The Project Gutenberg eBook, Trumps, by George William Curtis

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Trumps

Author: George William Curtis

Release Date: March 29, 2005 [eBook #15498]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRUMPS***

E-text prepared by Curtis Weyant, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team from page images generously made available by the Making of America Collection of the University of Michigan Library

Note: Images of the original pages are available through the Making of America Collection of the University of Michigan. See http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/b/bib/bibperm?q1=abw7901

TRUMPS

A Novel

by

GEO. WM. CURTIS

Author of Nile Notes of a Howadji, The Howadji in Syria, The Potiphar Papers, Prue and I, etc.

1861

CONTENTS

Chapter

        I. SCHOOL BEGINS
       II. HOPE WAYNE
      III. AVE MARIA!
       IV. NIGHT
        V. PEEWEE PREACHING
       VI. EXPERIMENTUM CRUCIS
      VII. CASTLE DANGEROUS
     VIII. AFTER THE BATTLE
       IX. NEWS FROM HOME
        X. BEGINNING TO SKETCH
       XI. A VERDICT AND A SENTENCE
      XII. HELP, HO!
     XIII. SOCIETY
      XIV. A NEW YORK MERCHANT
       XV. A SCHOOL-BOY NO LONGER
      XVI. PHILOSOPHY
     XVII. OF GIRLS AND FLOWERS
    XVIII. OLD FRIENDS AND NEW
      XIX. DOG-DAYS
       XX. AUNT MARTHA
      XXI. THE CAMPAIGN
     XXII. THE FINE ARTS
    XXIII. BONIFACE NEWT, SON, & CO., DRY GOODS ON COMMISSION
    XXXIV. "QUEEN AND HUNTRESS"
      XXV. A STATESMAN—AND STATESWOMAN
     XXVI. THE PORTRAIT AND THE MINIATURE
    XXVII. GABRIEL AT HOME
   XXVIII. BORN TO BE A BACHELOR
     XXIX. MR. ABEL NEWT, GRAND STREET
      XXX. CHECK
     XXXI. AT DELMONICO'S
    XXXII. MRS. THEODORE KINGFISHER AT HOME. On dansera
   XXXIII. ANOTHER TURN IN THE WALTZ
    XXXIV. HEAVEN'S LAST BEST GIFT
     XXXV. MOTHER-IN-LAW AND DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
    XXXVI. THE BACK WINDOW
   XXXVII. ABEL NEWT Vice SLIGO MOULTRIE REMOVED
  XXXVIII. THE DAY AFTER THE WEDDING
    XXXIX. A FIELD-DAY
       XL. AT THE ROUND TABLE
      XLI. A LITTLE DINNER
     XLII. CLEARING AND CLOUDY
    XLIII. WALKING HOME
     XLIV. CHURCH GOING
      XLV. IN CHURCH
     XLVI. IN ANOTHER CHURCH
    XLVII. DEATH
   XLVIII. THE HEIRESS
     XLIX. A SELECT PARTY
        L. WINE AND TRUTH
       LI. A WARNING
      LII. BREAKFAST
     LIII. SLIGO MOULTRIE vice ABEL NEWT
      LIV. CLOUDS AND DARKNESS
       LV. ARTHUR MERLIN'S GREAT PICTURE
      LVI. REDIVIVUS
     LVII. DINING WITH LAWRENCE NEWT
    LVIII. THE HEALTH OF THE JUNIOR PARTNER
      LIX. MRS. ALFRED DINKS
       LX. POLITICS
      LXI. GONE TO PROTEST
     LXII. THE CRASH, UP TOWN
    LXIII. ENDYMION
     LXIV. DIANA
      LXV. THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE
     LXVI. MENTOR AND TELEMACHUS
    LXVII. WIRES
   LXVIII. THE INDUSTRIOUS APPRENTICE
     LXIX. IN AND OUT
      LXX. THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE
     LXXI. RICHES HAVE WINGS
    LXXII. GOOD-BY
   LXXIII. THE BELCH PLATFORM
    LXXIV. MIDNIGHT
     LXXV. REMINISCENCE
    LXXVI. A SOCIAL GLASS
   LXXVII. FACE TO FACE
  LXXVIII. FINISHING PICTURES
    LXXIX. THE LAST THROW
     LXXX. CLOUDS BREAKING
    LXXXI. MRS. ALFRED DINKS AT HOME
   LXXXII. THE LOST IS FOUND
  LXXXIII. MRS. DELILAH JONES
   LXXXIV. PROSPECTS OF HAPPINESS
    LXXXV. GETTING READY
   LXXXVI. IN THE CITY
  LXXXVII. A LONG JOURNEY
 LXXXVIII. WAITING
   LXXXIX. DUST TO DUST
       XC. UNDER THE MISLETOE

CHAPTER I.

SCHOOL BEGINS.

Forty years ago Mr. Savory Gray was a prosperous merchant. No gentleman on 'Change wore more spotless linen or blacker broadcloth. His ample white cravat had an air of absolute wisdom and honesty. It was so very white that his fellow-merchants could not avoid a vague impression that he had taken the church on his way down town, and had so purified himself for business. Indeed a white cravat is strongly to be recommended as a corrective and sedative of the public mind. Its advantages have long been familiar to the clergy; and even, in some desperate cases, politicians have found a resort to it of signal benefit. There are instructive instances, also, in banks and insurance offices of the comfort and value of spotless linen. Combined with highly-polished shoes, it is of inestimable mercantile advantage.

Mr. Gray prospered in business, and nobody was sorry. He enjoyed his practical joke and his glass of Madeira, which had made at least three voyages round the Cape. His temperament, like his person, was just unctuous enough to enable him to slip comfortably through life.

Happily for his own comfort, he had but a speaking acquaintance with politics. He was not a blue Federalist, and he never d'd the Democrats. With unconscious skill he shot the angry rapids of discussion, and swept, by a sure instinct, toward the quiet water on which he liked to ride. In the counting-room or the meeting of directors, when his neighbors waxed furious upon raking over some outrage of that old French infidel, Tom Jefferson, as they called him, sending him and his gun-boats where no man or boat wants to go, Mr. Gray rolled his neck in his white cravat, crossed his legs, and shook his black-gaitered shoe, and beamed, and smiled, and blew his nose, and hum'd, and ha'd, and said, "Ah, yes!" "Ah, indeed?" "Quite so!" and held his tongue.

Mr. Savory Gray minded his own business; but his business did not mind him. There came a sudden crash—one of the commercial earthquakes that shake fortunes to their foundations and scatter failure on every side. One day he sat in his office consoling his friend Jowlson, who had been ruined. Mr. Jowlson was terribly agitated—credit gone—fortune wrecked—no prospects—"O wife and children!" he cried, rocking to and fro as he sat.

"My dear Jowlson, you must not give way in this manner. You must control your feelings. Have we not always been taught," said Mr. Gray, as a clerk brought in a letter, the seal of which the merchant broke leisurely, and then skimmed the contents as he continued, "that riches have wings and—my God!" he ejaculated, springing up, "I am a ruined man!"

So he was. Every