingly climbed a high staircase,
and Teddy helping P. to the bed, considerately laid
himself upon the floor, with his coat wrapped up for
a pillow. P.'s last remark at night was that Teddy
was " a gay old boy, and here's your health, sir!"
When he woke in the morning he missed the gorgeous canopy, the down.filled quilt, the rosewood and
marble, the dainty appliances of the toilette, which
had ever greeted his opening eyes.
Instead, he saw the four-post cherry-wood bed.
stead, the patchwork  coverlet, the windows with
newspapers for curtains, a windsor chair, a box
covered with chintz, doing duty as a dressing-table, a
square stand with a brown bowl and pitcher, a crash
towel and a square of bar soap, which all looked so
amazingly primitive and absurd, that P. sat up in
bed and shouted with laughter, and so sitting up
came in view of Mr. Teddy laid on the floor, with no
ceremony of undressing but pulling off his boots and




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            123
unbuttoning his vest, his head resting on a rolled-up
coat, and making a spread eagle of himself, with arms
extended and fists clenched; P. laughed louder and
louder.
Teddy woke up and smiled, but grimly.'"Well, Teddy, my lad, here's a jolly go'? How
came I here? am I visiting you, or are we both visiting some one else? or has Uncle Sam taken us both
up in some moment of unconsciousness, and landed us
in one of his favorite institutions?"
"If you please, Mr. Dean, such moments of unconsciousness do not come to me," said Teddy. "This
is my room; and, though it suits me very properly,
I'm sorry it is not better for you."
-"And how, in the name of wonder, did I get
here?"
"I found you coming along the street, sir, not over
well able to take care of yourself, and I made you as
easy as I could."
" Ah, I remember something about it. So we were
both out late, it seems, Ted, my boy?"
"I was out for business, sir, getting ready your
paper; and you were out for what they call pleasure,
but of a poor sort; for, if only that is well that ends
well, this must be ill enough."
"Yes, yes, to be sure. I went to dinner with that




124           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
confounded Snell, one of my administrators, Teddy.
Sometimes I wish there had been nothing to administer upon. Betwveen the fathers and the daughters,
and the rest of them, I'm like to go to the dogs,
Teddy, as you poor rascals are too busy to go. And
you stick to the paper yet? Printer's devil, or what
are you now?"
"' I'm a compositor," said Teddy, gruffly.
"' Keep bad hours, don't you, Teddy? We rich
villains can lie abed until noon; but I did not know
you could try it."
"Late work and late sleep, sir," replied Teddy.
"If you'd honor us by stopping to breakfast, we can
give you a good one. Mother's got over that trouble
she fell into at your house, and we do right well once
more. "
"That's good news," said P., cordially, dropping
back on his pillow. "Yes; I'll stay.  It will be
something new; and a change is what I'm dying for.
How many are there of you, Teddy?"
"There's grandmother; she's old as old can be,
but we make her quite happy. And there's father;
he's just more than contented. Mother; she's good
as gold, now. There's my big brother, clerk at the
grocer's; he's talking of getting married. And there's
a little sister, four years old; we're making up to her




A MILLION TOO MUCH.           125
for the trouble that happened the other little one.
Then here I am; I mean not to stop until I'm  an
editor."
Teddy had got up, pulled off part of his clothes,
and now soused his head and neck thoroughly in a
basin of water; he turned, his face and hair dripping,
as he reached for the towel. "We are a temperance
family now, sir, and I recommend it to you. If you
had cold-water principles, you would not be dying for
a change, and find living such a bore as you do. If
you had a clear brain, that no liquors heated up,
you'd take to doing something; and work brings rest
and a glad heart-that it does. Do you know, I
think every man owes the world a man's work; and
the richer and wiser we are, the more's our duty to
do something. I remember you from when we were
both small fellows, and I blacked your boots. You
have done me many a good turn; and if I only could
make a cold-water man of you, Mr. Dean, I'd feel as
if I'd paid all I owed."
"Don't talk of owing; there was nothing but my
own pleasure in my mind, Teddy. But it is quite
enough to make one shiver, to see you washing yourself this Nov'ember morning between two open windows. Why, Teddy, it makes me laugh to hear you
talk of temperance. No one but you ever mentioned




126           A MILLION TOO MUCII.
the matter to me: and consider the amount of teach
ers, and guardians, and legal advisers and doctors
I've had about me."
"' Too many cooks spoil the broth,'" growled
Teddy, as he brought fresh water and towels, and put
the windows down, that the dainty P. might dress
himself, while Teddy helped his mother get breakfast.
The father had been off to work this some time,
and the breakfast was only for the two —a gala affair;
ham and eggs, appte-sauce, fried potatoes, and cornbread. Mrs. Green did her best; and Teddy, with
an honest appetite ever at command, thought it wonderful. Even P. ate heartily, and questioned within
himself why they could not get up as good a breakfast
at home; he meant to speak on the subject to the
obsequious Mrs. Jillet. Whether it was the hard bed,
the freezing water, and the frosty morning air, to
which Teddy had treated him, or the newness of the
cookery, P. could not have told, but something made
him hungry; and, as he ate, he cast curious glances
at his foster-mother.
Mrs. Green could never regain the comely proportions, and the traditional milkmaid innocence, which
she had taken to the Dean mansion; but for these
seven or eight years she had been a reformed woman,
and her household rejoiced in her restoration.  Miss




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             127
Gale had been the means through which this blessing
had come to the family, and P. had heretofore heard
of it from Teddy, and from the ex-governess herself.
As he sat at the table that morning, he felt it was a
work worthy of her; for he honored Miss Gale above
all the women he had ever seen.  The beauty of her
life was its consistency; she so thoroughly practised
what she preached. The first point was to ascertain
duty; the next was to do it.
Breakfast over, and Teddy setting off to his work,
P. prepared to return home.
1" Won't Miss Dean be frightened at your absence?"
asked Teddy.
P. laughed at the idea of alarm on his account.
"' She will probably not know it. If she does-why,
she is used to it."
"Not from this same cause, I hope?" said Teddy,
seriously.
" 0, no, not often; to be sure not. I'm a pretty
straight fellow, after all. Not so prim as you are,
but well in a way. I stay out sometimes from one
cause, sometimes from another. No one ever asks.me
why; the dear old soul would be afraid of offending.
I often wish, Ted, that there had been somebody to
call me to an account in all this world. It might have
been better."




128          A MILLION TOO MUCTH.
"That is so, said Teddy, with solemnity. "It
might serve to make you better prepared for a grand
account we must all render some day; higher up, you
know."
P. walked on, with his head down, pondering. At
last he spoke: "I think there's a good deal of excuse
for me. You have no idea, Teddy, how hard it is on
a fellow to be brought up as I have been. Every one
seems to have tried to make me selfish and shiftless..
Never anything to do; and everything I wanted
handed over at once. I often wish I'd had a million
cents, instead of a million dollars."
" There's no use wishing to throw away your priv.ileges, Mr. Dean. The Lord gave you a fortune to be
used like a man and a Christian; and if its possession
brings you many temptations, you should only try
harder to overcome them. The great danger with
you, sir, is strong drink. If you'd only let that
alone."
" If I only would! O, Teddy, how little you know!
I'm waylaid and besieged by it on every hand. From
the day I was born until now I have been beset by it.
Cooks and doctors, friends and relations, old and
young, men and women, they tempt me —tempt me
all the time. And, Teddy, if I do yield, and am
sometimes the worse for drinking, I really think those




A JZLLION TOO MUCIH.          129
who mak~ it, and sell it, and offer it, are more to
blame than I am."
" It is no use questioning who is the most blamable,
sir. The first thing is to keep your own account clear,
and to beware of what is wrong.  If you only had
some object in life —-"
" Haven't any, Teddy. Never could find one; and
living is very tedious, after all. Sometimes I wish I
could jump out of it."
"Like your father before you," said Teddy to himself, as he nodded good morning, and turned down
toward the office where he worked, leaving the poor
young millionaire to saunter toward the home of whose
luxury he was so weary.
Administrators Pincham and Snell, doing their part
against Master Dean, Administrator Binkle, an old
bachelor of more means than reputation, took a share
in the proceedings.  Mr. Binkle was of good family
-not that the Binkles had ever been shining lights,
mentally or morally, but they had made money in
land speculations for several generations.  Binkle
having been brought up to fashionable proprieties,
had in his mature years darted off into Bohemianism.
His house was a favorite rendezvous for fourth-rate
wits and painters; for the composers of love-songs
and contributors to flash papers, Actors and singers




130          A MIILLION TOO MUCH.
and ballet-dancers of a low degree found in Binkle
a patron; and into their choice society Binkle
brought his youthful friend, Aunt Debby's boy and
darling.
Once again life opened something new to the victim
of good fortune. He had hitherto sat in a private
box, and watched the play played out; he now could
get behind the scenes, into the green-room, at rehearsal, and see the making-up, the miffs and mis-.
takes, the tinsel and folly; and he wondered to find
how sick he grew of it all. How he pitied those who
must drearily make bread and butter by these miseries
day after day!
"Don't you wish," said P. to an actor who had
been assassinated a score of days in succession, " don't
you wish that it had been real, and no farce, and you
were done with the bother of existence?"
The man meditated a little. " Well, no. The fact
is I have something to live for-failure to dreadsuccess to desire-a support to obtain. I have the
adcvantage of you there, Mr. Dean. You are the most
completely bored person I ever met. Life has been
made too easy to you. We complain about the thorns
on the roses; yet, after all, I sometimes wonder if the
thorns are not an attraction."
P. had thought of dropping out of his own circle




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            131
and joining a theatrical company; but then, as he
could not have lost the possibility of returning to his
fortune, he would still have had no spur to exertion —
and it would have been so tiresome to learn his part i
Perhaps if we were to point out one place more
than another, where the chains of intemperance were
riveted on our P., we would fix on the house of Binkle,
for here more fiery and abundant potations were ins
dulged in. Here they drank, not for fashion's sake,
fashionable drinks, to criticise, to praise, or to condemn; but they drank from a feverish thirst-a love
of the liquor itself. P. wondered that they found
anything so desirable in these drinks, but he was
lured on to try for himself.
" Young man," said Dr. Roxwell, " you are living
at a 2-40 rate. You have been living fast ever since
you were born. You are now some ten years my
senior-and the family Bible shows me sixty my last
birthday."








CHAPTER EIGHTH.
gilt Saw    tse  its  watt,
" Old Mother Hubbard went to her cupboard,
To get her old dog a bone.
When she got there, the cupboard was bars,
And so the poor dog got none."
(133)








CHAPTER EIGHTH.
Th7e Law does its Part.
E are told that Mother Hubbard's dog was
"her only care;" the result, so far as we
have been able to gather from credible
historians, was his sudden and mysterious
demise. P. was the care of three administrators, two
guardians, six gentlemen learned in law, Dr. Roxwell,
Aunt Debby, and the Orphans' Court.  Under the
supervision of these thirteen individuals, and the said
Court, our infant attained his majority, and stood
forth a man and a fellow-citizen.
In the few months before this great event, Aunt
Debby was in a flutter of expectations; she indeed
hoped so much, anticipated so much, made so many
fine preparations for presents and festival to celebrate
the birth of the Heir of a Million, that she fell ill,
and was forced to call in Dr. Roxwell.
"Ah! my dear doctor," said the amiable Aunt
Debby, "you do not know how I have hoped for the
day that is now drawing near. I expect my boy to
do a great deal of good with his money. Once he is
(135)




136          A MIlLION TOO MUCH.
master of himself, my dear P. will show what is in
him. Hie is the most charitable creature that ever
was known. Did you hear of all he did for that
Green family'? Saved them in fact, the darling!"
Now we will say for young Dean, that he had never
thought of giving his aunt this high idea of his good
deeds, when he had mentioned the Green household
in her presence. Aunt Debby's love, as is love's wont,
had outrun facts.
" And what particular good deed do you plan for
your nephew, now that he has got done with the Green
family?" asked Dr. Roxwell, dryly.
"I have had my mind very much on an asylum for
genteel people of decayed fortunes. We could call
it the DEAN INSTITUTE, and it would ever remain a
memorial to the family. I would not wish a shabby,
close, narrow sort of place, to be for ever reminding
people how poor they are; but a handsome house, in
a pleasant garden; with well-furnished rooms; a
library; and say a couple of coaches for people to
get out sometimes. WVhen people grow to my age,
dear doctor, they get tired of fashion and society, and
find it far more congenial to busy themselves in doing
good. I know I do; and my sympathies are very
much enlisted for nice people who have seen better
days."




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             137
" Well, I confess that my charities would take the
direction of such poor forsaken little wretches as have
seen no good days at all, and, from no fault of their
own, have been starving on husks ever since they
formed a distinct part of creation. But, Miss Dean,
I wish to bring before you a subject which has greatly
occupied my mind lately. Do you know, that of estates
that go into the hands of administrators and executors, a large proportion never reach the heirs? They
melt away, filtering into somebody's pocket, of course,
but diverted from the original intention."
" I don't see how that can be, doctor," said Aunt
Debby.' When so many people are provided to look
after property, it must be well taken care of."
"There is no such necessity in fact," replied the
doctor.'A piece of porcelain is much more likely
to be broken in being handed about among a company than when held by one person. When a great
fortune, or a little fortune, is looking for care-takers,
and those who have the handling of it are bound to
feather their nests, then I say, the fewer the better."
" There's the Orphans' Court to look after everybody."
"And Courts bring legal expenses. Now I know
very little what direction these affairs of young Dean
are taking; but I do say this: Since Messrs. Pinch



138           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
am, Snell, and Binkle are to make money out of him;
since two guardians will scrupulously look out for their
own interests; since six lawyers have had fees through
twenty-one years of service; you need hardly expect
your nephew to have means to found, endow, and
sustain a genteel asylum, unless, indeed, he is to take
refuge in it himself."
" Why, sir," said Aunt Debby, nervously, "in my
experience, people always get their own."
"Your experience, Miss Dean," said the doctor,
calmly, "is only that of those women whose status in
society is as if they were done up in cotton, and kept
in a glass case. I question if you know anything at
all of the hard facts of existence.  One fact is, that
executors, or those who serve for them, inherit the
major -part of estates, the interest of the true heirs
being so sedulously looked after that it becomes
nothing at all.  Men toil and strive; peril their souls
to get money; often pinch and hamper their children,
that they may leave a larger fortune, and what is the
result?  Generally, just this: That some of their
neighbors and relations step in to make matters
straight, and they keep paring and cutting away until
all is gone. It is like old 2Esop's fable of the division
of the cheese; the arbitrator bit first one piece and
then the other, to make them even, and so kept on




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            139
biting until all was gone; and the two expectants got
nothing but leave to go off howling."
"Indeed, Dr. Roxwell, I have always read thatthat —--
"You have read that on attaining their majority,
the heirs come into possession with great erclat. That
only happens in novels, my dear madam. Real experience is that the cupboard is bare, and the dogalbeit he looked for nothing but a bone —gets none."
" What a misfortune for minor children to lose their
parents!" said Aunt Debby, plaintively.
" The case is even worse for grown-up children, very
frequently," said the doctor, settling himself quite
comfortably in his easy-chair.  "I have often talked
it over to my cousin Nancy. The guardian and the
administrator of the minor feels that he has some time
in which to work for himself before accounts must be
rendered; and meantime, to keep matters quiet, he
takes care of the juvenile owner of the property he
means to seize. The heir gets that much good out
of his estate. But I have known sons and daughters
who had reached a majority to be jewed out of every
copper, and obliged to pay the costs of the little
operation."
"Dreadful! dreadful!" groaned Miss Dean. "But
where are the bonds the Court claims, and why can



140          A MILION TOO MUCH.
not the adult children administer the estate themselves?"
" One part of your question explains the other.
The children are not administrators because of the
bonds required. They cannot furnish a security; and
their inheritance is therefore secured by, and to, some
one else. If the children administered the estate,
they might deal fairly-would, perhaps. I have not
a high opinion of human decency; but there is the
chance that fraternal feeling would cause them to
divide with the co-heirs; and, at all events, there is
the consolation of thinking that the property would
go to one of those for whom it was intended."
" And yet the laws that govern the care and division
of property have occupied profound legal minds these
many years. Can they be improved on?" ventured
poor Miss Dean, much perplexed.
"I don't know indeed.' It's a' a muddle'-very
much of a muddle. I just touched on the subject to
let you know that you must not have too large views
concerning the money coming to your nephew, for it
is likely to dwindle down to a very trifle."
"It is terrible!" said Aunt Debby, turning pale.
"It quite makes me sick to think of it."
" O, I came here to cure you, not to kill you," said
the doctor. "And I dare say, after all, that I know




IA 1IJLLIOV TOO MUCH.         141
more of medicine than of law. Things may prove
different from what I suggest; and moreover I think
poverty would be the very best thing in the world for
our P. I am afraid, after all, that he will have
enough property left to ruin him."
Nor is it odd that our dear Aunt Debby had so
high an opinion of the potent dollar, that the doctor's
last suggestion was a balm to her vexed spirit.
Meantime, the thoughts of Aunt Debby's nephew
had turned to his estate. All his life he had been so
well taught the power of money, in gratifying his
whims, smoothing his way, and buying him ease and
praise, that he was not now likely to despise it. If
his planning about what he would do with it was a
little different from Aunt Debby's, we must consider
his youth, and the indulgence he had received.
As the last six months of his minority rolled away,
our young man found something to do, instructing
administrators, guardians, and lawyers that he meant
to have his business punctually settled, accounts rendered, and claims met, on the grand day when he
should be one-and-twenty. If this should not be
done, how in the world did this rash young fellow
mean to mend matters, but by feeing another lawyer
on his own behalf, and carrying the business agair
into Court i




142           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
Poor fellow! he was credulous and ardent; but
then-he was young, and deliciously ignorant of law!
Of course during two decades these administrators
and guardians had known that a day would dawn
which would prove a day of account, either in this
world or the next; but both seemed equally remote,
and they had failed to prepare for the occasion. To
begin with the administrators, they were rascals of a
diverse fashion. For instance:Binkle's rascality was that of indifference. He had
suffered himself to be made one of the administrators
of the Dean Million, because it was so much trouble
to refuse, and he had been assured that he should not
be bored with business. Binkle had his actors, poets,
new plays, and sham tragedies to attend to. He said
to P.: " My dear fellow, I really don't know a word
about this business. Go to Pincham; he does the
work. I don't even look on. A settlement? 0,
certainly; they're easy enough to get at, ain't they?
Pincham will tell you everything. I haven't had the
least bother with your estate these twenty years. I
left it all to him, and you'll find it by far the easiest
way."
"The easiest way to get rid of other folks' con
cerns, but not the easiest way to look out for your
own," said P., sharply.




A MILLION TO, rUCHI.           143
"0, well, maybe so; every one to his taste.  I
know no French but one verb, P., and I spend my
whole existence conjugating that-s'amuser."
Thus much for the erudite Binkle; and our young
man addressed himself to Snell. Mr. T. Snell was
one of the rascals of quiet complicity. Ite had no
particular designs on P.'s fortune further than marrying to it one of the Misses Snell, if it should prove
large enough, when paid over, to be worth the matrimonial scheming. The paternal Snell had had the
orphan to Niagara, to Montreal, to Lake Champlain,
and the White Mountains, in company with all the
Snell family, and the expenses of the Snell family
had been covered by those charged to the heir. Snell
had had a pair of carriage horses, or so, through buying for the youthful orphan; and his wine, and his
coachman's wages, had been met by the tremendous
charges supposed to be made in the establishment of
the millionaire. Snell was a little man, and his
meannesses were little.  He could not get up a
courage to cheat like Pincham; he knew what Pincham was after, and he let him go on, provided he
might get his own small stealings unmolested.
J. Pincham, Sr., had worked hard -for his position
as administrator, from the day when that ill-fated
young Dean, P.'s father, had put a bullet into his




144          A MILLION TOO MUCI~.
frenzied brain. - Pincham was not your man to help
himself to wine, or wages, or pleasure-trips; he took
his plunder by whole handfuls, by round thousands.
When P. said to Snell that he would soon?e of age,
would manage matters for himself, and expected to
be promptly put in charge of his own property, Snell
said, "Yes, yes, yes; Pincham mentioned it to me
lately. Estates are a deal of trouble. Yours has
been a great charge to us. We have been careful to
keep your accounts, and have set down every little
item —every item; and your expenses are enormous.
Pincham is the man to do business, P., and he will
make everything plain. I have done very littleperfect confidence in him —no time-no tact as he
has. Yes, yes, yes, go to Pincham. Come dine tomorrow."
To Pincham went P. with his remarks "that they
were aware, &c., and he expected, &c., and twentyone years was a very long time."
" Well," responded this prince of rascals, " it takes
a long time to straighten matters up, to make transfers, to examine accounts, to pay debts. You remember I suggested to you some four or five years ago
that your expenses were absolutely prodigious, and
that estates met with losses-in short, that fortunes
never met expectations.  Our services have been




A MILLION TOO MUCH.           145
many, and gratuitous. I have done, and will do, my
best for-all concerned. I hope your aunt has not
been too extravagant."  (Poor Aunt Debby!) "As
a rough sketch, you have lived up the income every
year. We'll say there has been a hundred thousand
or so paid out to the lawyers; that another hundred
thousand or so fell short in the original summing up
of the estate; that a few more hundreds of thousands
were lost by the big fire, when Snell had failed to reinsure, and by the wreck of the "'Polyanthus," loaded
with rum, and returning to New York from the West
Indies, in the year of your father's unfortunate
decease-all these items count up; but I'll do my
best for all concerned, and try and save you something."
P.'s eyes were opened to a treachery, and he rushed
off madly and found a lawyer to watch Mr. Pincham
and pick flaws in his reports, show up his frauds, and'force him to refund.
Unhappy P.!  His twenty-first birthday was no
more propitious than the day when he opened his eyes
"to this world troublesome."  He was driven and
harassed by a thousand distractions; he felt that he
had been foully overreached and swindled; he had
not been educated in a manner to enable him to take
K




146          A MILLION  OO00 MUCH.
his own part and help himself; he hated Pincham,
Snell, Binkle,-everybody.
His guardians made a dinner-party, congratulated
him, drank his health, wished him prosperity, and in
so doing-made him drunk. They hoped their heavy
cares for him were ended; and when they sent him
home stupid and surly in his carriage; they said their
reign over him was finished, and his own had begun.
The one guardian was an old bachelor who had
done little for his ward but neglect him. He had
been chosen by Aunt Debby because he was such an
elegant gentleman, and made such entirely fascinating
bows. Perhaps Aunt Debby had at some time silently
and secretly fallen in love with this man, and worn
out the unfed affection-who knows? There are a
many queer things in this world.
The other guardian was also of Aunt Debby's
choosing. He was an uncle of P.'s mother; he had
helped himself of P.'s abundance like the rest of
people. He was the father of three sons, all of
whom P., quite unconsciously, had sent to college,
and started in business.
When Aunt Debby found that matters had gone
very wrong, and that P. had not woke up on the
morning of his twenty-first birthday to fin.d a million
of dollars all in gold, piled up in his ante-room, like




A MILLIO.N TOO MUCH.           147
the Inca's ransom, as she had been rather vaguely
dreaming, she laid it to the malfeasance of the
guardians, and primarily to herself as having selected
them. She accused herself of having beggared her
idolized boy; she went to her bed inconsolable, and
stayed there a month, in spite of Dr. Roxwell. We
shall not say that P. did anything to console her; he
was too cross from his own troubles and disappointments to care for any one.
P. went to court; he haunted law-offices; he heard
opinions; he gained decisions, and when all was over
he knew just this, which we shall tell you: He had
exactly one hundred thousand dollars, instead of the
million which had been left him.  How he came to
have that, he could not find out; it was explained to
him a number of times, but he never understood it.
It looked quite clear to him, and to everybody, that
there had been a million left by the suicide Dean,
twenty-one years before; where it had gone, how, to
whom, was never clearly put into speech. The courts
and society seemed to consider every one who had
handled this property quite irreproachable; the lawyers were all honorable men; the administrators
were without suspicion, especially the admirable
Pincham; the guardians were incorruptible.
Nothing was said of the bonds entered into; no




148          A MILLION TOO MUCIH.
one heard of any restitution imposed, or punishment
deserved; there is nothing so potent as precedent,
and P.'s property had gone the way that orphans'
fortunes generally go.
Well, yes! the millionaire had come down to a
paltry hundred thousand, he said to himself. He
might still have a Miss Snell, if he wanted her.
"My dear fellow," said Dr. Roxwell, "my opinion
is, that you ought to have been very glad you came
of age as you did. If your minority had lasted
another five years, you would have found your sole
inheritance to be some ten thousand dollars' worth of
debts, which would have been very heavy on you."
"And I think," sobbed Aunt Debby, "that my
poor boy has been most shamefully handled, and
cheated by all of them!"
"That is a common occurrence in this world; we
are all like the naughty little lobsters who will bite
their brother's legs off," said the doctor.
Miss Gale was there spending the evening; she was
quietly making a gown for a little child in a hospital,
and now looked up. "Do you know what I think?
The man who made the money, your grandfather P.,
did not pay the Lord his tithes, and so the Lord is
now doing the tithing. Do you understand, P.?
Your grandfather kept back the tenths, and now you




A MILLIONV TOO MUTCU.          149
get only a tenth. Estates won't hold together unless
they are well cemented by giving. Men gather,
gather, never think of scattering to the poor; and
by-and-by the grand fortune is driven about to the
four winds of heaven, and the descendants have to
scrabble for their little share as if they never had
any claim on it. Do you suppose your father would
have liked to work for Mr. Pincham, Miss Dean?"
"Why, now that I think of it, my father was
always at swords' points with him," said Aunt Debby.
" By your theory, you make me suffer for the
faults of my ancestors," said P. to Miss Gale.
"Children often do that," she said. "May you
suffer from them no more, my poor P."








CHAPTER NINTH.
11b    t'e    Wet lt I          ats b    i  e' "How widely its agencies vary,
to save-to ruimn-to curse-to bless —
AS even its minted coitns express;
Now stamped with the image of good Quleen BSm,
And now with Bloody MZary.'








CHAPTER  NINTH..And thle -Devil does His.
HE World, the Flesh, and the Devil, thes&
are three things we are supposed to renounce
in our baptism; these are the three enemies
of the soul from the hour when it comes
"trailing clouds of glory;" very soon, alas! to enter
clouds of gloom. The World, the Flesh, and the
Devil-these, Bunyan's Pilgrim met and conquered;
the World in the City of Destruction; the Flesh in
the hardships of the way, the Slough, the burdened
back, the Difficult Hill, the lions lying by the path;
the Devil in that Valley of Humiliation that should
have been a happy place, but was not. These all the
Prince of Dreamers saw-met, and worsted, in
vision-we meet them, and are conquered.
Our P., with his million in expectation, had been
made the slave of the world from his first breath.
Aunt Debby had renounced it for him, and immedi.
ately handed him over bound hand and foot in its
follies; then came the temptations of the flesh to the
poor pampered boy, and he was carried captive at
(153)




154          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
once of indolence, vanity, eating and drinking; and
now that he was twenty-one, and his own master, the
Devil came alongside, looking like an angel of light
very likely, and P. surrendered.
Until the change in his fortunes, P. had seemed an
easy, jolly, innocent lad, neither very good nor very
evil; after getting from Pincham & Co. only onetenth of his rights, he grew bitter, reckless, and
faithless all at once.
In her disappointment and sorrow, longing for a
friend, Aunt Debby entreated Miss Gale to come and
stay with her. The governess had entered into possession of a morsel of money that sufficed for her
moderate wants, and obviated the necessity of her
teaching; so she came to Miss Debby for a visit,
seemed like a sister, and so stayed on, until it became
quite her home.
The change in fortune caused Aunt Debby to
reduce the style of her housekeeping. The fashion of
economy was this: all that in any way concerned P.
was left as it had been, the reductions were such as
would only touch Aunt Debby.
P. saw what was going on, and he did not object;
it did not seem to him that he ought to be restricted;
the world owed him something which he had not
received —the other part of that million, you know.




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            155
Among the items with which Aunt Debby dispensed, we may reckon the invaluable Mrs. Jillet,
first and foremost.
As had been mentioned by the metallic founder of
the house of Dean, Mrs. Jillet had been somewhat
exorbitant in the matter of wages; besides this, her
office had had its perquisites, as what office has not?
and Mrs. Jillet was prepared to retire from public life
on a neat little competence.
Mrs. Jillet was not without a place of refuge; the
excellent Mrs. Bently h1ad found her services as a
nurse falling into disrepute, on account of certain
hints of inebriety; calls for her attendance became
infrequent, and ceased altogether; and Mrs. Bently,
who had with prudent forethought feathered her own
nest, retired into it for safe-keeping-in other words,
she opened a little public-house, called the Happy
Home Hotel (Mrs. Bently pronounced it without the
H's); in which'Appy'Ome there was a very small
place for sleeping up stairs, and a very large place
for drinking on the first floor.
To this'Appy'Ome, Mrs. Bently received Mrs.
Jillet with effusion. Mrs. Jillet brought with her
many elegant trappings, gathered from the superfluities of the house of Dean; she furnished a bedroom
for herself, and mostly by daylight favored Mrs.




156          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
Bently with her society, in a little room opening off
the bar, a tidy place, with the traditional red curtains, flaming carpet, and bunches of artificial flowers
on the chimney piece. They were getting old, these
women; they dyed their hair, wore caps and false
teeth, and knew that by far the shorter part of their
life journey lay before them; yet here they sat in
the stuffy ante-room, gossipping together, conjointly
dealing out poison to others; and as fate would have
it, they sipped and sipped of the poison themselves.
When Aunt Debby had narrowed her expenditures
to suit her income, she ventured to give her nephew
a little advice.' If you would go into business, my dear boy, you
might soon have your money back again.  Your
fortune is not to be despised, and you might make a
fine business on it. Your grandfather began with
almost nothing, and you know how he succeeded."
"- I don't know how to do anything," said P., " and
I don't want to."' Take a partner who does know."
"He'd cheat me; every one does. No; I shall
not try business."
" Then, my dear boy, you ought really to live within
your income. Consider that your whole property now
is only about the income of two years."




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            157
"' Well, then, I can live two years, or three, just as
I have done, before it is all gone," said P., stubbornly.'All gone! But, my dear, consider; you would
beggar yourself."
M' aybe by that time I would be gone, too," said P.
"Don't speak so, my darling! It is not reasonable
to think of your dying at four-and-twenty-a healthy
fellow."
"Pshaw, Aunt Debby!" interrupted P.  "If one
finds the door locked, one can get out of the window,
if necessary."
"O, my child, my child, you break my heart!"
burst out Aunt Debby; and the poor old lady went
off weeping, while all day long the echo of that pistolshot, which had put her young brother out of this
life, seemed to ring in her ears.
When Miss Gale sat down soberly to talk with her
former pupil, telling him of all he might do and be,
the calm wisdom of her words, the earnestness of her
own purpose, the beauty of her own example, and
perhaps a little of the old-time school-room respect,
almost won him, and awoke in him the manhood
which had been all these years smothered by pampering and idleness. If ever P. had been governed,
taught self-restraint, responsibility, God-fearing, or
man-fearing, or if he had inherited any grand moral




158           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
purpose, this woman might have saved him; but all
his life everything had been against him —ah! so
cruelly and bitterly against him; there seemed not
one bit of courage and moral strength, or ambition,
left in him.
Moreover, the Devil was now ensnaring this poor
boy most fatally with infidel literature.  He had
never had much religious training. Miss Debby had
done something for him, and Miss Gale more. They
had taught him Bible history; had taken him to
church and given him a form of prayer; some good
books, too, when he would read them. It had been
but a poor grain-sowing, and a plentiful scattering of
tares.
P. first ceased going to church on Sabbath mornings; and, from staying at home and reading novels,
began to walk about the streets, take drives, and
lounge into hotels. HIe did this to show himself a
lad of spirit, because his associates jeered a little and
coaxed a little. Next came the reading of evil books.
It was singular that he who abhorred an argument for
anything good, and could not follow a scientific discussion, perused with eagerness chapter after chapter
of flimsy logic, pretending, and failing, to prove, that
Nature was God, and Atheism was her prophet; that
the Bible was a lie; religion a humbug; that the




A MILLION TOO MUEH.            159
Christ, who died and was sepulchred in Judea, hadl
never a resurrection; that there is no incorruptible
inheritance reserved for the sons of God. All these
follies and blasphemies P. swallowed eagerly. It was
not long before he felt learned enough in his new wisdom to set it forth in speech, and then how he horrified
his poor aunt!
What! This boy whom she had taught to pray;
this child by whose crib she had dreamed many a
dream; this nephew who was to be her Christian
gentleman embodied; was he telling her that her
theology was an old woman's fable, and ranking the
four holy Gospels with the ditties of Mother Goose?
Aunt Debby tried to argue the matter. She was
even more illogical than her boy, and failed signally
to prove anything.  She was right, but she contradicted herself a dozen times in as many sentences,
and retreated ignominiously beaten, while that unfledged rascal held the field triumphant, shaking his
head, looking belligerent, and daring all the world to
conflict. Miss Gale did better with P., for she laughed
at him, and told him he would outgrow his nonsense
when he grew wiser, and know more both of men
and science.  She remarked to him that there was a
"period of juvenescence, when lads take to infidelity
as in yet earlier years they eat haws and rose-buds




160          A MILLION TOO MIUCH.
and chew spruce gum-all these little diversions grow
equally distasteful as years pass by, and sense supersedes nonsense!"
How P. hated this fashion of dealing with his new
creed! He was wild to prove to her that his assertions-were the fruit of profound study, and a deeprooted conviction. She only laughed the more,
measured the time and the pages spent in this rare
research, and remorselessly exhibited his ignorance,
not to others, but to himself. She might have found
her antidote sufficient for a cure, if there had been no
meddling by quack doctors.
Our friend Roxwell had almost ceased to practise.
He had grown rich, and liked to have leisure and
to theorize. He was fond of coming in and talking to Aunt Debby for old times' sake-she was one
of his few remaining patients.  He heard all her
troubles; was the confidante of all her anxieties.
Chiefly she dwelt on her nephew's misfortunes and
mischiefs.
" 0, doctor, where can he have got such notions?"
" From Adam, I suppose," said the doctor, " where
all our evil comes from. That unfortunate progenitor
had a deal to answer for when he picked the apple;
that fruit was a complete Pandora box of misfortunes
to our race. Eating it, he filled all our veins with




A MILLION TOO 24UCI.           161
mischief; and Milton even accuses him of having, by
the first bite, jogged earth's axis twenty-three and
a half degrees; on account of which deviation, Miss
Dean, you and I are nursing up our rheumatism over
the register during the winter, and sweltering on our
way to the mountains or the sea-side in the summer,
in a vain effort to keep cool."
"Ah, doctor, how you do run on! ilut I wish you
would try and see P., and reason with him," said Miss
Dean.
"Look you here, my good friend," replied the doctor.  " Do you know that reasoning would have more
effect on our young man if long ago you had tried
ruling?  If he had been taught to obey, and had
caught a sharp smack or two when he raised a general
rumpus at the age of three or four, you might now
reason. But what did you do in those days, Miss
Dean? Why, you let him have his own way, or
bribed him to get yours, which amounts to the same
thing; so now he must even go on having his own
way. It is a fact, madam, that those who are taught
to respect and obey their parents, are the ones who
will fear God and obey the laws of the land. You
did a bad thing for P. when you let him come up in
that Gilbert-go-gently fashion. He's out of your
reach now; you can but look on,"
L




162          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
"I can and will keep on praying for him," sobbed
Aunt Debby.
"Yes, yes; and it may save him. But what a
pity that you did not preface your praying, or interline it, with a little active working! The praying
alone would have done well enough if he had been
out of your reach."
At this time P., miserably unsatisfied, went here
and there, knowing the secret doors of gambling-hells,
and the inside of dance-houses; a fast young man,
poor fellow! trying to run away from the goadings
of conscience and fierce unrest that pursued him, as
the Furies pursued Orestes. Going everywhere, P.
even strayed into Mrs. Bently's elysium of red curtains and stuffiness, the "Happy Home Hotel."
Here he was received with enthusiasm, like a prince
and a patron.
"'Ah, Mr. Dean," said Mrs. Jillet, "there is no
telling what feelings I have for you. I lived in that
house and took care of it from your grandfather's
time, and he was a hard gentleman to get along with;
and I'd have willingly stopped there and died for the
sake of all of you, if things hadn't happened just
as they did. Me and Mrs. Bently often speaks of
you; and if you ever want to irop in anywhere for




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            163
hot gin and water to revive your spirits, we shall be
more than pleased to give you a seat here, private."
"Yes, indeed we will," said Mrs. Bently, appearing
with the refreshment named.  "And more, sir, I was
a-thinking as there might be times when you was out
late, and for that and other reasons, didn't care for
going home, for a small trifle of two or three dollars
a week I'll engage always to have a room and a bed
ready for you to come to.-  Mrs. Jillet, dear, do look
out of the window and see! there goes Mrs. Green in
a black alapacca and a silk bonnet, and that little girl
of hers set off in blue. She's quite coming out. If
we called her in, and offered her a glass of gin, I'll
warrant you, she'd be in the gutter, and the new
clothes out at pawn, in a two-months. She's not
strength of mind, like you and I have, poor thing!"
"No; that's true. I've a mind to call her," said
Mrs. Jillet. And, opening the window, she leaned
out between the red curtains, and bawled, " O, Mrs.
Green! Can't you stop a minute, and speak to old
friends?"
Mrs. Green shook her head, and moved on.
" 0, but let me see your little girl. I am that fond
of children!" said Mrs. Bently, leaning out bv Mrs.
Jillet.  "What a dear ihe is! Do bring her in for a




164          A MILLION TCO.MUCH.
bit of candy, and you and I will have a drop of something warm, as we used to."
"'No, no, no!" cried Mrs. Green, as if in terror,
grasping her child's hand to pull her on.
"Ah!" shrieked Mrs. Jillet.  "Mr. Dean wants
to see you.. He is in here-your own nurse-child —
and would like to see them together as was every one
of them a mother to his young days!"
P. saw his poor nurse hesitate; he felt he might be
sitting there to lure her to a fall even more tremendous than the first; he remembered the homely
breakfast at her house, and Teddy's honest satisfaction. He sprung up, oversetting his glass of hot gin
and water, and, rushing out, met the woman and child
on the doorstep.
"I don't want to see you, Mrs. Green —that is, not
in there-I was only in of an errand-I'll walk
along with you-are you going home?"-he rattled,
flurried and blundering.
Mrs. Green drew a long breath.  "It's no place
for me-you came out, thank God! Well, that's the
way He answered my prayer,'Lead us not into
temptation.' I did not know they lived there; and,
please the Lord, I'll not walk on that square any
more."
"No, don't. And don't let them call on you.




A MILL ION TOO MUCH.          165
They are a pair of old witches. I heard them as
good as say they wanted to destroy you. And there's
Teddy, you know, and the little girl."
" And the last words of my old mother. She was
buried a fortnight gone, sir." And Mrs. Green looked
down at her black alpaca.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Jillet had said, "There!  He's
gone. They're both off. Well, there never was any
doing anything with Mr. P. He's crochety."
"I hope he'll come again, and settle to have a
lodging kept ready," said Mrs. Bently. "He would
put many a penny in my pocket one way and
another."
Indeed, P. did not reject Mrs, Bently's considerate
offer. He thought it would be wonderfully convenient to have that out-of-the-way resort. He could
not bear to go home and find Miss Gale quietly sitting up, book in hand. Nor was it any more agreeable to have Aunt Debby put her pale old face out
of her door, her gray hair straying from under her
night-cap, and to hear her say tremulously, " Good
night, and God bless you, my dear boy!"
Good night! It was sure to be a bad night; for
his heal would whirl and buzz as his grand state bed
danced pirouettes about his chamber, and one minute
sailed up lik'e a thistle-seed until he was bumped




166          A MILLION TOO MUCII.
against the ceiling, and th3 next settled down, down,
into the very cellar, and he felt the damp chill and
feared the rats whose eyes gleamed at him out of the
dimness of the wine-vaults.  Ah, P. had very wearisome nights now! As he was undressing, he heard
over and over again the sharp crack of the pistol that
had sent his father uncalled, unprepared, unwelcome,
into eternity. It was not the blues, such as succeeded
juvenile parties; not the'migraine,' such as had
pre-empted part of his days at Saratoga, that
attacked P. now. He was beginning to see little
devils couchant in his bed-hangings, and queer creatures swung like tassels to his canopy.
Good night! P., when ever did you hear a good
night, unless it was that one-your first on earthwhen you slept on Aunt Debby's knees, and she cried
over you, and over that still figure in the parlor, and
the nurse and housekeeper gossipped over the misfortunes of " our family."  After that night you were
put to sleep on gin-sling, and Universal Baby Panacea, and you ate too much, and dreamed dreams
which there was no Joseph to interpret, and you could
not rest because you could not work, and we know
that Ann told you ghost-stories,-now you are going
to bed to hear strange noises, to see horrible sights,
to tal 3 mysterious excursions from basement to attic,




A MILLIC by TOO MIUCH.         167
and Aunt Debby says "Good night!" As for the
other part, the tremulous " God bless you!" why, P.,
that is all nonsense to your wise ear; for you are
quite satisfied that there is no God; that there is
nothing higher and better than your feeble, winefettered thought can reach!
P. was still a favorite in society; he was rather
fast, the good people admitted, but he would moderate
his rate of speed some day, and go more slowly to
destruction. He was a young gentleman of leisure;
he had some wealthy relatives, cousins and uncles,
on his mother's side; he had the hundred thousand
dollars which his administrators had not had time to
use up, and people expected him to get something
from Aunt Debby, who, it was brilliantly remarked,
" could not live for ever." The paternal Snell was
not the only person who had a spare daughter or two
from whom P. could select a wife. P. was inclined
to quarrel with Snell about business; but Snell
reasoned mildly with him: "My dear fellow, did I
not tell you that the whole matter rested with Pincham?  I could not interfere with him. I do not like
the look of matters now, I must say, but I had confidence in Pincham; why, he had a brother whose
honesty was a proverb all over the city. Who would




168          A MIILLION TOO IUCH.
think that an honest man's brother would be dishonest?"
So in one way and another, by fair words, good
dinners, pleasant parties, warm welcomes, and plenty
of flattery, Snell, Esq., coaxed P. back to his house.
The boy was young and soft, heart-sick and lonesome, to tell the truth. He began to think Evelina
Snell very pretty; she had blue eyes, yellow curls,
and the slenderest waist in the world. P. thought
that was beauty.
Our young friend liked to call on Evelina; to dance
with her. He paid her so much attention, that father
Snell began to give odious little winks when he saw
the two together, and to remark to mamma Snell that
P. was a good sort of fellow, and his house was very
stylish, and likely Miss Debby Dean had a neat sum
to tie up.
__ x  




CHAPTER TENTH.
V.     rtea   tsc   a   (stiz i.s5
*- Into this world we come, like ships
Launched from the docks, and stoclks and slipe,
Bor fortune fair or fatal."








CHAPTER TENTH.
P. reaches a Crisis.
T is quite the style for young men to join
some club association. P. must be in the
fashion, and joined one. There are many
of these organizations which might have been
recommended to him; certain " Sons," and "Knights
Templar," and "Good Templars," and so on, would
have lent a hand to drag him up out of the quicksands into which he was slowly sliding. P. joined
none of these. If he had gone over to the "' Young
Men's Christian Association," there might have been
a rescue for him, and we should have been saved
writing this history for a warning. Instead, P. joined
the R. B's. B. B. might mean "Royal Brothers,"
"Roaring Blades," or "Rowdy Boys," for aught I
know-not having joined the R. B.'s, one cannot tell
what the cabalistic letters mean. The R. B.'s had a
fine room, luxuriously furnished: sofas and chairs
were gorgeous in red velvet; the lace curtains were
all beautiful with lilies and roses, and sprays of fern,
and heads of wheat, white and delicate as sea-foam;
(171)




172          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
grand chandeliers, with gilded chains, and glittering
pendants, hung over marble tables, and mosaic tables,
and tables for billiards, cards, checkers, and dice —
any game in fact, good or evil, that could amuse.
The R. B.'s had servants and wine; they ate, drank,
and were merry. P. was quite fascinated with them;
he thought he had as last found something to interest
him, something congenial; they drank his favorite
drinks; sang the jolliest songs; were so witty; so
wise. They did not believe these hobgoblin tales of
immortal spirits; of a Day of Judgment; of Heaven
and Hell; of a Creator and a Judge. The R. B.'s
all knew better; and P. was glad to be in their truly
choice and refined company.
He was away from home so constantly, out so late,
or all night, when he went to Mrs. Bently's " Happy
Home," that Aunt Debby ventured to inquire what
was being doze. She was told that he had joined a
"' Literary Society."
"That is very nice," said the simple old lady.
"You hear, Miss Gale, it is a literary society to
which P. belongs. I always knew there was more in
him than people thought,"
Yes, there was doubtless plenty in P., but nobody
had ever taken well-corn erted measures for bringing
it out.




A MILLION TOO MUCmI.            173
As for Miss 6 ale, she was suspicious of the literary
attainments and pursuits of P.'s literary confreres.
She judged that they were better acquainted with
" Hoyle on Games" than with " Edwards on the Will;"
that they preferred choice Burgundy to Lord Maccaulay; and took more kindly to rouge-et-noir than
to the "Testimony of the Rocks."
For all their elegance and their abundant refreshments our young R. B.'s had to pay heavily. P. was
making his money fly in royal fashion. His friends
hinted, or plainly remonstrated, but the young man
replied that he thought the cash would hold out as
long as he wanted it; and indeed, Aunt Debby helped
the holding out, by seeing to it that P. was never at
any expense at home, and by paying every bill that
came to her knowledge.
Among the chief expenses of the R. B. club, or
society, might be counted an annual dinner, on what
they called their anniversary. This dinner was given
in magnificent style at a first-class hotel, and to it
they invited their particular friends. Previous to the
dinner they had songs and speeches at their societyroom, and then drove about town in open carriages,
wearing badges, and striving to attract attention.
A hundred years ago, courtly and cultivated gentlemen thought it no particular disgrace to drink them



174          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
selves under the table. The R. B.'s took the same
view; they would have branded him a poltroon who
was afraid to drink freely, and they had no idea of
blushing when they became drunk. Hitherto P. had
never publicly disgraced himself, nor occasioned any
severe remarks; it had bLeen hinted that he was fond
of a glass of wine, and that if he did not have a care
he might soon drink too much. Teddy had found
him unable to take care of himself; Miss Gale and
Aunt Debby had looked anxiously after his unsteady
steps as he went to his bed; we remember that a
policeman had found him sitting on a curbstone,
hilarious and ridiculous, but that matter had been
hushed up, and society still spoke well of Mr. P.
Dean, and had never had occasion to point at him
the finger of scorn.
P. was now rapidly passing the bounds of prudence;
he was reckless of consequences, careless of condemnation. At the R. B.'s dinner P. was in his element.
He was one of the masters of ceremonies, and having
performed his part to every one's satisfaction until
wine was set on the table, he began to drink greedily.
The long table was closely surrounded by young men.
Large bouquets and beautiful wreaths glowed over
the whiteness of the damask table linen; and down
the whole length of the festive board decanters cast




A MILLIONV TOO MUCH.           175
crimson or golden reflections as the light streamed
through them; bottles of what was called choice wine
stood singly or in groups; fragile crystal glasses;
elegant goblets, cut with a tracery of leaves and
flowers, sparkled almost as bright as the silverware
that was abundantly displayed; while a grand mirror,
at the lower extremity of the table, caught up and
reduplicated the brilliant scene in its shining depths.
Near the upper door of the apartment sat the band
that had been engaged to furnish music for the occasion, and servers of wine and brandy were sent betimes to the performers.
The merriment grew furious; several toasts would
be shouted forth at once; faces were flushed; eyes
gleaming; some overcome already were nodding
drowsily in their chairs, heedless of the bacchanalian
Ain. A madness seized P. He had become furiously
drunk. He caught an uncorked bottle of champagne
in one hand and a decanter of brandy in the other,
and vaulted upon the table with a wild huzza. His
inebriated companions broke into cheers and laughter. P. crashed the bottle and decanter together in
an ecstasy, and the wine, set free, spirted and foamed
into his face, and over the splendors of his apparel.
Laughter now filled the room, and some cried, " Come
down, come down; none of that!"




176          A MILLION TOO JMUCH.
But the distracted Dean -had now caught sight of
himself in the long mirror; he was too drunk to
recognise his own semblance, and frantically imagined
that here was some enemy mocking him with absurd
gestures.  Full of wrath, he stooped down, and,
grasping whatever bottles and glasses came to hand,
flung them crashing through the mocking mirror.
Waiters rushed to the rescue, but were prevented
from seizing P. by the crowd shouting and gesticulating, upbraiding and laughing about the table, making
ineffectual efforts to grasp P.'s active legs and pull
him down.
The very demon of destruction was rampant in this
young man; he dexterously seized bottles, and struck
at the heads of his assailants; he kicked the ornamental silverware right and left; he made a clean
sweep of one end of the table by an agile use of his
right leg, and dashed glass and silver, liquids and
solids, on the floor. For a few minutes the room was
full of cries and oaths and the crash of breaking
glass. The waiters, the landlord, and the loungers
in the bar-room ran to look; the band dropped their
instruments, and yelled with laughter. P. was caught
by head, arms, and legs, and, dragged from the table,
was held extended among his.captors, still denouncing
the man who had gibed and flouted at him in the mir



A JIILLIOIT TOO MUCH.           177
ror.  Ignominiously was the master of ceremonies
carried to a small upper room, and put to bed, there
to recover his senses, remember, and be ashamed.
The anniversary dinner broke up in confusion, and
alla night the hotel servants were busy repairing
damages.
The third day after this the irate landlord sent P.
a bill of eleven hundred dollars for damages. This
P. walked down and paid without a murmur, but by
this restitution he could not check the current of
remark and scandal. Every one was talking against
him: those who had fostered the love of drink in him,
those who had evoked the demon in the innocent boy,
now held up their hands in horror and protested at
his drunkenness. P. knew very well why Aunt Debby
fell ill and kept her bed for a week, but Miss Gale
never said why; she met him on the same good terms
as ever, pitying the poor young sinner with all her
heart, and feeling that this was not the time for upbraiding. Perhaps P.'s heart was a little softened by
her wise kindness, for he hung about her and grew
more confidential, refraining also from all remarks
that were displeasing to her. Neither did Evelina
Snell berate him: Evelina cried a little when she first
heard of the fracas, cried not because P. had done
wrong, and was in danger of doing even worse, but




178          A MILLON TOO MUCH.
because she feared people would laugh at him, and
say unpleasant things of her.
Miss Gale and Teddy Green tried more than ever
to get P. to go into business; so did Dr. Roxwell.
They suggested country life, a farm with a nice residence, and an overseer hired to look after the work;
they proposed a long trip overland with some one experienced in buying furs; they offered to get him a
chance to go with an exploring expedition; they
recommended a partnership in a lumber business, and
that P. should go up into Maine for awhile, but the
young man sullenly and decidedly rejected all advice.
P. had sinned grievously, and society made him
know it, by averted looks and caustic speeches.
The " R. B.'s" felt their honorable clique disgraced
by the frantic interruption of their dinner, and though
P. had paid damages, they ignominiously expelled
him from their number, a circumstance which might
have been of great advantage to the victim if he had:nly known how to use it. But being deprived of the
companionship of the brilliant 1" R. B.'s," he spent
most of his evenings playing billiards in a saloon with
a'"bar" attached to it, where he partook freely of
brandy and water. In one way and another P. contrived to lose a little money here, and losing made
him cross. He had the diversion of growling and




A MILLIOX TOO MUCIH.          179
disputing every evening, and on one unlucky occasion he doubled up his fists and shook them in his
opponent's face. "~ Ah, ha!" said that person, aggravatingly, " do you take me for that fellow you saw in
the glass at the R. B. dinner? You mashed his head
with a decanter, you know, and what did it cost
you?"
By way of reply to this taunt, P. knocked the
speaker down, but he sprung up again in a second,
and gave P. a black eye. The combatants were
parted presently, and P., feeling quite unfit to go
home, his eye being bruised and his coat torn, concluded to put into Mrs. Bently's "'Appy'Ome'Otel"
for repairs. Just as he reached the door, the fellow
with whom he had quarrelled came after him, and renewed the attack.
In the light of the street gas, and the red light
which came through the windows of Mrs. Bently's
sanctum, P. went into the quarrel in such loud earnest
that a policeman came up to stop the fight. The one
rioter fled incontinently, but P. having lost his last
morsel of sense, pulled out a mite of a revolver, which
looked about as terrible as a pea-shooter, and fired
one impotent shot at the policeman's head; he went
so wide of the mark that the bit of a ball flew through
Mrs. Bently's sign, and P., being seized, was the




180          A MNILLION TOO IUCE.
second time locked up by the police, but now on
charge of "' riotous conduct, and violent assault of an
officer."
When P. came to his senses, next morning, he
cursed his unhappy stars, as if the planets had anything to do with getting him into disgrace.
Teddy Green had now advanced to the position of
newspaper reporter; Teddy had studied hard, and
had made bold to imitate Benjamin Franklin, and
contribute small articles to the paper on which he
worked. He had grown in favor, and wvas climbing
upwards at a very moderate rate, having only his own
honest endeavors to look to.
Teddy going about the city for last items for his
paper, had learned of P.'s misconduct, and its consequences. We may be sure that Teddy did not seize
the bit of scandal, to make an amusing paragraph of
it as a relish for the breakfast of those two unfortunate women, Aunt Debby and Miss Gale. Instead,
he sent a note to the ex-governess, telling her the
cause of P.'s absence, and where he might be found,
if he were looked after.
Miss Gale went for Dr. Roxwell to help her in the
trouble, for she knew that the doctor was one of her
reckless boy's best friends.
The two found P. in a dismal little room, having a




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             181
small iron bedstead with dirty covers, and a rickety
table. On the table stood a bowl of porridge and
molasses, with a battered iron spoon stuck up in the
middle. It is needless to say that P. had utterly contemned this poor fare, and he now lay on the pallet,
his face to the wall; his muddy boots kicked off; his
hair uncombed; his face unwashed, and marred by
last evening's strife; his coat torn; his shirt-front
rent; his necktie vanished; his watch, chain, ring,
and pocket-book put somewhere for safe-keeping by
his captors.
" Well, well, well!" said Dr. Roxwell, and his
mind made a hasty review of this young man's life;
the splendor of his early prospects; the luxurious
indulgence; he could see as in a picture the babe
with three nurses, in his grand nursery, or taking a
state progress through the streets.  Aunt Debby's
petted boy, dressed in velvets, giving juvenile parties,
and assisted on in learning and in life by every tender
device for saving him trouble, and giving him his own
way. " Well, well, well!" said the doctor again.
" 0, P., my dear P.! how sorry I am for you!
We must get you out of this and take you home, and
try and do better, all of us!" cried Miss Gale.
" I won't go home," said the dishevelled P., sulkily.
"Ah! now, no one knows a word of this; it is




182          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
not in the papers, and won't be. Teddy Green let
us hear of it; he is such a good fellow. If you
don't like to go home, we will go out in the country
to see my uncle; I'd like it so well. Sit up, P.; do,
now, and the doctor will try and settle your business
over at the court, and bring us a hack to go home in."
"' I wish he'd been to my funeral yesterday, instead
of his cousin Nancy's," said P., morbidly.
" You must not say that, my boy. I tell you you
are far from being ready to die."
" Being ready to die is all bosh," said P., defiantly.
"No, it is not," said Miss Gale, "you know better.
You feel in your own heart that you are more than a
dog or a bird to drop dead and be nothing evermore.
And you know just as well that you'd be perfectly
wretched in Heaven if you were taken there this
minute just as you are, for you don't like good things,
and don't love God. My dear fellow, to live is the
very best thing that can befall you, and you have only
to try and get some comfort out of that estate. Why,
boy, the world lies before you. You have yet money,
and friends, and health; and you can make morc
according to your wish, if you'll set about it. Come,
P., you must turn over a new leaf and reform; get a
nice wife to make home lively and homelike to you,
and be a man. This is a sad tumble, but pick your



A fiLELION TOO MIUGR.          183
self up, and be a man hereafter. When you were a
little fellow you could do anything you put your
mind to."
Dr. Roxwell had gone out on his errand, feeling
himself quite overcome by P.'s forlorn condition.
Miss Gale had pulled her former pupil from his
crouching by the wall as she spoke, and now he lay
with his head on the dirty straw pillow, looking up
into her face, as she bent over him, pitying, reproving, encouraging. He caught the ends of her shawl,
and hid his face in them, sobbing out: "0, I wish I
were a little boy in the school-room with you again;
and that I could come up to live better and be happy."'" You can live better and be happy all the same,"
said Miss Gale, as her tears dropped on his rumpled
hair, while she smothered it with her hand. 6t You
must settle to some work, so you will not be tempted
by idleness to go to these places where you get into
so much trouble. It is unmanly, my dear P., to live
without any motive, and without any good result.
Life is for honest effort, and for fair success, not for
a general row. You are capable of something far
better than you have yet sought after. I say it, P.,
who have known it since you were five years old."
~6 It', no use," moaned P.  "I'm always coming to
grief. i get to those places, and there's an end of
me. Why are people allowed to have traps to catch




184          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
us poor weak fellows in every turn of the street? I
can't do any better, and there is no use talking!"
"'You can do better, my dear fellow, if you begin
in the right way," said Miss Gale, sitting down on
the edge of the bed and looking earnestly at P.  " A
man can make no progress in goodness when he
reviles and rejects the Founta:i, of all goodness.'Every good and every perfect gift is from above,
and cometh down from the Father of Lights;' and
you, my poor boy, even deny his existence. I should
think, P., that the known evil of your own heart, the
manner in which you sin and are sinned against,
would convince you of an adversary to your goodness
and happiness, stronger than you can conquer. But
you see, P., that all men do not sin and fall and suffer
as you do. There are many that shine in virtue and
in peace; whose lives are blessed and a blessing,
whom we all love and honor perforce. This is not
because they are naturally better or stronger or
wiser than you; but because they have gotten help
where you have scorned it; because they have obeyed
the commands of a Master and Father, whom you
ignore to your own destruction. Take the right
means, my P., and you will secure the desired end.
Cease this vain babbling of infidelity; submit to God,
and he will raise you up. All life is before you;
everything good is possible to you. You can rise




A MIILLION TOO MUCH.           185
superior to all these downfalls and temptations.
They talk of wild oats, P.-I think you have sowed
and harvested of them pretty plentiful'y already."
P.'s hard short sobs had ceased; he listened attentively.
"When I talk to you, and hear you," he said, s" it
seems as if I could be something and do right. Then
in a little time the feeling is gone, and I am in
trouble as before."
" But now you will truly try and do better; try in
the right way, will you not?"
"C Yes, I will try," said P.
Then he got up from the horrible pallet; put on
his boots; left his coat for the warden or the next
comer; put on the spring overcoat which the doctor
had brought him; fastened up his necktie; straightened his cap, and crushed it over his shaggy hair and
black eye, and began tramping uneasily up and down
the narrow limits of his cell; while Miss Gale sat on
the edge of the bed, recalling the past as the doctor
had recalled it; sympathizing with the present;
trembling for the future; wondering if her boy would
now reform.
At home, Aunt Debby cried softly over her prayers
and her Bible, and wondered if it were at all her
fault that P. had reached this crisis in his history.








CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
volift aourt ta tQt FmmtWL
" Of letting loose rapine and murder,
To go just so far and no efurtler;
And setting all the land on fire,'
To burn just so high, and no highafl








CHAPTER ELEVENTIH.
Police Cozurt to the Rescume.
HAD said that " he would try"-we cannot
tell whether he kept his promise or not; if he
did, his keeping was of poor fashion enough.
Perhaps by this time he was incapable of strong
effort, or high resolution. Moral purpose in P. had
been probably still-born; surely it had never been
fostered, and taught, and equipped to be a captain
over the spiritual being, leading obedient powers to
grand conquest.  P.'s faculties were disorganized
and demoralized; and his trying was like the last
feeble flutter of the singed moth, fallen dying out
of the flame.
Dr. Roxwell wanted to know who was responsible
for this. Was P. to blame for not having been
dowered with virtues before his birth? for having
been left so wretchedly untrained? Was he to blame
for finding himself now too weak to resist temptation,
and too blind to discern clearly between good and
evil?
(189)




190          A JILLION TOO MUCH.
"Who hath sinned, this man or his parents? That
is what I want to know; and by parents I mean all
these people who have had charge of him-nurses
and servants, guardians, Aunt Debby, and Professor
Easy, with the other teachers. Dear me! who can
be to blame among all of them?"
Thus spoke Dr. Roxwell, addressing his cousin
Nancy's tombstone. The loss of Cousin Nancy fell
heavily on the doctor; she had been such an admirable
listener, that her like would never be found again.
" Business!" said P., when some sort of occupation
was urged upon him. "What business can I do?  I
can't open a hotel?"
"Shocking! No; of course not," said Aunt
Debby
" And grandfather and father were liquor-dealers;
but I don't know as I could undertake the business."
"By no means; it would be the ruin of you!"
cried Miss Gale.
" Past spoiling, by this time," said P., indifferently.
"Well, I have no profession, and I've never been
used to study or thinking, or talking. I cannot set
up as a politician."
" There are other things to turn to-farming," said
Miss Gale.




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            191
"Farming! I hate the country, and should die
of a quiet life."
"It would be free from temptations which are fatal
to you."
"Ah! but I believe I like the temptations," said
1'., perversely.
" Manufactures-commerce-stores of all kinds,"
said Aunt Debby.
"Don't bother me," said P. "I can't do anything. Don't you know, Aunt Debby, I was never
brought up to do anything. The maid laced my
shoes; the waiter spread my bread, and put my egg
into the cup, when I was twelve years old; and you
did my sums, Aunt Debby, if Miss Gale set me hard
ones; and yet I do believe I should have liked books
and study, if I had been allowed a chance. Lo! the
work of your hands i"
This was very bitter to Aunt Debby. She began
to see dimly the folly, and even sin, of her management of her nephew. We have dreamed dreams of
standing on a narrowing space, and seeing two great
walls drawing together from either side, to crush us.
So Aunt Debby saw now looming up on the one hand
the errors and mismanagement of P.'s childhood, and
on the other, the dim foreshadowing of their di'e




192           A MILLIOIN TOO MUCH.
effect.  These things were crushing her poor well
meaning old heart.';P.," said Miss Gale," what is going to be done
to save you? You are on the verge of ruin."
" Just toppling over," admitted P.
"Then, how can we help you?"
"There is no way," said P. " If there were any
strong power to take hold of me, to threaten me with a
knife to my throat, and resolutely kill or cure me, the
problem of my existence would be solved, somehow,
immediately. Sometimes I think of what I used to
read in history of the code of Draco, and the iron laws
of Lycurgus, when a man's daily living was looked
after, and a man's crime against himself was a crime
against the state and visited accordingly, and I wish
I had lived under such a government."
"' Would you like to be a mere puppet, and shift
all responsibility for your own actions?"
" If one has ceased to be a responsible agent, it is
well to be taken care of. I shall go out by-and-by-I
shall pass an open door, where I shall see fellows that
I know, laughing and drinking and beckoning-I
shall see the liquor that plays the mischief with meI shall smell it-I shall go in and drink it, and I
cannot tell you whether I shall get home safely, or
whether I shall come to grief, and be brought up in a




A MI.LLION TOO JMUCH.          193
station-house, or whether I shall die out somewhere,
like a spark of fire in the darkness, and never be
heard of any more."
" 0, how can you talk so? how can you do so?"
cried Miss Gale.
"The trouble is that the shop is open, and the
fellows are there, and the liquor is there.  Suppose I
walked through all the city, and did not find one
groggery, one wholesale or retail liquor-store, one
bar, one place at all where liquors were sold? If I
could absolutely get nothing stronger than Saratoga
water, lemonade, or the nectar out of a soda-fountain,
you might see me coming home early, safe and
sound; getting more of a man every day, and capable
of doing something by-and-by. If it had been so
since I was born, I would not be lying here now,
as nearly ruined as can be without being gone
altogether."
P. got up, and lounged out of the room.'0, for a strong, well-maintained prohibitory
law!" cried Miss Gale.
"My dear," suggested Aunt Debby, "we do not
want tyrannical laws to make slaves of us-we are
a free people."
"We could not be made slaves by a law made by
ourselves, for our own protection," said Miss Gale.
N




194           A MILLION TOO MUCHI.'But it seems that we have no right to legislate
what a man shall eat and drink. Has he not a right
to put into his mouth whatever he pleases?"
6"No," said the governess.  "It s right to control
everything for the greatest good of the greatest
number, and attain the highest happiness. We assert
the right to frame laws forbidding the sale of poisons,
except to responsible parties for a known and legitimate use: the law is often evaded; parties are
deceived; but it is there, and should be enforced to
the very letter. We know it is a just and proper
law; and the -greatest evil-working, soul-and-bodydestroying poison of all, is sold openly by the barrel,
and people cry out that it would not be just to forbid
its manufacture and its sale."
" Ah, yes. But, after all, it is not like laudanum,
prussic acid, or strychnine," said Aunt Debby.
"It takes a good deal to do the work that a small
portion of those poisons will effect-it is slower in its
working, but, after all, not less painful.  People
suffer a drunkard's death a thousand times before he
dies; he breaks the hearts of his family for years.
It would be less cruel if he were killed at once by the
poison, if he must only die by it after all."
"I'm  just as anxious for P. as you are.  I'd give
my life to see him reformed.  God knows, Miss Gale,




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            195
I would willingly have died for that boy, any day
since he was born; my days have not so very much
good left in them that I should desire their prolongation. But when we get talking of this temperance
question, do you know I get all mixed up. It is so
different from anything that I was brought up to.
In my young days even ministers drank both wine
and whiskey, and no harm was thought of it."
"Yes," said Dr. Roxwell, who had walked in.
" They primed for the pulpit, possibly, with a good
glass of brandy; and some of them are now opposed
to total abstinence. I think very many of those who
drank as they pleased twenty, thirty, fifty years since,
would now go in for absolute prohibition, because they
see the effects of the example on the-mass, and the
horrible and spreading evils of intemperance."
" If it was a sin then, it is a sin now," said Aunt
Debby; " and I have always heard temperance people
called fanatics."
" Some of them are fanatics, having more zeal in
their hearts than knowledge in their heads, and so
bring the cause into disrepute-but it is safest to err
on the right side. Moreover, most of the agitators of
the temperance question are gentlemen and scholars,
whole-hearted philanthropists, and worthy of our
grateful support. When one claims that the use of




196          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
wine or liquor is a sin, per se, one makes a claim that
cannot be logically proved or supported, and presently
runs into fanaticism."
"And some say it is wrong to use wine in the Sacrament."
"Then they say what they have no right to sayI don't believe-yes, I am sure that it is impossible
that it can be proven that the wine tasted at the communion-table ever caused or re-aroused the craving
for strong drink; and, at all events, when Christ
without doubt did take wine and bread, and dividing
it, say,'This do,' I, for one, shall be perfectly content to do it, and feel that I am doing right."
"And how about the wine and brandy in medicine
prescribed by physicians?" asked Miss Gale.
"I don't use it, for fear of doing more harm than
good; though I have had a plenty of patients with
whom I would have been perfectly safe in prescribing
it. It takes us a long while to learn physical facts,
Miss Gale, and we are ever making new discoveries
in medicine. I have a very ancient medical book,
which instructs us how to cure idiots, by rubbing the
head with an oil made out of a man's skull and other
ingredients. I need not tell you we do not now deal
with idiocy in that fashion. Maybe, a hundred years




A MILLION.9O0 MUCH.           197
from now, some of our preseit prescriptions may have
become obsolete."
Still, as they talked at home, P., the object of their
cares and fears, wandered on his way, and found a
net spread at the head of every street, to take the
sons of the nation, as Isaiah saw in vision.
" The law," says St. Paul, "is holy, and the commandment is holy, just, and good." He was speaking
of the law and commandment of our God, and not
of men; for the civil law is given to calling good evil,
and evil good; or, in other words, what is evil may
become good by payment of certain dollars and cents;
what is lawful as a cause, is criminal as an effect.
To murder your neighbor is a capital crime; neverthel- s, you may murder your neighbor in a perfectly
legal manner, if you pay, say twenty dollars for a
license, and proceed to the deed in a sufficiently
leisurely manner. You cannot cut off A. B. in the
prime of his days with a dose of strychnine, and be
uncondemned. The state cries out for vengeance on
the destroyer. The state, at heavy cost, tries, condemns, and executes you. And yet, if you pay the
state your twenty dollars, you may sell A. B. two
hundred dollars' worth of strychnine whiskey, which
shall so madden him that he will first cut his wife's
throat and then his own. The state will then raise




198          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
no lamentations for him; he will be pronounced a fool
who did not know the limit of his strength, and a
villain whom society is well rid of. Meanwhile, if you
have dealt with C. and D., and all the rest of the
alphabet, as you did with A. B., and have made
enough by the operation to ride in a carriage, and
give election treats, you may reasonably look forward
to going to Congress, to help frame laws which, shall
make your murder-license cheaper, and your whiskeyprofits heavier.
Licenses and liquor-taxes are a source of emolument to the Government; fires, thefts, murders, and
trials in courts, big and little, are an expense to the
state; the latter would more than overbalance the
former; if people would take the trouble to consider,
it would be seen that the liquor trade is i source of
impoverishment rather than of gain, and beyond the
money loss we must set the loss of men. Rachel is
bereaved of her children.
The unfortunate young man whose history we
chronicle had now reached a point where he grew
reckless of opinions, and careless of disgrace. He
belonged to a class in society whose faults have frequently been overlooked, and who have supposed
that, through courtesy, they should escape punishment; whereas, on the principle that where "' much




A MILLION TOO lUCGH.           199
Is g'ven, much shall be required," they merit additional severity, because they have had unusual
opportunity; the influence of their bad example is
greater; the debt they owe society is heavier  P.'s
errors could no longer be ignored, and his appearances in the police court were frequent. As in lays
gone by they dealt with the maniac with stripes and
chains and foul dungeons, now they deal with the rum
maniac with fines and imprisonment; and there is just
as much likelihood of success in the one case as in the
other.
The fines and imprisonment are just what is needed,
applied in the right quarter;. for instance, to the
maker and vender of liquors that intoxicate. When
you get to the drunkard, you find a man sick in body
and non compos mzentis, and you must heal, and not
punish. The magistrate should know of some hospital
for drunkards, some infirmary for topers, some madhouse for delirium tremens, and have power to send
his culprit there for the right kind of treatment.
"We're a'avin' werry good times just now," says
little Mollie O'Shane.  "Mammy's been in the'Ouse
of Correction for three week, an' daddy was only out
a week when he got shut up agin, an' we'as werry
good times, Pat an' me."
If said "daddy" had been where he could have




200          A MILLION TOO MIUCH.
been given medical treatment, instead of an absurd
imprisonment, the disgrace and confinement of which
made not the slightest impression on Mr. O'Shane's
blunted sensibilities, Mollie and her wee brother might
have seen even better days yet.
We leave you to consider what sort of an appetizer
such a paragraph as this in the morning paper proved
to Aunt Debby and Miss Gale:"Before Alderman Beitler, for drunkenness, P.
Dean; fined five dollars and costs."
"Officer Murphy yesterday evening arrested P.
Dean, and a young man, name unknown, on charge
of drunkenness and riotous conduct."
" A riot of a serious character took place on Monday evening at a tavern kept on Water street by Mrs.
Bently. A young man, named P. Dean, belonging
to one of the first families in the city-a millionaire,
says report-struck an old man on the head with a
bottle of Rocky Mountain Bitters. The injury was
quite severe, and the wounded man was taken to the
hospital. Dean was brought before Justice Nortcn,
and gave bail for his appearance when called for."
In one year P. spent three weeks-all days and
parts of days being counted-in jail. He paid three
hundred and sixty-nine dollars for fines and damages;
his name appeared fourteen times in the police columns




A MILL JON TOO MUCH.           201
of the city papers; he was at different times days in
bed, amounting to four weeks, recovering from injuries
received in drunken brawls; he lost two front teeth,
and had a scar across his chin, tokens not of valor
but of whiskey bouts; he paid Mrs. Bently five hundred dollars for bed, board, attendance, and hushmoney-a sum, she assured him, much below her true
bill, but the reduction " was on account of her devoted
affection for, and undying interest in, a young man to
whom she had been as a mother."
"' My dear boy," said Miss Gale, sitting by the bed
where P. lay, with his head bound up.  "You speak
of the law; I am sure it has taken you in hand, and
I cannot see that you are at all benefited."
"No," sighed P.  "There's a screw loose somewhere."
" This fining and imprisoning drunkards is all bosh,"
said Dr. Roxwell, from his station at the window.
"The disgrace is nothing; they don't care for it;
and you might as well talk of shutting a lunatic up
fourteen days for his lunacy, or fining a madman five
dollars for being mad. You've got to take hold Df
drunkards another way entirely."
"I'll tell you whom they ought to fine," cried P.,
sitting up in bed.




202           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
"My dear P., do lie down," remonstrated Miss
Gale.
"They ought to fine that old hag, Bently, who
makes the drunkards with her'Rocky Mountain Cordial,' and'Mountain Bitters.' They ought to fine
her so heavily that she'd have to sell out the whole
concern to pay it."
P. gesticulated wildly with his fists; and Miss Gale
entreated, " Oh! P., my dear, do control yourself, and
lie down."
" I'll tell you who ought to go to prison-yes, for
life-Curdle & Sons, importers of wines and brandies.
I'll tell you where the law should interfere-with Maxwell Brothers, wholesale and retail liquor-dealers; half
a million they're worth, and government should confiscate the whole of it. Who is it they should haul up
in court and reprimand, and disgrace, and all that?
Why, it is Langley, with that accursed first-class bar
in his hotel; and Pingle with his grand saloon; and
Huxford, with his'Metropolitan Retreat.'"
"Yes; that's the truth, P.," said Dr. Roxwell.
"But you'd better lie down, and think no more
about it."
"I will think about it.  These liquor-sellers, like
so many- 
"P., you will certainly be worse," urged Miss Gale.




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            203
"I'd be glad to be dead," vociferated P. —— " like
so many highwaymen, attack me, plunder me, leave
me half dead, and up steps the wisdom of the law,
and fines me for obstructing the public way with
my maimed and insensible carcass. I'm robbed by
Pingle, and Huxford, and the Maxwell Brothers,
and the Court sends me to jail for not taking better
care of my money. Here's a man pays thirty dollars
for his license to sell, but I can't get any license to
drink. Ah ha! They know I'll drink without a
license, and be fined for it, and go to the lock-up for itso the state imagines it makes money out of both of
us, buyer and seller; but when you come to foot up
the bills, and the expenses for trials, and for courts,
and for injury to public property, and support of
public institutions, why, you'll see that the state has
been penny wise and pound foolish; it has been gaining by tens and losing by thousands, by jingo!"-and
the unhappy orator flounced himself over, buried his
bandaged head in a corner by the wall, and jerked
the bed-clothes into an uncomfortable pile.
"Doctor," said Miss Gale, "I'm afraid the poor
fellow has gone crazy."
"That is the most sensible speech he has ever
made; pity that he won't profit by his own wisdom,"
said the doctor, gruffly.




204           A MILLION TOO 2M UCII.
Here came in Aunt Debby, who had been making
ineffectual efforts to get a nap. No longer the comely
lady who superintended the baby heir's morning bath,
or, gracious and lovely, received her callers on New
Year's Day; but a haggard woman, with deep-set,
tear-blinded eyes; wrinkles cut down into her face
like watercourses; a sharp chin, its rounded prettiness worn away long ago; a nose like an eagle's beak,
and thin hair, white as snow.
"Didn't I hear my poor child speaking?" asked
Aunt Debby, drawing her shawl about her thin, bent
shoulders, and stepping very feebly.  "0, my poor
love, what can help him!"
"Nothing, I fear," said Dr. Roxwell.  "There is
no help in us selfish sinners, and he won't look
higher up."
~~"~~~'r~~ rau~~~v~( B~~~a~-~~ —~~, ~ (1




CHAPTER TWELFTH.
Gte Ilsglum BUnertakes Vim.
"Heavy to get, and hard to hold,
Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold,
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled,
Spurned by the young, and hugged by the old
To the very edge of the churchyard mould."








CHAPTER TWELFTH.
The dsylurum utndertakes P.
VER impending over the inebriate is the
drunkard's horrible delirium-mania a potu.
P. had seen the bed going up and downhe had seen queer creatures swinging in
hideous sport to his bed's canopy; he had shrunk
from the eyes of rats that gleamed on him from grim
corners —but feeling, fearing, and shrinking, he had
known that these were only fancies, one part of the
brain had reasoned, while the other imagined, and P.
had borne up against these horrors.
P.'s conduct had of late been such that the paternal Snell had withdrawn patronage from him; had
ceased winking and hinting, and had very nearly
concluded that a marriage between P. and Evelina
was not to be thought of, because it was evident that
the last hundred thousand out of that million was
rapidly melting away.
Poor P. had given Evelina his picture, and she had
(207)




208          A JILLION TOO BMUCH.
promised him hers in return. He called one evening
to get it.
" Pa says I can't give it to you," said Evelina, reluctantly.
"Can't! why not?" demanded P.; "what's up,
now?"
"It's all your own fault, P.," whimpered Evelina;'" you are not behaving right-you will get into such
disgraceful trouble. People say you drink too much,
P.-why will you? You see it is all your own fault
that Pa won't let me give it to you."
Evelina was growing incoherent, and P. shouted,
angrily, —
" My fault! it's their fault. Your father gave me
drink plenty of times; offered it to me; forced it on
me. So did your mother-so did you."
"Ah, but everybody likes a little; the trouble with
you is, that you take too much."
"Much, and little, is it? Who is going to find out
what is much and what is little? Little for one, is
much for another, and when a fellow gets going he
don't know where to stop, and everybody begins to
drop down on him."
Evelina, weeping, assured P. that she did not wish
to drop down on him in this offensive manner; on the
contrary, the unhappy Evelina was ready to stand by




A MILLION TOO MUCH.           209
P., and let people drop down on both of them, if
people were so cruel.
"I'm just what all of you folks, and everybody
else, have been making of me ever since I was born,"
said P., sulkily; "6 and everybody turns against me,
and you turn against me; and, confound it all  I'll
go and hang myself, and be done with it."'C I don't turn against you," sobbed Evelina, " and
I never will. You must not talk of hanging yourself-don't, P., don't do it; say you won't-promise
me."
" Will you promise me you'il marry me?" asked P.
" Well-yes-I will; only I don't know what pa'1l
Bay."
" And where's that picture?" demanded P., pushing his advantage.
6' It's in my pocket," said Evelina, slowly producing
it.
" Give it to me, then," said P., taking it without
any great ardor; "and to-morrow I'll bring you a
ring, an'd we'll see what your father will say. It is a
poor time for him to turn against me, after  l his
encouragement, and I won't stand it."
P. was grumbling at Sneil, instead of going into
any raptures over Evelina and the promise she had
just made him. He was not very lover-like, and the
0




210           A 1iIILAION TOO MUCH.
poor child felt it.  She had no undying devotion for
P., not a particle of respect for him; the fancy which
his attentions and her parent's hints had fostered,
she called love. It was but a poor, faint shadow of a
grand emotion; but it was all Evelina knew, and she
was ready to cry that P. should be occupied in quarrelling against her father, rather than saying fond
words to her.
" Pa won't object, P., if-if you will only be careful. You must not drink so much, not enough to get
into trouble. Say you give it up, P., and go into
business; I think it would be so nice. Can't you
have a fine store, like young Curtis?"
"I'm not up to that sort of thing," replied P.
" And about the other, why, say you'll be careful,
and not drink so much."
": Confound it 1" cried P., "I guess I know how to
take care of myself. You never mind, Evelina —
there, now, what are you crying for?  Yes, I'll be
careful after this; will that suit you?"
Evelina wiped her eyes, and smiled.  "W-hat will
your Aunt Debby say, when she hears we are-engaged?" she asked, half shyly.
"0, she won't say anything. Yes, she will, too;
she'll be glad of it, and think I'll settle down-and
so I mean to, Evelina."




A MILLION TOO MUUCT.           211
It was a forlorn sort of engagement. P. stayed for
an hour or so, unmolested by the heads of the h.ousehold, as is too much the fashion, then kissed his Evelina good-bye, and went away with the picture in
his pocket, leaving his betrothed to keep her secret to
herself, or tell it, and receive the congratulations or
the anathemas of the family, as might happen. He
meant to go home, tell Aunt Debby, and have a reasonable talk with Miss Gale.
P. was not desperately in love with his Evelina. He
had no great amount of affection to bestow on anybody; the fashion of his life had been such as to kill
his noblest feelings.  Still, he liked the girl; he had
been thrown into her society; he was aroused to combat the recreant Snell; spite and fancy together had
made him propose the marriage, and now he meant to
carry out the plan, thinking it would do as well as
anything.
A new feeling of responsibility came upon him; he
was ready to settle down to something, to try and fill
a man's legitimate position; he would be at the head
of a household, and he would be steady now; the
wild oats were sown; he'd go home and talk to Miss
Gale, and be as reliable as Teddy Green.
Heaven pity this poor fellow! He passed the window of a liquor-store; a store all lighted and bril



212          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
liant; a window where bottles and (e}canters, jugs and
demijohns and liquor-cases were piled in a great
pyramid, the gas-lights showing them off, shining
through them, lighting them up; bouquets grouped
here and there skilfully, and pictures in the background. The door stood half-open, and two or three
of P.'s rowdy friends, in good broadcloth and fine
boots, were going in at it.
"Ah, P.! Come in, come in!"
"' Give us your arm, old boy; we're in for a particularly jolly time."
"NTow we're complete with you here; that's it, my
gay boy; here's to the king of the frolic!"
The last speaker took P.'s arm, and pulled him
along. One half-uttered "not to-night,"  one little
hesitation on the door-sill, one unfelt pull from the
enticing clasp of his arm, and now P. had gone fairly
in with them. That talk with Miss Gale; the announcement that was to please our Aunt Debby, were
alike forgotten. We are so sorry for you, poor
Evelina!
This was early in the evening. P. drank fiery
draughts the next hour, and Teddy Green met him
on the street with his three tempters, and comrades,
giving signs of high excitement. Teddy would not
pass him by; he stopped and spoke; took his arm;




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            213
invited, urged; secured his company; they walked
on together towards home, the shrill songs of the
other young men dying in the distance.
" Strange how my head feels!" said P. to Teddy.
"It's bursting, Green. I feel the hot blood boiling
through it; it sings and roars-can't you hear it?"
Teddy took him home. It was only a little after
ten o'clock, and Miss Gale and Aunt Debby were glad
to see him in so early.  Teddy acted as valet, went
with him to his room, bathed his head, bound it up in
cold water, got him into bed, gave him a quieting drink,
and saw him presently drop asleep. Then he went
down to say "good-night, and all safe," to the ladies
in the back parlor, and so to go home where all was
safe, and to a night that was good, with the sleep that
blesses honest toil and a clear conscience.
The two ladies did not go early to bed. Their easy
manner of life did not tire them greatly; they were
used to sit up to all sorts of hours, listening for P.'s
uncertain steps. Aunt Debby was nervous, and did
not find sleep coming readily, and Miss Gale pitied
her, and sat up to read aloud, while the old lady
worked quite aimlessly at fancy knitting.
They were sitting thus, rather more peacefully than
usual, at twelve o'clock, when there came a rush of
feet on the staircase, inarticulate cries that froze the




214           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
blood with their horrors, and P. tore into the back
parlor, his eyes glaring, his frame quivering, and
sprung round and round the room as if evading something, crying out, "'Laocoin! Laocoin!  The great
serpent is running after me! Hioy! Ah-a-a! How
he tears! he is fast! he is on me!"  He stooped as
if to wrench away something that had seized his leg.
Miss Gale saw that he was insane, and in his frenzied
dreams saw the fierce serpents which had wrought
horror on the plains of Troy.  Marbles, or pictures
of that scene, had always had a fascination for P.,
and now he felt their horror in himself. Again he
yelled, "They are both after me! on either side!" and
struck out wildly with either arm; then, pale and
trembling, crouched behind Miss Gale's chair, clinging
to her dress.
We will say for P.'s innocent old aunt that her
nephew's agonies of alarm, and the gross impropriety
of his taking refuge in her maiden presence, clad only
in his night-dress, seemed equally shocking. She
gasped out, "Crazy! undressed! What can we do?
My dear boy! calm yourself-and put on your pantaloons!"
But P. had more snakes than pantaloons in his
mind at that critical moment-the shadow of Miss
Gale's chair, and the grasp on her tlress, gave him a




A MILLION T&O MUCH.            215
fancied security. He lifted up her arm, and thrust
his eyes and nose under her elbow, so that he could
glare at the great crested snakes, mottled with blood,
lying now in the far corner.
"Ring the bell, Miss Dean; go for the servants; I
can't move!" implored Miss Gale. " Be quick, before
he breaks out again!"
"If you fling that footstool -true, you might kill
it," hissed P.  "Its head lies right on the big rose,
under the gaslight.  Throw it! throw it! before it
comes after me again!"
"I see it," said Miss Gale.  "It dare not move.
I am not afraid of it. Do you know I can charm
snakes? Be still, P.;" and she crushed her elbow
closer over his eyes, and began soothingly to pat the
nervous hands that held her dress. The man-servant
and the cook now came, in answer to Aunt Debby's
frantic calls. The old lady gasped out, " Mr. Dean
is taken crazy, and he is undressed!" —one calamity
was as great as the other.
The distracted P. was pleased to see, in the black
man-servant, the devil come to carry him away; and,
in the three hundred pounds avoirdupois of the cook,
an embodied nightmare. He ceased to fear the coiled
serpents with heads on the rosw under the gaslight;
gave a howl of terror at the new apparitions, and




216           A MILLION TOO MUC.t
would have sprung away, and made his capture diffi.
cult, had not Miss Gale slipped her arm back upon
his neck, and drawn forward the hand she was patting, so, not being a woman all nerves and no muscle,
held him fast for a moment, until the servants could
seize him.
Aunt Debby devoted herself to draping her nephew's
bare knees in a table-cover, while Miss Gale, at his
head, put her hand over his eyes, and with firm, quick
words of assurance and protection, quieted his fears
of snakes and demons, big and little.
The next three days were times of fearful torture
to all the Dean household.  The ravings of the
maniac, the despair of his aunt, the sympathy, and
severe duty of nursing, wore on every one. Twice
P. had nearly succeeded in killing himself; and one
attack on Miss Gale would have resulted in her death,
had it-not been for her presence of mind.
A week from the day on which he was seized with
his delirium, P. had come to himself. He lay exhausted and emaciated on his bed, but was able to
remember, to wish, to repent. Miss Gale sat beside
him; Aunt Debby lay asleep on the lounge.
P.," said Miss Gale, "this sickness has worn on
you fearfully."
" Yes; and on the poor old lady, too," said P.,




A MILLION TOO MUCH.           217
looking over at his aunt, who, in the sickly light of a
green damask curtain, looked ghastly as a corpse ex.
humed days after burial.
6When, and how, will all this come to an end, P.?"
"I don't know-there's so much temptation. If
you were to shut me up in a room, and feed me
through a hole in the door, I suppose I'd stay thereif the door was locked —and not get drunk."
Miss Gale caught at a new idea. She asked eagerly,
"P., would you go to an inebriate asylum?"
"' Yes; I'd as soon go there as do anything else. I
suppose you want to try everything in my behalf, and
you see that legal measures have failed. It is rough
work, trying to undo what years of folly and tempta.
tion did. When do you want me to go?"
"Day after to-morrow," said Miss Gale,:breathlessly, amazed at the sudden acceptance of a scheme
which had been only half formed in her own mind.
It took shape on the instant, as many vague projects
do, when the idea is put into words.
"You must go with me; and you must settle up
my business. You might as well begin now. Pull
open that drawer, and you'll find any amount of bills,
and items, and bank-books, and everything. I cannot
look after things."
Miss Gale pulled open the drawer, and the hetero



218           A MILLION TOO MUCII.
geneous mass of letters, bills, receipts, advertisements,
play-bills, tickets, and billets-doux, gave a severe shock
to her orderly soul.
" Can you make head or tail out of them? I can't,"
said P.
"6I will," replied Miss Gale.  "Perhaps it will
interest you if I begin now."
For want of better office arrangements, she took
two toilette cushions, and set a knitting-needle up in
each.  "The bills shall go on one, the receipts on
another," she explained.  Next, she laid a box by
P.'s hand.  " That is for letters which you want to
keep."
Then a waste-basket was set before the bed. " This
is for what is to be thrown away. I will tell you what
each is as I open it; if I am throwing away what you
want, speak."
The work progressed rapidly.
"iHow nice it is," said P., "to be able to do things
properly! It is a year since I knew how to do anything with that drawer, more than to stuff something
more into it; and lately it got so full that I could not
open it without something falling out."," I'm sorry to see so many unpaid bills from tradespeople."




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            219
"Yes; they are trifles which it is too much trouble
to settle."
"And yet it was not too much trouble to make
them. These people may need their money, and your
neglect is cruelty. Here is a note from Evelina Snell."
P. held out his hand for it. They had both forgotten Aunt Debby, who lay annihilated, with the excep.
tion of her ghastly, worn face, under a down quilt.
"Miss Gale, I want to tell you something," said P.
Miss Gale leaned back in her chair, and was all attention.  "The other evening I went up to Snell's, and,
some way, I got engaged to Evelina. I like her; but
I'd never thought of marrying anybody as I know
of —but there it is, you see. We're engaged, and I
mean to stick to it, if she does. I told her I'd be up
-next day, and bring her a ring; and here it is a week,
and she has not heard a word from me; and if she
told her folks maybe they'll twit her about it-I do
hate those Snells!-anyway, she'll feel badly, for I
think she cares for me, poor girl!"'4And you want me to go and see her, and tell
her?"
"' Just tell her the truth, where I'm going, and how
I've been. Tell her I won't hold her to the promise
after that, unless she likes, you know; but you buy
a ring and take't; and if she chooses let her have




220          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
it, so she'll see all is fair on my part. Oh, Miss Gale,
I did truly mean to do better! When I found I was
engaged, and knew the next thing would be to get
married, I did mean to act like a man. I was coming
home to tell you, and to ask you what I had better
do; for I ought to be able to take care of the poor
girl, and make her happy; and I wanted to-show the
Snells I knew what was what, confound them! Then
I met three fellows, who pulled me in the saloon with
them; they called for what they liked, and you see
what has come of it."
Aunt Debby had drawn her face under the down
quilt. She had woke up, and innocently shared her
nephew's confidences, and was now crying over his
miserable, unsatisfactory love affair.
Miss Gale finished the papers; ascertained the
amount of debts to be paid, and P. gave her a check
for the sum, an amount that was appalling to Miss
Gale. The next day, while Aunt Debby was packing
P.'s trunk for his departure, Miss Gale set forth on her
errand to Evelina. She armed herself with an humble
note from P., and a diamond ring. Evelina was looking sad: she had heard of P.'s illness:, but not of its
nature, and she felt it was cruel that he had sent her
no word. Miss Gale thought her a soft, shallow
damsel, yet pitied her sincerely.




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            221
The ungarnished history narrated by Miss Gale, as
a preface to P.'s note and ring, put matters before
Evelina in a new light; her common-place and chilly
courtship took the golden halo of romance; she could
sacrifice herself for P.; she could be like a maiden
in a story, and refuse to take back her troth from her
self-sacrificing lover. She put on the ring with some
spirit.  "I shall never desert P.," she said. "The
world may turn against him, and be hard on him; all
his friends may forsake him, but I will not; we may
be poor and despised, but I will not be false."
6 That is very kind," said Miss Gale; " but I hope
P. will now reform, and not put your love to any such
severe test. There will not be any very desperate
poverty, for Miss Dean will tie what she has up to
his family. The matter for you to look to is that you
would be very miserable with a drunken husband;
and it would be very hard on all of us to have P.
die from the effects of drinking. You must help him
to reform. If I were you, I would go and see him, or
write to him, and offer to sign the pledge, and urge
him to do it also."
"Go see him! O, that would be so queer!" cried
Evelina.  "Pa would never let me do it; and who
ever heard of a lady taking the pledge? I should be
laughed at every day."




222          A MIJLLION TOO MUCH.
There was no striking anything new out of Evelina.
So Miss Gale went home to tell P. that he might still
consider himself engaged, anid that he must now make
himself fit to be the head of a household.
Perhaps it was the exhaustion of illness that made
P. so passive in Miss Gale's hands; or, perhaps he
really did long to be free of his besetting sin, and
was ready to try any means of reformation.
Out of the bustle and temptation of daily life P.
was lost for a time, shut into the safety of his asylum.
WVill years here kill the root of bitterness out of his
heart? Will abstinence, advice, healthful living, arm
him against the demon of temptation, so that he shall
be unmoved when next he meets it face to face?
"What do you think?" asked Dr. Roxwell of the
superintendent.
" Sir," replied the wise man, " I could wish we had
not inherited tendencies to combat; I could wish we
had a right education to assist us; I could wish for
an ardent seconding of all our treatment by the patient
himself; most of all, I wish that there were a strong
foundation of grace in his soul whereon we might
build."




CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
gnsonavit... rim t.a. rp. Kl








CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
Recasonable Princeipes applied.'S. friends visited him in the Asylum. Dr.
Roxwell came; Aunt Debby came; Miss Gale
came. Evelina did not come, but she sent
letters. Evelina was busy playing the role of
disconsolate maiden, and in truth she performed the
part very well. She talked of her poor P., and his
misfortunes; his enemies; his sorrows. After all, one
must commiserate the girl, for she led a hard life in
the Snell family, who were not above jibes and taunts,
and other shabby conduct. Evelina walked through
life with drooping head, and her curls very long and
lackadaisical; she sighed, and by a judicious neglect
of rouge grew pale. Doubtless she was as unhappy
as she had capacity to be.
Among the debts which Miss Gale had to settle was
one to Mrs. Bently, which took her for the first time
to the "Happy Home Hotel."  Mrs. Bently, very
red-faced and frowzy, with a grease-spotted and frayed
poplin gown, and an abundance of tawdry ribbons.
(225)




226           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
was busy behind her bar, dealing out drinks. She
asked her visitor to step into the red-curtained sittingroom until the customers had been supplied.
The little room looked as if it had not been swept
and dusted for a month; grimy ornaments, which
had in their better days graced the Dean mansion,
were scattered here and there; a cinder-choked fire
struggled feebly in the open Franklin stove, and before it with slipshod feet on the dirty hearth was Mrs.
Jillet, leaning back in a red-cushioned rocking-chair,
and sound asleep. The ex-housekeeper's face was
purple, bloated, and mottled; her cap pushed up be-hind had settled its soiled border over her eyes; her
dress was unfastened, as if to give room to the huge,
unhealthy neck, and Mrs. Jillet's heavy breathing
was ominous of apoplexy. Even Miss Gale could
remember her as a robust, well-dressed, cleanly, busy
woman, proud of her position, and careful to fill it
well to outward appearance.
Miss Gale sat on a ragged horsehair-covered sofa,
and looking about, wondered how P. could have prevailed upon himself to haunt such a place in company
with these odious women. Mrs. Bently came in, and
seeing her crony asleep, punched her unceremoniously
on the head, inquiring if it was proper to lie there
snoring at company.




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            227
"If it ain't the governess!" cried Mrs. Jillet, arousing. " Well, ma'am, here is an honor, though I've seen
you in my room over at the Deans, before they had
such a come down as obliged me to leave'em. How's
Miss Dean? She was always rather moping and
weak-spirited; she ought to have taken some brandy,
or similar, to prop up her constitution. Mrs. Bently,
couldn't you bring in a little hot gin, or a drop of
rum-and-water for a visitor?"
" No, no, I don't want it-I will not take it," said
Miss Gale.
"I will, then," said Mrs. Jillet, calmly; "I feel
to need it."
The small servant boy, a scurrilous-looking little
wretch, who, poor child, was working out an indebtedness for the whiskey whereof his mother had drank
herself to death, brought the rum and water, and
Mrs. Bently made a fair mark on the wall with a
burnt match which she picked from the floor; the
mark was one of many like it, and Mrs. Jillet remarked to the company generally, " when I first came
she kept my score private, now she marks it out on
the wall, and charges high, too."
"I came from Mr. Dean to pay some money he
owes you, and to say that you need no longer keep
him a room."




228          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
As Miss Gale said this, and proffered the amount
of the bill she held in her hand, Mrs. Bently de.
manded tartly, —
" And what is up with Mr. Dean now P"
"Mr. Dean is going to reform; he has entered
himself at the Inebriate Asylum, and we expect him
to come home well."
" Reform! Well, that needn't cut him off from old
friends; we have been like own mothers to him, me
and Mrs. Jillet."
"' Yes, yes, Mrs. Bently, dear," said Mrs. Jillet, in
her thick, apoplectic voice, " many's the time he's set
here by the fire sipping hot toddy-or similar-to cheer
him up, he coming in late and wet; and many's the
time he has laid out on that very sofa where Miss
Gale's a setting, raging with a headache, and you and
me putting cold water on his head and giving him
brandy and soda-water. You and me don't get headaches, Mrs. Bently, dear; you and me are strongerminded."
Shocked at this picture of her poor boy's life, Miss
Gale sprung up from the fatal sofa, saying, angrily,
" I don't see how a woman can keep such a place as
this!"
"And what sort of a place is it?" demanded Mrs.
Bently.




A MILL ION TOO MUCIH.          229
"'A place to destroy men's souls and bodies with
drink."
" I've got a license for doing it —my trade's lawful," said Mrs. Bently, coolly.
"A  license! a license to commit sin! God does
not recognise a right in sin to exist, by giving sin a
license."
" aien do, and that suits me all the same. I deal
with men, not with God," said the blasphemous wretch.
" God will deal with you; mark my words."
"There's your bill, receipted," said Mrs. Bently,
having with much reluctance and equal difficulty made
an illegible scrawl which was supposed to be her name.
"You say Mr. Dean ain't a-coming back; mark my
words, he is coming back."
" Never —I'll keep him away, however low he falls!"
said Miss Gale, in great excitement. While Mrs.
Bently replied, in equal excitement, "I'll have him
back here, if I have him when he's dead!"
Mrs. Jillet had consumed her rum-and-water, and
was again nodding in her chair. She roused up again
when 5Miss Gale had departed, and Mrs. Bently sat
down near the smouldering fire to talk over the " impedence" of the governess.  " She thinks she can do
for young P. what she did for Mrs. Green, but I'll let




230           A MILLION TOO MUCH,
her know she can't; I'll have a hand in that matter.
How long before he'll come home, think?"
Mrs. Jillet pulled her cap straight; sat up in her
chair; drew her shoes on at the heel, and vainly
essayed to button the neck of her faded chintz gown.
She looked ruefully at her fat, grimy hands, and
picked at the folds of her limp skirt. She was moved
to these alterations and regrets as to her toilette
because the thought of P. had recalled the days of
her grandeur, when she ruled the millionaire's household; when the servants feared her; when money was
plenty; when her dress was fine; when her room was
comfortable, and she fed on the fat of the land; when
she was feathering and not destroying her nest. She
spoke sententiously:- " See how that house is going
down. It was built up on whiskey, and by whiskey
it shall fall. Ah! Mrs. Bently, there were days when
the cellar was full of the choicest-there were times
when one could have white wine or red, without paying for it-there were days, when money was plenty,
when me and the Deans rolled in gold. I've seen Mr.
Dean, P.'s father, as shot hisself, poor soul, get that
drunk he could not stir, and at his own table, too,
and me going before with a wax-candle in my hand
to turn his bed open, while the men brought him up
in their arms! For that matter, I've seen his wife —




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            231
a handsome creature-so drunk she could not leave
ner room. He got tipsy down-stairs, she up-stairs,
that was all the difference with them.  Well, what
now? They're dead. Here's the son-I don't believe he's got forty thousand dollars left out of that
million. There's Miss Debby Dean, wilted away like
an old faded flower in a bouquet, and no one nigh her
but that shabby governess, and only three servants in
her house! Well, it was whiskey did that-such
money runs as fast it comes. Bless me, to think of
it, Mrs. Bently! death, and ruin, and poverty, and
destruction to them as is weak enough to be overcome
by it! Strange that people can't stand up agin a bit
of hot toddy-or similar.  Call that brat of a boy to
make me a mug of flip, and make it strong."
Mrs. Bently called for the refection for her garrulous crony, and, as soon as it was in her hand,
deliberately set another match-mark on the wall.
" You're mighty particular setting down the score,"
said Mrs. Jillet, tartly. And her hostess responded:"I have to be; I've my living to make, and you
drink like a fish."
"I know one thing," said Mrs. Jillet: "I've a
deal less money than I had when I came to live along
with you. And I know another thing: my money
gets taken out of my trunk."




232           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
"If that's the boy's work, I'll thrash him for it.
Drink your flip, and don't worrit. You: money'11
hold out as long as you do."
This was truly a "Happy Home," with the two
women quarrelling and cheating, criminating and recriminating each other; the forlorn pot-boy knocked
and banged about, overworked, half fed, kept in the
whiskey business until, thank God, he was thoroughly
sick of it! the miserable topers, coming in to spend
the last penny; the sailors and boatmen from the
neighboring docks, beguiled to spend their hard-won
earnings in deadly poison; the dirt; the riot; the
night turned to a sickly, brawling day; the day a
grim, straggling fetid twilight; —and the city authorities licensed the horrible den!' IIave they any right to license such places and
such traffic?" asked Miss Gale.
"No," said Doctor Roxwell.  "To license sin,
recognises in sin a right of existence. It has no such
right.  Sin is an interloper, a rebel, a banned alien;
and we are false to God, and to His great government,
which beyond dispute sits high over the universe,
and over the processes of every inferior court, when
we in any way abet or suffer what is evil. To license
evil, is to commit the foulest and most shameless evil




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            233
of all. It is to sin and make others sin with you.
For all these things God will bring us into judgment."
We wonder if Aunt Debby had prayed David's
prayer, " O, spare me, that I may recover strength,
before I go hence and be no more 1" After all the
weary watching and anxiety of the past yearsanxieties which indeed had had no ceasing since her
brother the suicide had begun his course of dissipation,-Aunt Debby felt at last that her care was for
the present removed: P. was where he would be well
taken care of, and she could fold her hands in peace,
at least for a season.
Aunt Debby's charity had not been able to expand
into an institution for genteel people of fallen fortunes; but now Miss Gale, knowing the healing power
of benevolence, was able to lead out Miss Dean's
sympathies in good deeds to the suffering; and it was
pleasant to see the old lady at her work-table, making
up caps or flannels for some unfortunate a few years
her senior, or of calico and muslin preparing a wardrobe for some poor babe which, except for her care,
might find nothing in a world into which it brought
nothing.
Mrs. Green was often made the almoner of these
charities; and Aunt Debby could never cease wondering at the changes which she had known in that




234           A M3'~.LON TO 3 MIUCH.
woman's appearance and history.  She would remark
to Miss Gale, " A fresh young woman, my dear, whom
I was not afraid to let act as a mother to my boy, the
last of the Deans; a virtuous, well-mannered person.
Then, such a vile outcast that I was afraid to look at
her or go near her-a filthy, stupid wretch, maudlin
and ragged and a prisoner. Ah! that was what intemperance did for her. Now, a tidy mother of a family,
quite respectable and civil; a person I am not afraid
to see in my house. That is what temperance has
done for her."
As for Teddy, Aunt Debby was pleased to forget
what she considered the vast social difference between
them, and was ready to make him welcome when he
came to call and see if he could render the family any
little service in P.'s absence. Besides her benevolence
Aunt Debby had her rancors; and the chief portiGa
of her wrath was expended on Mrs. Jillet and Mrs.
Bently, whom she considered the chief instruments
of her nephew's misfortunes.
Meanwhile, at the asylum, P. was trying that nine
pounds of cure which is less valuable than an ounce
of prevention.
"-How- is he getting on?" Dr. Roxwell asked of
the superintendent.
"He is one of our most hopeless cases," replied




A MILLIOYN TOO MUCH.          235
that responsible person, despairingly.  "Not that he
drinks-for he has no chance-but there seems absolutely nothing to build a cure on; no self-restraint,
no knowledge, no principles. Some one has been
terribly to blame about that young man. He would
have had a generous heart, if he had had a particle
of opportunity. He has a fine physical organization,
and naturally a good mind. How can I deal with
him? I confess, he seems one of the incurables."
"Apply reasonable principles," suggested the doctor, vaguely.
"Reasonable principles are a mere rope of sand to
him."
Dr. Roxwell walked off to where P. lay stretched
on a bench in an arbor, looking up into the green
vines that swung over his head.
"I hope you're enjoying yourself, Dean."
" I never enjoy myself, and never did," said P.
"Well, when you get out all right, then enjoyment
may begin-better late than never."
"All right! Doctor, can you expect a fellow like
me to be all right-which means sober-in a city
which has more grog-shops in proportion to its inhabitants than any other town or city in the world?"
"That's a very bad notoriety. All of us, as citi



236          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
zens, ought to be ashamed of it, and do our best to
bring about a better state of things."
"You'll never bring it about in my day," said P.
"It is a good thing, doctor, that you never married, so
that you have no sons to be sacrificed. I wonder if
you know, if the good parents, the excellent Christians of that city know what is going on about them.
Boys of fifteen and sixteen swarming into billiardsaloons, and tippling at liquor-stores. There's no
harm in the skilful game of billiards, and nothing
illegal in the whiskey traffic; but they're sending us
fellows to perdition by the score."
" I thought you didn't believe in a hell, P.!" said
the doctor.
" One must believe in what he feels begun within
him. I have had delirium tremens, doctor, and then
I understood what I used to doubt. While you good
people lie in bed asleep, we young chaps drift here
and there, now a dance-house, and now a gamblinghouse open to us-six thousand places where liquor
is sold, enticing us on every hand-we are lost before
you know it, before we realize it ourselves, there are
so many chances of destruction on every side. Aunt
Debby used to get me to read on Sundays about a
queer old chap calleld Christian, who had a hump of
some kind on his':ack, and was on a journey. I




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            237
never got through with it; but one scene used to
haunt me, it seemed so like the streets of that famous
city of ours, at night. Ile got into a Valley of the
Shadow of Death. I learned the description once,
and spouted it at school for an oration. I always
had a liking for the horrible; and old Easy blew me
up about it, and said such exciting things were unfit
for me. I wrote it once on the leaves of my pocketbook. Here the thing is:"'We saw there also the hobgoblins, satyrs, and
dragons of the pit: we heard also in that valley a
continual howling and yelling, as of a people under
unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction
and iron; and over that valley hung the discouraging
clouds of confusion; Death also does always spread
his wings over it. In a word, it is every whit dreadful, being utterly without order. There was on the
right hand a very deep ditch: that ditch is it into
which the blind have led the blind in all ages, and
have both miserably perished.' (That is the whiskeyseller and the whiskey-drinker, doctor).'Again,
behold! on the left hand there was a very dangerous
quag, into which, if even a good man falls, he finds
no bottom for his foot to stand on.',"That's it; that's just the way we fellows are
beset, sir-a ditch on one hand, a quag on the other,




238          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
the devil close behind, and death brooding over all!
and-nobody seems to care!"
"'Thus he went on, and I heard him sigh bitterly,'" quoted the doctor. "Very many do care,
and are striving to remove temptation, to strengthen
you against it also; but it takes a long while for a
good cause to gain the mastery, and there have been
many hindrances.  That burdened Pilgrim, who
travelled through the valley you speak of, my dear
fellow, had a weapon called All-Prayer; and, when
he'walked in the strength of his God,' he walked
safely, and the fiends plagued him no more."
" I don't know anything about that," said P. "If
ever there was any religious instinct in me, it has
been all burned out by whiskey-drinking."
" See here!" said the doctor; " you are in the dumps
to-day. You are the victim of physical depression,
occasioned by the lack of an accustomed stimulant;
and the depression of the body reacts on the mind.
Let us talk of something more cheerful. You are
engaged to be married, my boy."
"Yes," said P., indifferently.
"Then you must rouse up, and do great things for
the girl you love."
"Evelina is not the sort of girl one is roused to do
great things for, doctor. If a girl had a high pur



A MILLION TOO MUCH.            239
pose, an earnest way of living and speaking, like Miss
Gale for instance, it seems as if she might inspire even
a fellow like me to try and be worthy of her. I don't
find fault with Evelina. She's as good as the rest
of the girls I've known, and quite good enough for
me. None of these girls I've seen can be like those
of old times, for whose sake the knights errant did
such grand deeds."
"There are grander deeds done now-a-days, and
grander women who inspire them," said the doctor,
smiling.
" I wish I could have seen some of them," said P.
" But of course, doctor, I mean to marry Evelina, for
I said I would. I don't look forward to any very
charming times. I will be drinking, and seeing snakes
maybe; and Evelina will be doing her hair in curlpapers, and crying."
" If you have made up your mind to that life, I
don't see what use it is for you to be here, Dean."
"No more do I; and when the thirst is strong in
me some day, I'll break jail and away."
"See here, my boy; is not the saving of your soul
worth striving for? Can you not see your duty to
yourself and to the world, and stand up to it like a
man? When you know that only one evil habit
stands between you and all reasonable,njoyments,




240         A BILLION TOO JIUCHI.
can you not resolve to be free of that habit?  Can
you deliberately dare all the horrors of disease and
insanity which drinking will bring upon you?
" Doctor, my parents gave me love of drink for an
inheritance; my nurses poisoned me; my aunt and
my teachers extravagantly indulged me; society
tempted me in every form; the law licensed my
enemies to destroy me. Men and women; parents
and acquaintances; civil law and the avarice of
strangers, have leagued with the devil against me;
and do you expect me to withstand all this? I'm a
doomed man."
"No man can be doomed against his will," said the
doctor.
"Will!  My will is demoralized," said P., languidly.




0
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~~~
oo
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CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.
Society retders a Verdict.'NE year passed while our young man was
in the asylum. Nothing but the most earnest endeavors of his friends, the persuasion
of their constant visits, and the frantic
representations of Aunt Debby, would have detained
there so long a patient, who, from his first entrance,
had been considered nearly hopeless. P. had long
ago given up all thought or wish of reformation, and
only desired to return to his old companions, and the
riotous indulgence of his- city. life. Whenever he
hinted or plainly expressed such wish, visits, letters,
entreaties, compelled him to remain at his retreat.
To get home without this preliminary excitement, he
made his escape from the asylum on the twenty-fifth
of January, 1869, and on the following day presented
himself at his own house, to the distress of his aunt,
while Miss Gale was not at all surprised, having been
for some time convinced that it was thus that be
would return.
(243)




244           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
These two women made the most pitiful efforts to
welcome their wanderer, to conceal their fears, to
show confidence in him; and, while they pretended
to trust, sought really to watch and to control. We
doubt not that P. saw through the poor pretences
of his aged aunt, and they should have put him to
shame; but shame was dead.
The affection of Evelina Snell could not have been
expected to survive a year of absence. Of late her
letters had been few and short; but the Snells were
a large family of daughters, and lovers had not been
so plentiful that Evelina had been tempted actually
to transfer her allegiance; so P. still considered himself an engaged man.  The parental Snell took
occasion to ask P. what were his intentions, and how
soon he proposed to marry. P. politely replied that
he should be only too happy, whenever it suited his
Evelina.
" I must take opportunity to inquire into your
affairs," said Mr. Snell, pompously.  His bloated
purple face, and arrogant voice, vexed P., who saw
in him a former tempter, and, we might say, robber;
and he tartly made answer that he had very small
affairs to look into; his guardians and executors, and
the public generally, had stolen from him to such an




A  IMILLION TOO MUCa.          245
extent that he had no property left worth inquiring
after.
"How can you expect to marry my daughter?"
demanded the irate Snell.
"That is for her to say," replied P.  " I have you,
for one, to thank for what I am."
Father Snell informed his family that he was convinced that "P. had gone to the dogs, was unworthy
the Snell countenance, and that Evelina could doubtless make a much better match." Three days before,
Evelina would have scouted this idea; but she had
lately danced with a man with a mustache, who said
he was an Italian count; and but a few hours before
her father declared P.'s canine whereabouts, Evelina
had received a bouquet and a poetical note from the
"count;" she therefore simply sulked at her parent's
remarIs, and held her decision in abeyance.
Restraint had been succeeded by excess. Solomon
perceived that the washed sow straightway bolted off
to the mire, there to wallow with increased satisfac.
tion; and so P., after the enforced abstinence of his
asylum, returned with avidity to "brandy, whiskey,
gin —an' similar," as Mrs. Jillet informed Mrs. Bently
with much secret pleasure.
"Yes," said Mrs. Bently, with a smack of triumph
in her voice.  "That upstart of a governess thougbt




246          A MILLIOiV TOO MUCI.
she could keep him all his life in leading-strings, and
even packed him off to an inebriate asylum! I wonder
does she want to marry him, or want his money?"
"Pooh! no, Mrs. Bently, dear.  She's old enough
to be his mother; and as to the money, that's gone to
the winds: he's used up about all he has, I'm thinking! He's like me!" cried Mrs. Jillet, finishing her
toddy, and getting angry, as often happened, at " Mrs.
Bently, dear." " Like me! My score's longer than my
purse has got to be. I had a nice mint of money for a
lone woman when I came here, but it's gone fast, and
I ain't spent it. I'm robbed-robbed —Ro BBED, I tell
you, and I'll set the police after you, Mrs. Bently,
that I will. You vile hussy, to rob an old friend,
and she in poor health, and all alone in the world!"
And Mrs. Jillet fell a sobbing into the folds of her
dirty apron, while Mrs. Bently, with words wonderfully like swearing, went out and gave short measure
to her customers, and slapped her forlorn Ganymede, dismal bearer of pewter cups to these infernal
gods.
Into such a reeking Gehenna, our P., the child of
luxury, spoiled Heir of a Million, staggered often;
to lie on the foul bed, or the ragged haircloth-covered
sofa, stupidly drunk, or maybe racked with pain, or




A MILLION TOO MUC.G            247
seeing in these greasy red-faced harridans the demons
of his delirious agonies.
Nor here alone did delirium come -upon him. At
his own house he sprang screaming from the table,
and seized the carving-knife to put an end to himself.
Miss Gale wrenched the weapon from him, and he
then flashed up-stairs, going on all-fours, and howling
like a hyena; after him went Miss Gale, at a frantic
pace; by her side ran the black man-servant, with
his eyes starting from his head, and sweat rolling
down his face; the fat cook, with a toasting-fork,
whereof the prongs were ornamented with half-cooked
cheese, lumbered breathlessly to the rescue; the housemaid stumbled on in haste, making ineffectual efforts
to hold up her dress from under her feet, and Aunt
Debby, white and trembling, weeping and moaning,
feebly brought up the rear of this domestic rout.
Such a scene was succeeded by days of watching
by P.'s sick-bed, when his life was despaired of, and
those who loved him best having become hopeless of
his repentance, even wished that he might die without
further sin oi pain.
Miss Gale had been a most devoted friend of her
former pupil. She had watched his wayward track
these several years, toiling for his welfare like a sister;
but now, if it had not been for Aunt Debby, she




248           A MILZLION TOO MUCH.
would have returned to her own friends, and left him
to "gang his lane."
Meanwhile P. had neglected Evelina, and the
"Count" with the moustache had been attentive, he
rolled up his eyes, and talked of the'"golden-haired
beauty of the North;" he had sighed in a manner
that Evelina considered most romantic.  She assured
her most intimate friend that if she broke her engagement with P., P. would kill himself; if she was
true to P. the'" Count" would be heartbroken.
At such a juncture of affairs, P. by no means bettered his prospects by appearing before Evelina in a
state of intoxication; he came for an evening call,
and though not ungraceful naturally, he stepped
through the trailing folds of her rose-colored muslin
at his very entrance, and while Evelina, burning with
wrath and mortification, seated herself on a sofa and
strove to conceal the rent, he.placed himself at her
side, and fell heavily against her shoulder, remarking, "You look deuced pretty to-day, Evelina-wish
I'd brought you a present."
"I wish you'd behave!" cried the poor girl, pas.
sionately.  "You are drunk, you know you are, and
how dare you come here and act so? I never want to
see you again."




A JMILLION TOO MUCH.           249
6That's a good one, when we're engaged!" jeered P.
"I'll not be engaged to you another day'" cried
Evelina, much excited, snatching off the ring Miss
Gale had brought her, and thrusting it at him. "You
are a cruel, wicked wretch, and if you cared one bit
for me, you'd have done better long ago."
P. was too little master of his own thoughts or acts
than to understand what he did, or his Evelina said.
He had no consciousness of how he left the house, or
how or when he got home-but he found himself lying
in his own bed towards noon next day, and was conscious that he had quarrelled with Miss Snell.  His
coat and vest were hanging from the seat of a chair,
his pocket-book, knife, and a ring that looked strangely
like the one Evelina had worn, lay on the floor as they
had slipped from his pocket.
"I wonder if I'm out of that noose?"' said P. to
himself, regarding the ring. Then better thoughts
came to him. "I wonder if I behaved badly, and if
I've made the poor girl feel unhappy? Confound it
all, I hope not! What luck I have! just a curse to
myself and everybody. Would it have been better
to marry and settle down? could I have settled down,
and been sober, and gone into business, if I had
married? maybe not. The world is very hard on
me! "




250          A K-ILLION TOO MUCH.
He dressed and rung for some breakfast to be sent
up to him. When the man brought in the tray, two
notes lay beside the coffee cup. When alone, he
opened them-one was from Evelina, formally breaking off their engagement, on account of his ill conduct. Had this been alone, P. might have been
penitent, and though he would not have sought to
renew the broken bonds, he would have begged pardon
for past offences; but the excellent father of Evelina
must needs send P. a proud, taunting epistle, forbidding him the house, reflecting on his ruined fortunes
and dishonored name, and stating that he had other
and better prospects for his daughter than marriage
with a penniless drunkard.
From another man, P. might have borne this as
deserved; but not from Snell, who had made him
drunk at his table, himself an habitual tippler, and
who had lived like a parasite on P. in his more
palmy days, draining him of a part of his million.
P. was in a paroxysm of fury; he was in a state
of mind where he could have killed Snell; but not
seeing him, his rage rebounded upon himself, and he
rushed off to a saloon where bad whiskey and bad
company alike abounded. Here, through the warm
summer afternoon, he drank and played cards, in the
fashion of many, who, angry at being condemned as




A MILLION TOO MUCH.           251
unworthy, proceed at once to show the condemnation
just.
Twelve, one, two; the night was wearing away,
and still Aunt Debby waited for her boy to come.
She feared evil for him, for already Miss Gale had
surmised that the engagement with Evelina was broken.
Miss Gale had gone to P.'s room soon after his
departure, and had found on the table a little heap of
fragments of written note-paper, and beside them the
well-known ring which she had taken to Evelina.
She told Miss Debby of this in the evening, and
when the gentle old aunt began to lament that every
one was unjust and unkind, and to throw a halo of
romance over her nephew's lawless life, by crying out
that his affections were trifled with, and that his heart
was broken, Miss Gale did not contradict the assertion, for she knew it is easier to believe our dear ones
sinned against than sinning.
"We must go out of town for the hot weather;
and now that Miss Snell has treated him badly, our
boy will be willing to go with us-indeed, I could not
go and leave him; and we will take him to the mountains and make him happy. After all," added Aunt
Debby, piously, "this affliction may be a means of
good to him, and sorrow may reform him."
Then, as it was very late, the two went to their




252          A MIL;ON TOO MUCH.
rooms, and perhaps Miss Gale fell asleep; but Aunt
Debby left the gas burning and sat up in bed in nightgown and cap, reading her Bible and waiting for P.
She may have had some revelation of the possibilities
and opportunities which she had neglected-some
vision of shining heights where she might have walked
even in this present life, as she read and waited, for
the leaves of the Book were very wet with her last
tears.
Three o'clock. The alabaster clock in the back
parlor, the rasewood clock in the dining-room, the
mahogany clock in the hall, the bronze clock in Aunt
Debby's room, and the gilt clock in P.'s room, chimed
out the hour, one after the other. P.'s clock lagged,
like its master; and now, as the key turned in the
latch, and P. came in, Aunt Debby rose from her
bed, and put her head out from her door:"I'm glad you are in safe, my dear boy ["'- Plague on it! why will you always wait up for a
fellow! Of course I'll get in safe; and if I don't, it
would be no matter."
Thus spoke the young man on whom the Snell
family had passed their verdict-a verdict in which
we must now acquiesce.
Yet a little later, and Aunt Debby knocked at her
nephew's door, and then went in.




A MILLIO], TOO MUCH.           253
A dim, gray twilight filled the room, and P. was in
bed.
"I could not go to sleep when your last word was
cross, my poor dear boy," said the old lady, tremulously.  "I must give you a chance to speak like
yourself."  She sat down by his bed, and smoothed
his hot forehead with her wrinkled, soft hand.  "My
heart aches for you, my dear child; I know you are
unhappy. Has Evelina —— "
"' I'm done with her, and glad of it," growled P.
"My dear! Remember, P., that there is always
one who loves you better than life, and will always
love and pray for you. Oh, my child, I'm afraid I
have done very wrong by you, though I meant well,
and sinned only through ignorance. And yet we
may be to blame for our ignorance. If my folly has
brought you to these sins and sorrows, Oh, my boy,
forgive me! forgive me!"
" There! there! Aunt Debby. You have always
done well enough-better than I deserve; what wrong
there is, is my part.  Go to bed, Aunt Debby; you'll
get cold and tired out."
Five o'clock. All the clocks in the house had told
the time to all the others. Miss Gale is running into
P.'s room without the ceremony of a knock-" P.,
wake up! wake up!"




254          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
Now she shakes him by the shoulder, and cannot
break the deep sleep of intoxication.  "Wake up!
Oh, wake up! Aunt Debby is dying!  Come! She
asks for you!" This shouted in the sleeper's ear;
but he only turned heavily on his pillow with a muttered curse, swung his arm jinc the air and let it
fall-he could not be aroused.
The man-servant had gone for the doctor and a
friend; the cook, in a wide-bordered cap, stood,
sleepily amazed, at the bed's foot;' the housemaid,
dropped in a little heap on the floor, cried some sincere tears, for she really loved Aunt Debby. Miss
Gale stood by the pillows which bolstered -up her
friend, and wiped her damp face, fanning her gently
to assist the laboring breath. For a moment or two
Miss Dean seemed to desire her nephew's presence,
and looked wistfully about for him. Then she mercifully lost the knowledge of his absence. She leaned
back more restfully, and drew a deep breath or two.
Then the constant love and compassion she had shown
to her nephew she whispered faintly-" Good-night,
and God bless you, my dear boy!" her head dropped
forward, the doctor came in, and the servants opened
the shutters to the red light of morning. Aunt
Debby had gone where the afflicted are comforted,




A. 2MILLION TOO MUCH.         255
the feeble are strengthened, and "God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes 1"
P. rang his bell twice next morning between ten
and eleven.  After a little delay, the housemaid
answered it, red-eyed and hesitating.
"Where's that man, that I must keep ringing in
this way, and he does not come?" growled P., sick
and cross.
"'If you please, sir, he has gone to the undertaker's
with a message. Your aunt died early this morning,
Mr. Dean."
" And why was I not called?" demanded P., lifting his head.
"Miss Gale couldn't waken you, sir; she came
when your aunt asked for you, but you were too
heavy asleep."
" There; go down stairs, and let me alone."
Presently Miss Gale came to the room. "P. the
last words she said were to you,'God bless ycu!'.
Oh, P., think of that blessing, and try and get it!"
P. sobbed, "6I'm not worthy of a blessing! Poor
dear old Aunt Debby, she's gone! her troubles are
ended! I wish mine were!"
" They would be ended by seeking God, my friend,
— in no other way. To those who have not sought
Him, the end of life is but the beginning of sorrows."




256           A JMILLION TOO IUCiH.
Aunt Debby was buried. P. stayed quietly in the
house, with Miss Gale, until after the funeral.  In
the evening after they returned from the cemetery,
Dr. Roxwell and Aunt Debby's lawyer came with the
good woman's will. Now that she was gone, the
house, and all that it contained, came, by the te-rms
of his grandfather's will, into P.'s hands unconditionally; so long as Miss Dean had lived nothing could
be sold, and she had her right there. Aunt Debby's
own little fortune had been reduced several times by
paying P.'s debts; she left him the remainder in such
shape that he could have only the income unless he
entirely reformed, and in that case he could have the
capital to invest in business.
"My money is all gone," said P., gruffly.  "I
don't see why she could not give me hers out and
out."
" Because," said Dr. Roxwell, severely, "she knew
that it would be all gone, too, in a short time, and she
has arranged for you to have a little income to save
you from absolute poverty."
The following morning, at breakfast, P. asked Miss
Gale what they were to do now.
"I shall go to my uncle," said Miss Gale. "And
if you will go too, and reform, you will find plenty
to help you, and happiness in store for you."




A MILLION TOO MUCH.             257
"I don't intend to reform; I've tried a dozen times
and have failed. There is nothing to run this establishment on now, at least I can't make the income do
it, and I am not domestic.  I shall sell out. Aunt
Debby left you a number of mementoes, and I shall
add some more which I don't like to see sold. I wish
you'd send them off to your uncle's, pay and dismiss
the servants, and get things in order for me-you
have always been so kind."
After that, P. was seldom sober enough to look
after anything: some nights he came home, others
he came not. Miss Gale rendered her verdict to Dr.
Roxwell: "'The poor boy is an utterly abandoned
and hopeless fellow. I never saw such greedy running after sin."
Miss Gale bade her old pupil good-bye with an
aching heart. HIe was too drunk to understand what
she said to him. Next day, the red flag was flying
from doors and windows of the Dean mansion; and
house and furniture, family plate and family pictures,
books and mementoes, long ago Christmas and birthday gifts, went under the auctioneer's hammer.
The sum obtained by this sale was put in P.'s
hands, and he began a reckless course of extravagance that surpassed all his former proceedings. He
hired two men-servants, bought a carriage and pair




258          A MILLlON TOO JMUCH.
of horses, went to a fashionable hotel, and for three
months was the scandal of his native city. "' Society,"
that potent, variable, Proteus-shaped divinity, pronounced an irrevocable judgment on young P. Dean.
P. was called to the bar of Society, and declared a
debased, ungentlemanly vagabond, unfit for genteel
notice.
P. was ostracised by Society, by Pincham, Snell,
and even by Binkle, and scores of other good people;
but, driven from  this reputable and accomplished
circle, Mrs. Bently and Mrs. Jillet would yet receive
him with open arms.




CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
" And the jury debated from twelve to three
What the verdict ought to be,
And they brought it in as a felc Ie se."








CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
Icnd so does the Coroner.
~/~ AMBLING and drinking made short work
with the funds P. had obtained by the sale
of his house and furniture.  There came a
day when coachman and valet left P. because-their wages were not paid. The carriage and
horses were sold on account of the bill for keep at
the livery-stable; the coachman, by a well-timed suit,
getting part of the price for the money due him, the
other servant having paid himself by a watch, a ring,
and a dressing-case. Some little time after this P.
left the fashionable hotel, absolutely ejected, because
of his inability to settle for his board; and his trunks
being detained for debt, this heir of a great fortune,
who had lived in luxury, went down to Mrs. Bently's
"Happy Home Hotel," on Water street, with only a
portmanteau of clothing, a few dollars in his pocket,
and no trinket of value left him except the emerald
ring on his finger.
(261)




262           A JIILLION TOO MUCI.
The Happy Home was the chosen resort of vermin
innumerable and unmentionable; grimy windows shut
out the view of the foul street, with ragged urchins
playing in the oozing slime of the sewers. From the
dark kitchen came up a stench of onions, tobacco,
gin, and stale mutton; through all the dingy rooms
rang the voices of Mrs. Bently and Mrs. Jillet, quarrelling over scores and money, and the short yelps of
a starved dog, and the impish little slave, whose mother had died of Mrs. Bently's whiskey.
Mrs. Bently's discerning eye read the history of
her dear Mr. Dean's misadventures, and comprehended the low ebb of his fortunes.
"I've been a losing money, Mr. Dean, sir," she
said, on the second day of his stay, " and I've made
new rules. Just for business sake, would you pay me
an advance, sir?"
P. paid her ten dollars.
"I'll not trust him, he's run out,". aid Mrs. Bently
to Mrs. Jillet; "I'll keep paid ahead, and when he's
no more money out he goes, and so does some other
people as sets theirselves up for big folks."
"Be careful, Master Dean, dear, she's a thief; she's
been robbing of me; keep your portmanteau locked
up, and look out for your pocket-book, or let me keep
it for ycu," said Mrs. Jillet, in confidence to P.




A MILLION TOO MUCH.            263
"There's nothing in it to tempt either of you,"
said P., with a shrill, bitter laugh.
Who would now recognise P., in clothes frayed and
made shabby by rows in low doggeries, and nights spent
in station-houses, his patent-leather boots cracked and
worn, his hat battered and water-stained, his shirtbosom soiled and rumpled? Was this the fashionable
young gentleman who had made New Year's calls,
and gone to the parties of the wealthiest in the city,
whom mothers and daughters had courted and petted,
and hoped to win?
The few possessions in the portmanteau mysteriously disappeared.  Mrs. Jillet and Mrs. Bently may
have wanted handkerchiefs and socks.  When Mrs.
Bently boldly dunned for another advance of board,
P. went to the pawnbroker's, to sell the emerald ring.
That brought him twenty-five dollars, and Mrs. Bently
got fifteen, to stop her mouth for three weeks to come.
Two days after the three weeks were ended, Mrs.
Bently, Mrs. Jillet, and P. sat about a little table
drinking and playing cards. It would have been hard
to tell which was the most fearsome sight-these two
hideous old women, or the wrecked and wretched
young man who was their victim.
"s Bring us some rum and water, some flip-*or simi.
lar-I'm thirsty," said Mrs. Jillet.




264           A MILLION TOO MUUCH.
The shocking little boy, an animated scarecrow,
brought the refection; all drank, and Mrs. Bently
won P.'s money.
"' You owe me a quarter."
"Can't pay it-I'm dead broke," said P., surlily.
"Then, where is your board coming from?" demanded Mrs. Bently.
"' From nowhere-all's up with me," said P.
"You shall pay it. It is two days overdue, you
villain. And you've a debt for two dollars at the bar,
and not a rag of baggage worth seizing, you thief.
To come here trying to cheat a lone woman as always
treated you like a mother!" shrieked the drunken
landlady.
"' You've shared plenty of my money, you vile Jew!"
said P., enraged. "I leave it to Mrs. Jillet, if you
have not had round hundreds from me, and robbed
me most scandalously."
"I'll call the police to you!" yelled Mrs. Bently.
"If you can't pay up, you can go. Out with you, or
I'll put you out 1"
"' Maybe he'll have some more money in a day or
two," said Mrs. Jillet, longing to oppose Mrs. Bently,
whom she both feared and hated.
"Not to-aorrow, nor any other day," said P., dog.
gedly.




A MILLIONi TOO JIUZCH.         265
The wind howled through the streets; the sleet
rattled against the windows; it was an evening early
in the November of 1870. A storm had raged for
two days, and it was bitterly cold. The hour approached midnight; without all was darkness, except
for the flaring of the street-lamps; the few forlorn
wayfarers who yet wandered in the streets shivered
and hid their chill hands in their clothing, while they
slipped and stumbled on the icy pavement. The
"rum and similar" had been drunk from the dirty
glasses on Mrs. Bently's table; the poor old lamp
burnt low; the greasy cards lay scattered on the floor.
P., sitting there, gaunt, haggard, with a deathly whiteness settled on his pinched face, his thin worn clothes
buttoned closely about his wasted frame, and his feet
showing through the broken leather of his boots,
might have been a sight to move any compassion but
Mrs. Bently's. Still she taunted him, and threatened-still forbade him to go to his room until he
made her another payment; still roughly bade him
go out from her doors, and walk in the streets, like
the vagabond he was.
And this woman had held him in her arms as a
babe; had lived under his roof; could remember all
the splendor of his early surroundings; had herself




266          A MILLION TOO MUCH.
tempted him, and dragged him down to this dire ruin
on this bleak November night.
There was no fire now in the rusty, broken stove.
Mrs. Jillet wrapped her miserable shawl about her,
and staggered off to her bed. The forlorn servantboy was forgetting his troubles as he fell asleep on a
pile of rags under the counter of the bar, sharing his
bed with the hungry cur. Mrs. Bently shook her fist
in P.'s face!
" Begone! I tell you. I'll harbor you no longer
under my roof, you poverty-struck, lean-faced
scamp!"
P. rose, and with unsteady step passed out into the
night. Up and down the streets he wandered, walking mechanically to keep from freezing, the liquor
dizzying his brain at first, so that he could realize
nothing. As the cold air sobered him more and more,
the apprehension of his degraded and outcast lot
came to him; all hope was dead; life was a burden
and a curse; he had sunk now so low that there was
no eye to pity and no hand to save; to live was to be
cold, sick, starved, weary, and despised. Where
should he look for safety? Even then Dr. Roxwell
would have welcomed and rescued him, but P. had
sedulously kept out of his sight these several months.
Miss Gale, with love and pity like a sister's, woulJ




A MILION TOO MUCH.           267
nave received this prodigal, have fed and clothed him,
and helped him to help himself. But to neither of
these did the unfortunate turn in the hour of his
extremity.
On this very night Evelina had married her bogus
" Count" with the mustache, and all the Snell family,
thoroughly deceived, had celebrated the wedding, and
the house was now' strown with fading flowers and
relics of the marriage feast; and forgotten gaslights
were burning dimly in the gray light of the breaking
day. In all the festive gathering, no gay heart had
thought of him, once rich and jolly, first at the dance
and in the wine-room. He had passed out of all their
careless lives and from their fickle hearts, and standing now in the narrow, dismal street, the sleet freezing
to his shabby garments and to his shaggy hair, P.
realized that he had outlived his fortunes, and debated
whether he should now brave the misery of life or the
misery of death.  He knew well what was the growing pain of living; he cared little what might come
for him when life was done. He would give himself
no time for thought; he could at least escape cold,
scorn, famine, the pain that preyed upon him day
after day. Then he turned from the circle of light
in which he had stood by the lamp-pcst, and ran as
quickly as his weak, trembling, chilled feet could take




268          A JIILLION TS( ) MUCII.
him, down by the'" Happy Home Hotel," around the
corner by the groggery, by the great warehouse, where
once cargoes of rum from the West Indies had been
landed for his grandfather, along past the forsaken
stall where in daylight some imp of darkness dealt
out "Tom and Jerry" to sailors; on, on, along the
wharf, out on the pier, where the black water slips up
and down; one plunge-and he is done with the
tempters and temptations and the miseries that have
dogged him and preyed upon him here.
Did he wildly repent?  Did he struggle to the surface of the icy water, and cry out in his despair, and
strike out feebly with unnerved arm, and sink, and
rise once more gasping in agony, and go down hopeless?
"Hoy! Hoy! Halloo-a man drowning!"
" Hah! did you see that fellow going by, and then
a plunge? Lend a hand, here! Somebody gone in
drunk or crazy. Help him out."
Where did they come from, and what were theythese men that suddenly swarmed out on the wharf,
gaunt and uncanny in the dim morning twilight?
All had seemed deserted just now, and here were some
dozen people looking out over the water, getting loose
a boat, talking, ordering, conjecturing-all intent on
saving him who went down a moment ago. Police



A iIILLION TOO MUCH.          269
men, stray sailors, a stall-keeper, wharf-rats, a thief
looking for junk, a runaway apprentice, hunting for
a vessel to carry him far from a plundered masterthese are intent on gaining back to life P., born heir
to a million, and now a beggared suicide!
They have him at last; water streaming from the
bony form; slime making tattered boots and clothes
and unkempt hair more wretched and loathsome still;
his face set in some grim agony-the last mortal throe,
when, perhaps with the water rushing in his ears,
and choking his breath, he had realized what future
stretched before him, long as eternity 
" I know him," said the policeman, looking curiously
into the dead face. " lie was an uptown'swell;' he's
name is Dean."
" Belike he ain't dead," said a wharf-rat.  " He
only went in a bit ago; maybe we can bring him to."
" He belongs up here at Happy Home, kep' by an
old hag named Bently," said the stall-keeper. "' He's
bought several drinks of me."
"Let's carry him there," urged the apprentice,
manfully catching hold of the water-dripping boots,
while the sailor lifted the shoulders, the wharf-rat ran
for a doctor, and the policeman walked alongside.
So, early in the morning, while Mrs. Bently was first
opening her bar-room to steal the strength and sense




270           A JIILLIO i' TOO AIMUCH.
of poor day-laborers passing by, a small procession
stopped at her door.  She trembled first, at sight
of the policeman; then, perceiving his errand, took
courage, and cried out, " Don't bring that in here, to
spoil my custom! He don't belong here."
"He do too," said the stall-man, stoutly.  "I seen
him here."
" Take it out; he's in debt for his board!" screamed
Mrs. Bently.
"Don't be a brute," said the policeman, pushing
into the sitting-room, and pulling forward the worn
sofa. "Bring blankets, and make a fire. Off with
his clothes, some of you, and treat him according to
the laws for folk found drowned! Here's the doctor."
The doctor looked " no hope," but he went to work
at his patient, confiscating some of Mrs. Bently's
drinkables, to her great wrath, and Mrs. Jillet's
secret delight.
They ceased their efforts after a time.  "No use;
he was dead before he came out of the water. Notify
the corvner; straighten him out. Woman! can't you
bring me a couple of sheets, and lay him out decently?"
"IIe's nothing to me," said Mrs. Bently, defiantly,
"and in debt for his board."
Mrs. Jillet, however, found a shirt and a pair of




A  IILLU   N TOO MIUCH.        271
socks. The doctor had a shutter taken from the back
window, laid it over the rickety table where last night
P. had played cards and drank his last dram, then
the body was laid thereon, and in the afternoon the
coroner came with his men, and took possession cf
Mrs. Bently's room.  He was drowned, no doubt
of that. Was it accidental drowning? was it deliberate suicide? was it the result of drunkenness? s" Suicide, likely; he looks miserable enough," said one
man.
"Drunkenness, probably;  nine-tenths  of such
deaths are the result of that," said another.  "s Such
dens as these are as bad on population as a contagious disease."
Then testimony was taken, what little could be
gathered; and, while there was a question in the
coroner's mind as to his verdict, Mrs. Jillet urged:"Don't make it a suicide, sir I I don't think he
did it a purpose. No; he belonged to one of the
first families in the city, and he was worth a million
of dollars the day he was born. His house was a
palace; he threw his money away like dirt, sir; he
had everything heart could wish; Snell's daughter
was engaged to him; Pincham and Binkle were administrators of his estate; he visited the finest people




272          A MiILLION TOO MUTH.
of town; Mr. Dean he was, sir; and had his own
carriage not a year ago. Don't call it suicide!"
"Found drowned."  Yes; that was the way it was
read by all the city next day. That was the-way it
reached Teddy Green's ears the night of the inquest,
when P.'s body lay still in the " Happy Home," waiting early morning interment by the city authorities.
Teddy went for Dr. Roxwell, that they might carry
the dead man to one of their houses-for Teddy was
living in very respectable style now-and give it a
becoming burial. Teddy then went to TMrs. Bently's
in haste, while the doctor was to follow with a hearse,
a coffin, and a shroud.
Mrs. Bently was in her bar in an angry, excited
frame of mind, declaring that " the corpse had scared
off her customers." Mrs. Jillet had gone in to look
at the body, for some reason or another, and a loud
crash resounded through the house as Teddy's hand
was on the door-latch. Mrs. Jillet had been seized
with a fit of apoplexy, and had fallen against the
unsteady table, throwing it over. A ghastly sight
met Teddy's eyes; the corpse thrown on the floor,
the table and shutter resting upon it, and Mrs. Jillet
prostrate, with purple face and foaming lips.
In a few moments the doctor arrived, to render
what aid he could to the once active housekeeper, and




A MITLLION TOO MiUCM.          273
the undertaker came with him, to wrap the dead
pauper in a costly shroud, and put him to sleep in
such a coffin as had held his father and grandfather.
As the hearse was about starting, and the carriage
for the doctor and Teddy Green was coming up, Mrs.
Bently grasped the doctor's arm.'"You must give
me a hospital certificate for her, doctor dear, and I'll
pack her off early in the morning. She has been
living on my bounty this many years, and I ain't
going to keep her a day longer."
The doctor wrote the required document on a blank
leaf from his note-book, and handed it over.  "I'll
send a carriage and nurse here after her. You have
small charity, Mrs. Bently. I remember when you
were glad enough to have her acquaintance, and you
have followed her up ever since, until she has become
that mass of disease."  They were looking at the unhappy Mrs. Jillet, who was stretched on a bed rudely
made on the floor, and her heavy breathing resounded
through the small room.
While Mrs. Jillet lay thus unconscious, and the
doctor fellowed to his own house the hearse that bore
the body of P. Dean, Mrs. Bently was scrupulously
searching the remaining effects of her quondam crony,
and was rewarded by finding a twenty-dollar note
sewed into the lining of her last dress.  This, Mrs.
S




274          A MILLION TOO MIUCH.
Bently confiscated for some unexplained indebtedness; and thus, when Mrs. Jillet, once the self-satisfied and self-serving housekeeper of the Dean family,
went to the city hospital next day, she went penniless
and in tatters.
A funeral next day. Four bearers in a carriage;
Aunt Debby's old pastor in another carriage; then
Miss Gale and her uncle; next the doctor and Teddy.
So they went to the cemetery on which wealth and
nature had lavished adornment, to the Dean lot with
its four graves and four grand monuments, and with a
fifth grave yawning open, where the doctor would put
another monument, telling that P. Dean had died,
aged twenty-six years and six months.
A fearful family burial-place that, where, out of five
graves, only one holds a body laid down in good hope
of a glorious immortality; a very dreary place, where,
out of five dead, you can count a vender of strong
drink, and three of its victims; a horrible place, where
the suicides father and son, and the mother no less a
suicide, sleep side by side! Full many cemeteries
are written with these terrible tragedies of intemperance.
The short ceremony is over, and all may go home.
The wealthy Dean family is extinct, destroyed by
that whereon it rose to splendor. It was built up on




A MILL~ON TOO MUCH.            275
woes and curses and ruined souls, and they are all its
history!
Miss Gale sat at breakfast at the old doctor's table;
he was stirring his coffee, and reading the morning
paper. He laid it down and looked at Miss Gale,
and Miss Gale's uncle.  "Here is a story of retribution," he said.  "It was rather late in life that I
began to consider my religious duties, or look into
the ways of Providence; but, in a dozen years I have
seen a good many especial providences, and some
judgments falling heavily in this life." The doctor
was aged, and given to prosing, but his guests were
indulgent. He took up his paper and searched for a
paragraph, then read aloud:"' A miserable groggery on Water street, called the
Happy Home Hotel, kept by a Mrs. Bently, was
burned at eleven o'clock last evening. A boy, who
slept under the counter in the bar-room, escaped. Mrs.
Bently being probably too drunk to arouse easily, was
burned to death. It was not known that she was in
the house until it was too late to rescue her.'"  It
was savagely added, most likely by the hand of Teddy
Green: "If all the other groggeries of this description which the city boasts, and their incorrigible
keepers, met a like fate, it would result in an immense




276           A MILLION TOO MUCH.
saying of the life and property yearly destroyed by
them."
"Yes, said the doctor, "that is retribution. Fir1t
and lasf, that woman was the ruin of our unfortunate
friend."
"There were so many agents in his ruin," said
Miss Gale, "that we cannot lay the whole burden
upon one of them."
" Poor fellow! poor fellow!" sighed the old gentleman. "He had a hard time in life; he was destroyed
by having everything he wanted, and no restraint that
he needed; he was born Heir to a Million too Much."
THE END.




STANDARD AND POPULAR BOOKS
PUBLISHED BY
PORTER& OATES, PHILADELPHIA, PA
WAVERLEY  NOVELS. By SIR WALTER SCOTT.
*Waverley.                        T'he Fortunes of Nigel.:*~Guy.slanering.                 Peveril of the Peak.
The A t iquary.                    Quentin Durward.
Rob Roy.                           ot. Rounan' Well.
Black Dwarf; and Old Mortality.    Redgauntlet.
The fleiart of Mid-Lothian.        The Botrothed; and The Talisman.
The Bride of Lalmmermnoor; and A    Woodstock.
Legend of Montrose.            The Fair Maid of Perth.
*Ivanhoe.                          Anne of Ceierstein.
The Monastery.                     Count Robert of Paris; and Castle
The Abbott.                           Dangerous.
Kenilworth.                        Chronicies of the Canongate.
The Pirate.
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Tllis is the best edition for the library or for general usi published. Its
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is used in any other 1i2no edition, either English or American.
TALES OF A GRANDFATHER. By SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bert.
4 vols. Uniforml with the Watverley Novels.
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This edition contains the Fourth Series-Tales from French history' And
is the onlr complete edition published in this country.
(If




2             PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS.
CHARLES DICKENS' COMPLETE WORKS. Author's Edition.
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Old Curiosity Shop, and Reprinted    Little Dorrit.'Pieces.                        Tale of Two Cities, and Great ExBarnaby Rudge, and Hard Times.        pectations.
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By CHARLES DICKENS.
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and expression peculiarly his own. His characters, like those of his great
exemplars, constitute a world of their own, whose truth to nature every
reader instinctively recognizes in connection with their truth to darkness."
-E. P. Whipple.
MACAULAY'S HISTORY  OF ENGLAND. From  the accession
of James II. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. With a
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MARTINEAU'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. From the beginning
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black and gold, per set, $4.00; sheep, marbled edges, $6.00; half
calf, gilt, marbled edges, $12.00.




PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS.                      3
HUME'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND.  From  the invasion of
Julius Caesar to the abdication of James II, 1688. By DAVID
Hui-rE. Standard Edition. With the author's last corrections
and improvements; to which is prefixed a short account of
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Popular Edition. 5 vols. Cloth, plain, $5.00.
GIBBON'S DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
By EDWARD GIBBON.  With Notes, by Rev. H. H. MILMAN.
Standard Edition.  To which is added a complete Index of
the work. A new edition from entirely new stereotype plates.
With portrait on steel. 5 vols., 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and
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$15.00.
Popular Edition. 5 vols. Cloth, plain, $5.00.
ENGLAND, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. By JOEL
COOK, author of "A Holiday Tour in Europe," etc. With 487
finely engraved illustrations, descriptive of the most famous
and attractive places, as well as of the historic scenes and
rural life of England and Wales.  With Mr. Cook's admirable
descriptions of the places and the country, and the splendid illustrations, this is the most valuable and attractive book of the
season, and the sale will doubtless be very large. 4to. Cloth,
extra, gilt side and edges, $7.50; half calf, gilt, marbled edges,
$10.00; half morocco, full gilt edges, $10.00; full Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $15.00; tree calf, gilt edges, $18.00.
This work, which is prepared in elegant style, and profusely illustrated,
is a comprehensive description of England and Wales, arranged in convenient fdrm for the tourist, and at the samne time providing an illustrated
guide-book to a country which Americans always view with interest. There
are few satisfactory works about this land which is so generously gifted by
Nature and so full of rnmetorials of the past. Such books as there are, either
cover a few counties or are devoted to special localities, or are merely guidebooks. The present work is believed to be the first attempt to give in attractive form a description of the stately homes, renowned castles, ivy-clad ruins
of abboys, churches, and ancient fortresses, delicious scenery, rock-bound
coasts, and celebrated places of England and Wales. It is written by an
author foilly competent fromt travel and reading, and in position to properly
describe his very interesting sutject; and thie artist's pencil has been called
into requisition to graphically illustrate its well-written pages. There are
487 illustrations, prepared in the highest style of the engravr's art, while
the book itself is one of the most attractive ever presented to the American
public.
Its method of construction is systematic, following the most convenient
rouites taken by tourists, and the letter-press ircludes enough of the history
and legend of each of the places described to make tire story highly interesting. Its pages fairly overflow with picture and description, telline of
everything attractive that is presented by England and Wales. Execut,,d
in the highest style of the printer's and engravers art, " England, Pictureaque and Descriptive," is one of the best American books of the year.




4             PORTER & COATFS S'  PUBLIC.A4TIONS,
IISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR IN  AMERICA. By the COMTn1
DE PARIS.  With Maps faithfully Engraved from the Origin.
als, and Printed in Three Colors.  8vo. Cloth, per volumne
$3.50; red cloth, extra, Roxburgh style, uncut edges, $3.50:
sheep, library style, $4.50; half Turkey moroccO, $6.00.  Vols
I, II, and I1 now ready.
The third volume embraces, without abridgment, the fifth and sixth
volumes of the French edition, and covers one of the most interesting as
well as the most anxious periods of the war, describing the operations of the
Army of the Potornac in the East, and the Army of the Cumberland and
T'ennessee in 1 he West.
It contains full accounts of the battle of Chancellorsville, the attack of the
monitors on Fort Sumter, tile sicges and fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson;
the battles of Port Gibson and Ch:amnpion's Hill, and the fullest and most
authentic account of the battle of Gettysburg ever written.
"The head of the Orleans family has put pen to paper with excellent
result..... Our present impression is that it.will form by far the best
history of the American war."-.A thencum, London.
"We advise aTl Ametricans to read it carefully, and judge for themselves
if'the future historian of our war,' of whom we have heard so much, be not
already arrived in the Comto do Paris."-Natioen, New York.
"This is incomparably the best account of our great second revolution
that has yet been even attempted. It is so calm, so dispassionate, so accurate
in detail, and at the same time so philosophical in general, that its reader
con tlts confidently on finding the complete work thoroughly satisfactory."Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia.
"The work expresses the calm, deliberate judgment of an experienced
military observer and a highly intelligent man. Many of its statements
will excite discussion, hut we tmuch mistake if it does not take high and
permanent rant among the standard histories of the civil war. Indeed
that place has been assigned it by the most competent critics both of this
country and abroad."-Ttmaes, CinciAntati.
"Messrs. Polrter & Coates, of Philadelphia, will publish itn a few days the
authorized trauslatiotn of Othe nDw volume of the Comte de Paris' History of
Our Civil War. The two volumes in French —the fifth and sixth-are boutnd
together in the translation in one volumne. Or readers already know,
through a table of contentsof these volumes, published in the cable coltunus
of the Herald, the period covered by this new installment of a work remarkable in several ways.. It includes the most important and decisive period of
the war, and the two great campaigns of Gettysburg and Vicksburg.
"The great civil war has bad no better, no ablcr historian than the French
prince who, elnulating the exataple of Iafayette, took part in this new
struggle for freedom, and who now writes of events, in many of which he
participated, as an accomplished officer, and one who, by his independent
position, his high character and eminent talents, was placed in circumstances and relations which gave him almost unequalled opportunities to
gain correct information and form impartial judgments.
"The new installment of a work which has already become a classic will
be read with increased interest by Americans because of the importance of
the period it covers and the stirring events it describes. In advance of a
careful review we present to-day some extracts from the advance sheetssent
us by Messrs. Porter & Coates, which will give our readers a foretaste of
chapters which bring back to memory so many half-forgotten and not a few
hitherto ultvalled details of a time which Americans of this generation at
VEast cannot read of without a fresh thrill of excitement,"




POTITER & CIOATESY  PUBLICATIONS. 
RALF-HOURS WITH  THE BEST AUTHORS.  -Wlth shlort Bi.
ographicaI and Critical Notes.  By C.HARLES KNIGTIT.
New Household Edition.  With six portraits oil steel. 3 vols.
thick 12mo.  Cloth, extra, black and gold, per set, $1.50; half imt.
Russia, marbled edges, $6.00; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, $12.02.
Library Edition.  P-rinted on fine laid and tinted paper. With
twenty-four portraits on steel.  G vols., 12mo.  Cloth, extra,. per
set, $7.50; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, per set, $18.00; half Russia, gilt top, $21.00; full French morocco, liap, per set, $12.00;
full smooth Rpssia, limp, roundc corners, in Russia case, per set,
$25.00; full seal grained Russia, limp, round cornLers in Russis
case to match,, $:25.00.
The excellent idea of the editor of these choice. voltumes has been most
admirably carried out, as will be seen by the list of authors upon all subjects. Selecting some choice passages of th e best standard authors, each ofsufficient length to occupy half an hour in its perusal, there is here food for
thought for every day in the year: so that if the pulrchaser will devote but
one-half hour each day to its appropriate selection he will read through
these six volumes in one year, and in suach a leisurely manner that the
noblest thoughts of many of the greatest mindls will be firmly in his mini
forever. For every Selnday there is a suitable selection froln some of the
most eminent writers in sacred literature. We venture to say if the editor's
idea is carried out the reader will possess more and bltter knowledge of the
English classics at the end of the year than he would by five years of desu'-,
tory reading.
They can be commenced at any day in thesyear. The variety of reading
is so great that no one will ever tire of thee volumes. It is a library in
itself.
TIE POE, TRY OF OTHER LANDS. A Collection of Translations into Elnglish Verse of thie Poetry of Other Languages,
Ancient and Modern.  Compiled by N. CLErMMArONS HUNT.
Containing translations from the Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabian, Japanese, Turkish, Servian, Russian, Bohemian, Polish,
IDutch, German,   Italian, Fienclh, Spanish, and Portuguese
languages. 12mno. Cloth, extra, gilt edges, $2.50; half calf, gilt,
marbled edges, $1.00; Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $6.00.
A' nother of the publications of Porter & Coates, called'The Poetry of
Other Lands' compiled by N. Clemmons Hunt, we most  warmly commend.
It is one of the best collections we have seen, containing many exquisite
poems and fragments of verse which have not before been ptlt into book
form in English words. We find many of the old favorites, which appear
in every well-selected collection of sonnets and songs, and we miss others,
which seem a necessity to complete the bouquet of grasses and flowers,
some of which, fromn time to time, we hope to republish in the' Courier.''
Cincinnati Courier.
"A book of rare excell nce, because it gi es a collection of choice gems in
many languages not available to the general lover of poetry. It contains
translations fiom the Greek, La-tin, Persian, Arabian, Japanese, Turkish,
Servian, Russian, Bohemian, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, French,
Spanish, and Portuguese languages. The book will be an admirable coimpaInion volume to any one of tihe collections of Endllsh poetry that are now
published. With the full index of authors immediately preceding the collection, and the arrangement of the poems under headings, the reader will
find it convenient for reference. It is a gift that will be more valued by
very many than some of the transitory ones at these holiday times."-'.Philadelphia dFetlhodist.




6             PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS.
THE  FIRESIDE  ENCYCLOPXEDIA  OF POETRY.   Edited by
HENtRY T. COATES. This is the latest, and beyond doubt the
best collection of poetry published. Printed on fine papel and
illustrated with thirteen  steel engravings and fifteen title
pages, containing portraits of prominent American poets and
fac-similes of their handwriting, made expressly for this book.
8vo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, gilt edges, $5.00; half calf,
gilt, marbled edges, $7.50; half morocco, full gilt edges, $7.50;
full Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $10.00; tree calf, gilt edges,
$12.00; plush, padded side, nickel lettering, $14.00.
"The editor shows a wide acquaintance with the most precious treasures
of English verse, and has gathered the most admirablo specimens of their
ample wealth. Many pieces which have been passed by in previous collections hold a place of honor in the preosent volume, and will be heartily welcomed by the lovers of poetry as a delightfuil addition to their sources of
enjoyment. It is a volume rich in solace, in entertainment, in inspiration,
of which the possession may well be coveted by every lover of poetry. The
pictorial illustrations of the work are in keepitng with its poetical contents,'and the beauty of the typographical execution entitles it to a place among
the choicest ornaments of the lihrary." —New  York Tribhrne.
i"Lovers of good poetry will filnd this one of the richest collectfions ever
made. All the best singers in our language are ri presented. and the selections are generally those which reveal their highest qualities..... The
lights and shades, the finer play of thought and imagination belonging to
individual authors, are brought out in this way (by the. arrangement of
poems under subject-headings) as they would not be under any other system...W. Ve are deeply impressed with the keln appreciation of poetical
worth, and also with the good taste manifested by the compiler." —Chur'ch." Cyclopoedias of poetry are numerous, hut for sterling value of its contents
for the library, or as a book of reference, no work of the kind will compare
with this admirable volume of Mr. Coates. It takes the gems from many
volumes, culling with rare skill and judgment."-Chicago Inter-Ocean.
THE CHILDREN-'S BOOK OF POETRY.  Compiled by HENRY
T. CoAaEs.  Containing over 500 poems carefully selected
from the works of the best and most popular writers for children; with nearly 200 illustrations.  The most complete collection of poetry for children ever published.  4to. Cloth,
extra, black and gold, gilt side and edges, $3.00; full Turkey
morocco, gilt edges, $7.50.
"This seems to us the best hook of poetry for children in existence. We
have examined many other collections, but we cannot name another that
deserves to be compared with this admirable compilation."- Worcester Spy.
"The special value of the book lies in the fact that it nearly or quite
covers the entire field. There is not a great deal of good poetry which has
been written for children that cannot be found in this book. The collection
is particularly strong in ballads and tales, which are apt to interest children
more thatn potems of other kinds; and.Mr. Coates has shown good judgment
in supplementing this department with some of the best poems of that class
that have been written for grown people. A surer method of forming the!
taste of hildlren for good and pure literature than by reading to them from
any portion of this book can hardly be imagined. The volurme is richly
illustrated and beautifully bound."-PPhiladelphia Eveniag Bulletin.
"A more excellent volume cannot. be found. We have found within the
covers of this-handsome volmntm, and upon its fair pages, many of the most
exquisite poems which our language contains. It must become a standard
-olume, and can never grow old or obsolete." —Episcopal Recorder.




PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS.                    7
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF THOS. HOOD. With engravings
on steel. 4 vols., 12mio., tinted paper. Poetical Works; Up
the Rhine; Miscellanies and Hood's Own; Whimsicalities,
Whims, and Oddities. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $6.00;
red cloth, paper label, gilt top, uncut edges, $6.00; half calf,
gilt, marbled edges, $14.00; half Russia, gilt top, $18.00.
Hood's verse, whether serious or comic-whether serene like a cloudless
autumn evening or sparkling with puns like a frosty January midnight
with stars-was ever pregnant with materials for the thought. Like every
author distinguished for true comic humor, there was a deep vein of melancholy pathos running through his mirth, and even when his sun shone
brightly its light seemed often reflected as if only over the rim of a cloud.
Well may we say, in the words of Tennyson, "Would he could have
stayed with us." for never could it be more truly recorded of any one-in
the words of Hamlet characterizing Yorick-that "he was a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."               D. M. MOIR.
THE ILIAD OF HOMER RENDERED INTO ENGLISH.
BLANK  VERSE. By  EDWARD, EARL OF DERBY. From
the latest London edition. with all the author's last revisions
and corrections, and with a Biographical Sketch of Lord
Derby, by R. SHELTON  MACKENZIE, D.C.L.  With twelve
steel engravings from  Flaxman's celebrated designs. 2 vols.,
12mo. Cloth, extra, bev. boards, gilt top, $3.50; half calf, gilt,
marbled edges, $7.00; half Turkey morocco, gilt top, $7.00.
The same. Popular edition. Two vols. in one. 12mo. Cloth,
extra, $1. 50.
"It must equally be considered a splendid performance; and for the present we have no hesitation in saying that it is by far the best representation
of Homner's Iliad in the English language."-London Trines.
"The merits of Lord Derby's translation may be summed up in one word,
it is eminently attractive; it is instinct with life; it may be read with fervent
interest; it is immeasurably nearer than Pope to the text of the original..... Lord Derby has given a version far more closely allied to the original,
and superior to any that has yet been attempted in the blank verse of our
language."-Edinbstrg Review.
TIE WORKS OF FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS. Comprising the Antiquities of the Jews; a History of the Jewish Wars, and a Life
of Flavius Josephus, written by himself. Translated from the
original Greek, by WILLIAM WHISTON, A.M. Together with
numerous explanatory Notes and seven Dissertations concerning Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, James the Just, God's command to Abraham, etc., with an Introductory Essay by Rev.
H. STEBBING, D.D. 8vo. Cloth, ext-ra, black and gold, plain
edges, $3.00; cloth, red, black and gold, gilt edges, $4.50; sheep,
marbled edges, $3.50; Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $8.00.
This is the largest type one volume edition published.
THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EGYPTIANS, CARTHAGINIANS, ASSYRIANS, BABYLONIANS, AMEDES  AND
PERSIANS, GRECIANS AND MACEDONIANS   Including
a History of the Arts and Sciences of the Ancients.  By
CHARLES ROLLIN. With a Life of the Author, by JAMES
BELL. 2 volS., royal 8Vo. Sheep, marbled edges, per set, $6.00.




8            PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS.
COOKERY FROM  EXPERIENCE. A Practical Guide for Housekeepers in the Preparation of Every-day Meals, containing
more than One Thousand Domestic Recipes, mostly tested by
Personal Experience, with Suggestions for Meals, Lists of
Meats and Vegetables in Season, etc. By Mrs. SARA T. PAUL.
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50.
Interleaved Edition. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.75.
THE COMPARATIVE EDITION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
Both Versions in One Book.
The proof readings of our Comparative Edition have been gone
over by so many competent proof readers, that we believe the text
is absolutely correct.
Large 12mo., 700 pp.  Cloth, extra, plain edges, $1.50; cloth,
extra, bevelled boards and carmlnine edges, $1.75;* imitation panelled
calf, yellow edges, $2.00;  arabesqjue, gilt edges, $2.50; French morocco, limp, gilt edges, $4.00; Turkey morocco, limp, gilt edges,
$6.00.
The Comparative New Testament has been published by Porter & Coates.
In parallel columns on each page are given the old and new versions of the
Testament, divided also as far as practicable into comparative verses, so that
it is altnost impossible for the slightest new word to escape the notice of
either the ordinary reader or the analytical student. It is dectidcdly the
best edition yet published of the most interest-exciting literary production
of the day. No more convenient form for comparison could be devised
either for economizing time or labor. Another feature is the foot-notes,
and there is also given in an appendix the various words and expressions
preferred by the American members of the Revising Commission. The
work is handsomely printed on excellent paper with clear, legible type. It
contains nearly 700 pages.
THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. By ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
Complete in one volume, with two illustrations by George G.
White. 12mo.  Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25.
THE THREE GUARDSMEN. By ALEXANDRE DUMAS. Complete in one volume, with two illustrations by George G.
White. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25.
There is a magic influence in his pen, a magnetic attraction in hisdescriptions, a fertility in Ihis literary resources which are characteristic of Dumnas
alone, and the seal of the master of light literature is set upon all his works.
Even when not strictly historical, his romances give an insight into the
habits and modes of thought and action of the people of the tine described,
which are not offered in any other author's productions.
THE  LAST  DAYS OF POMPEII.  By Sir EDWARD BULWEIR
LYTTON, Bart. Illustrated.  12mo. Cloth, extra, black and
gold, $1.00. Alta edition, one illustration, 75 cts.
JANE EYRE. By CHARLOTTE BRONTE (Currer Bell). New Library Edition. With five illustrations by E. M. WIMPERIS.
12amo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00.
SHIRLEY. By CHARLOTTE BRONTfi (Currer Bell). New Library
Edition. With five illustrations by E. M. WIMPERIS. 12mi0.
Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00.




PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS.                      9
V\x,LETTE. By CHARLOTTE BRONTI (Currer Bell). New Library
~Edition. With five illustrations by E. M. WIMPERIS. 12mo.
Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00.
THE PROFESSOR, EMMA and POEMS. By CHARLOTTE BRONT:
(Currer Bell). New Library Edition. With five illustrations
by E. M. WirmPERIS. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00.
Cloth, extra, black and gold, per set, $4.00; red cloth, paper
label, gilt top, uncut edges, per set, $5.00; half calf, gilt, per set,
$12.00. The four volumes forming the complete works of Charlotte Bront6 (Currer Bell).
The wondrous power of Currer Bell's stories consists in their fiery insight
into the human heart, their merciless dissection of passion, and their stern
analysis of character and motive. The style of these productions possesses
incredible force, sometimes almost grim in its bare severity, then relapsing
into passages of melting pathos-always direct, natunal, and effective in its
unpretending strength. They exhibit the identity which always belongs to
works of genius by the same author, though without the slightest approach
to monotony. The characters portrayed by Currer Bell all have a strongly
marked individuality. Once brought before the imagination, they haunt
tile memory like a strange dream. The sinewy, muscular strength of her
writings guarantees their permanent duration, and thus far they have lost
nothing of their intensity of interest since the period of their composition.
CAPTAIN JACK THE SCOUT; or, The Indian Wars about Old
Fort Duquesne.  An Historical Novel, with copious notes.
By CHARLES MICKNIGHT. Illustrated with eight engravings.
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50.
A work of such rare merit and thrilling interest as to have been republishted both in England and Germany. This genuine Americanl historical
woik has been received with extraordinary popular favor, and has "won
golden opinions from all sorts of people" for its freshness, its forest life, and
its fidelity to truth. In many instances it even corrects History and uses
the drapery of fiction simply to enliven and illustrate the fact.
It is a universal favorite with bilh sexes, and with all ages and conditions, and is not only proving a marked and notable success in this country,
but has been eagerly taken up abroad and republished in London, England,
and issued in two volumes in the far-fallcd " Tauchnetz Edition " of Leipsic,
Germany.
ORANGE BLOSSOMS, FRESH AND FADED. By T. S. ARTHUR.
Illustrated.  12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50.
"Orange Blossoms" contains a number of short stories of society. Like
all of Mr. Arthur's works, it has a special moral purpose, and is especially
addressed to the young who have just entered the marital experience, whom
it pleasantly warns against those social and moral pitfalls into which they
may almost innocently plunge.
THE BAR ROOMS AT BRANTLEY; or, The Great Hotel Speculation. By T. S. ARTHUR. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra,
black and gold, $1.50.
"One of the best temperance stories recently issued."-N-. Y Commercial
Advertiser.
"Although it is in the form of a novel, its truthful delineation of characters is such that in every village in the land you meet the broken manhood
it pictures upon the streets, and look upon sad, tear-dimmned eyes of women
and children. The characters are not overdrawn, but are as truthful as an
artist's pencil could make them."-I-zter-Ocean, Chicago.




10           PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS.
EMMA. By JANE AUSTEN. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra,
$1.25.
MANSFIELD  PARK.  By JANE AUSTEN.  Illustrated.  12mo.
Cloth, extra, $1.25.
PRIDE AND  PREJUDICE; and Northanger Abbey. By JANE
AUSTEN. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, $1.25.
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY; and Persuasion. By JANE AUSTEN.
Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth,. extra, $1.25.
The four volumes, forming the complete works of Jane Austen,
in a neat box: Cloth, extra, per set, $5.00; red cloth, paper label,
gilt top, uncut edges, $5.00; half calf, gilt, per set, $12.00.
"Jane Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. In her novels
she has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, conmmonplace, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings..... And almost all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude
analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them
to exist only by the general effect. to which they have contributed." —Maceaulae's Essays.
ART AT HOME. Containing in one volume House Decoration,
by RHODA and AGNES GARRETT; Plea for Art in the House,
by W. J. LOFTIE; Music, by JOHN HULLAH; and Dress, by
Mrs. OLIPHANT. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50.
TOIM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS AT RUGBY. By THOMAS
HUGHES. New Edition, large clear type. With 36 illustrations after Caldecott and others. 12mo., 400 pp. Cloth, extra,
black and gold, $1.25; half calf, gilt, $2.75.
Alta Edition. One illustration, 75 cents.
"It is difficult to estimate the amount of good which may be done by'Tom Brown's School Days.' It gives, in the main, a most faithful and
interesting picture of our public schools, the most English institutions of'
England, and which educate the best and most powerful elements in our
upper classes. But it is more than this; it is an attempt, a very noble and
successful attempt, to Christianize the society of our youth, through the
only practicable channel-hearty and brotherly sympathy with their feelings; a book, in short, which a father might well wish to see in the hands
of his son."-London Times.
TOM  BROWN AT OXFORD. By THOMAS HUGHES. Illustrated.
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50; half calf, gilt, $3.00.
"Fairly entitled to the rank and dignity of an English classic. Plot, style
and truthfulness are of the soundest British character. Racy, idiomatic,
mirror-like, always interesting, suggesting thought on the knottiest social
and religious questions, now deeply moving by its tnconscious pathos, and
anon inspiring uproarious laughter, it is a work the world will not willingly
let die."-NV. Y. Christian Advocate.




PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS.                 11
SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE OF THE BEST SOCIETY. By Mrs.
H. O. WARD. Customs, manners, morals, and home culture,
with suggestions how to word notes and letters of invitations,
acceptances, and regrets, and general instructions as to calls,
rules for watering places, lunches, kettle drums, dinners, receptions, weddings, parties, dress, toilet and manners, salutations, introductions, social reforms, etc., etc. Bound in cloth,
with gilt edge, and sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of
$2.00.
LADIES' AND  GENTLEMEN'S  ETIQUETTE: A  Complete
Manual of the Manners and Dress of American Society. Containing forms of Letters, Invitations, Acceptances, and Regrets.
With a copious index.  By E. B. DUFFEY.  l2mo.  Cloth,
extra, black and gold, $1.50.
"It is peculiarly an American book, especially adapted to our people, and
its greatest beauty is found in the fact that in every line and precept it inculcates idh principles of true politeness, instead of those formal rules that
serve only to gild the surfare without affecting the substance. It is admsirably written, the style being clear, terse, and tolrible."-St. Louis Times.
THE UNDERGROUND CITY; or, The Child of the Cavern.
By JULES VERNE.  Translated from  the French by W. H.
KINGSTON. With 43 illustrations. Standard Edition. 12mno.
Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50.
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS. By JULES VERNE.
Translated by GEO. M. TOWLE. With 12 full-page illustrations.
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25.
AT THE NORTH POLE; or, The Voyages and Adventures of
Captain Hatteras. By JULES VERNE. With 130 illustrations
by Riou. Standard Edition. 12mo. Cloth. extra, black and
gold, $1.25.
THE DESERT OF ICE; or, The Further Adventures of Captain
Hatteras. By JULES VERNE. With 126 illustrations by Rrou.
Standard Edition. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25.
TWENTY  THOUSAND  LEAGUES UNDER THE  SEAS; or,
The Marvellous and Exciting Adventurels of Pierre Aroinnax,
Conseil his servant, and Ned Land, a Canadian Harpooner. By
JULES VERNE. Standard Edition. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth,
extra, black and gold, $1.25.
THE WRECK OF THE CHANCELLOR, Diary of J. R. Kazallon,
Passenger, and Martinl Paz. By JULES VERNE. Translated
from the French by ELLEN FREWER. With 10 illustrations.
Standard Edition. 12mno. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25.
Jules Verne is so well known that the mere announcement of anythir g
from his pen is iufficient to create a demand for it. One of his chief merits
is the wonderful art with which he lays under contribution every branch of
science and natural history, while he vividly describes with minute exactness all parts of the world and its inhabitants.




12            PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS.
THE  INGOLDSBY  LEGENDS;  or, Mirth and Marvels.  By
RICIiARD HARRIS BARHAM  (Thomas Ingoldsby, Esq.). New
edition, printed from entirely new stereotype plates. Illus.
trated. 12m1o.  Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50; half calt
gilt, marbled edges, $3.00.
"Of his poetical powers it is not too much to say that, for originality of
design and diction, for grand illustration and musical verse, they are not
surpassed in the English language. The Witches' Frolic is second only to
Tarn O'Shanter. But why recapitulate the titles of either prose or versesince they have been confess!ed by every judgment to be singularly rich in
classic allusion and mnodern illustration. Fromu the days of Hludibras to our
time the drollery invested in rhymes has never been so amply or felicitously
exemplified."-Bentley's 3fiscellaany.
TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. By SAMUEL C. WARREN, author of
"The Diary of a London Physician."  A new edition, carefllly revised, with three illustrations by GEORGE G. WHITE.
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1 50.
"Mir. Warren has taken a lasting place almong the imaginative writers of
this period of English history. He possesses. in a remarkable manner, the
tenderness ot heart and vividness of feeling, as well as powers of description,
which are essential to the delineation of the pathetic, and which, when
existing in the degree in which he enjoys themn, fill his pages with scenes
which can never be forgotten."-Sir ArcAhibald Alison.
THOMPSON'S POLITICAL ECONOMY; With Especial Reference to the Industrial History of Nations. By Prof. R. E.
THOMPSON, of the University of Pennsylvania. 12mo. Cloth,
extra, $1.50.
This book possesses an especial interest at the present moment. The
questions of Free Trade and Protection are before the country more directly
than at ally earlier period of our history. As a rule the works and textbooks used in our ATmerican colleges are either of English origin or teach
Doctrines of a political economy which, as Walter Bagehot says, was made
for England. Prof. Thompson belongs to the Nationalist School of Economists, to which Alexander Hamilton, Tench Coxe, Henry Clay, Matthew
Carey, and his greater son, Henry C. Carey, Stephen Colwell, and James
Abram Garfield were adherents. He believes in that policy of Protection
to American industry which has had the sanction of every great American
statesmtan, not excepting Thomas Jefferson and John C. Calhoun. He makes
his appeal to history in defence of that policy, showing that wherever a
weaker or less advanced country has practiced Free Trade with one more
powerful or richer, the former has lost its industries as well as its motley,
and has become economically dependent on the latter. Those who wish
to learn what is the real source of Irish poverty and discontent will find it
here stated fully.
The method of the book is historical. It is therefore no series of dry and
abstract reasonings, such as repel readers fromn books of this cla-s. The
writer does not ride the a  priori nag, and say " this nmust be so," and " that
must be conceded." He shows what has been true, and seeks to elicit the
laws of the science from the experience of the world. The book overflows
with facts told in an interesting manner.
THE ENGLISH PEOPLE IN ITS THREE HOMES, and the
Practical Bearings of general European History. By EDWARD
A. FREEMAN, LL.D., Author of the "Norman Conquest of
England."  12mo.  Cloth, extra, $1.75.