The Snake-Oil Dickens Man

But such is the indefatigable nature of the human spirit that not my mother’s iniquity, nor my own admitted weaknesses, were proof against the clarion call of exciting and novel sounds that were wafted through my opened window to assail my ears on that bright summer’s day. I had been half-aware of the music and that a band of musicians was blowing their best somewhere just below my window but when I heard the unmistakable sounds of loud acrimony and squabbling not even drowning waves of guilt and inadequacy could suffocate the stirrings of wild curiosity and prevent me from stuffing my blue woollen workshirt in my pants and hopping into my single boot – the twin would be discovered in the horse trough, I was certain – and escaping downstairs to the street.

It mattered not that I had risen late as the gentlemen whose breakfast I should have served had other matters to occupy them than ham and eggs as they clamoured in the lobby, protesting their sudden evictions. I might have had sympathy for Merriweather as he quailed under a barrage of robust abuse had I not known that it was only another quandary born of his own greed. I snuck past these rioters, leaving Merriweather to untangle his own knots and caught a ride on a wagon that was heading for town.

II

There was no question that word of the great event had already spread. We passed trails of people upon the road and were passed ourselves by a number of faster vehicles. At the town limits, we crossed the wide plaza, where teamsters camped and horse auctions were held. This day it was swarming with people. I jumped down and threaded my way through men who were pacing off and pegging out the area of intended encampment and others who had gotten hold of the bunting and flags we used at election times and were stringing them between the grain store, the lightning tree and the liberty pole. Most folk who wandered about the plaza confined themselves to commenting on the operations and speculating upon the likely nature of the extravaganza itself. Overseeing the work was John Wilkes and my mouth dried and my heart missed a beat as he saw me and approached with outstretched hand. I had grasped it before I had thought to refuse.

‘I have to talk to you about last night,’ I began.

‘Billy, I just larned that the lady I entertained is your mother. Well, I was real shocked but I congratulate you upon having such a paragon for your guide in life. She is the very model of modern womanhood and she did me an unspeakable honour.’

He put an arm about my shoulder and said: ‘I’m sure you understand. Why, we’re men of the world. These things happen, as we know. Life goes on and today life is looking very bright indeed. Can I count on you to help, Billy?’

Looking back, I think I might have acted in a way that would have better preserved the dignities of both my mother and myself. But even had I the necessary resolution, the revolver I had bought solely as an accessory of fashion wasn’t over-choosy about its targets and I would most probably have hurt myself.

But it was hard not to be caught up in the excitement; impossible not to acknowledge the curiously friendly folk who had already accosted me with all manner of inquiry and entreaties for tickets. Rather than knocking him down or waving a gun in his direction I soon found myself up a ladder, with Wilkes up another as we tied a hastily-painted banner across a narrowing of the main street.

Then I was posting bills in shop windows, gossiping with traders and customers and relishing the celebrity and status my connection with Barnum had apparently brought me. To be the centre of anybody’s attention was a profoundly novel sensation. As I swaggered along Main Street, it seemed that every eye was upon me and every tongue forming my name.

All morning more people arrived. Wilkes had seen to it that the telegrapher was kept busy informing surrounding towns and rail stops that Barnum was here tonight. Already buggies, coaches and wagons were streaming in, horses were tethered all along the streets and long lines of people stood before the makeshift ticket office that Wilkes had arranged outside the Mayor’s office.

I watched as D’Orleans took their money and issued his tickets. When his customers had made their purchase they went back to milling about the town, wasting time looking at this and that, walking in and out of the stores and saloons, taking up good vantages on the plaza or just sitting on the sidewalk, shooting competing streams of tobacco juice into the dirt and reading the special issues of the Bugle that Amory had spent all night printing as soon as he knew what was afoot.

D’Orleans dealt his red and yellow tickets like cards from a deck but as fast as he could reduce one line, another had grown. From time to time he would stop and mount the table he had made from a couple of planks upon barrels, survey the crowd with concern and announce in a voice that carried to the ends of both lines, ‘Mr Barnum appreciates your interest, folks, he surely does, but there is only a limited number of seats available for tonight’s show. I must therefore prevail upon you to show forbearance and limit your purchases to six tickets per individual. Six tickets only, PLEASE!’

But that just got the crowd more agitated and more mothers with children attached, more farmers and merchants and drunkards and idlers pushed into the growing lines. When this was at its height, D’Orleans signalled me over to him and implored me to relieve him a while, while he attended to important business. It was maybe two hours before I saw him again, by which time I had significantly reduced the supply of tickets which were bundled in the carpet bag into which I put the takings. I had also had the enormous pleasure of being able to hand four of the coveted red tickets to Cissy Bullock. What would she make of me now, I wondered, as she floated back to her carriage?

It was hot and uncomfortable work, unrelieved by the warm breeze that had got up and gained in strength, flapping the big banner and sending hats skittering about the street and causing wise commentators to remark that Barnum had better have brought strong stakes, if he wanted to keep his tents. There was some local superstition about this zephyr, that it only came when things were on the change or something awful was about to happen to the town. But when I had spoken of this to Elijah, he only snorted his contempt and said that was all a fallacy.

But just as the wind seemed ready to snatch the tickets from my hands and my eyes were red-raw from the grit that had blown in upon them, D’Orleans reappeared. He told the remaining crowd there would be plenty more for everyone the next day and me to get on back to the hotel, where I was wanted by Merriweather.

III

But it was Elijah, and not Merriweather who had been ringing my attendance and it was with some irritation that I mounted the stairs after a fruitless search for the book I had taken with me last night, into the saloon. I passed Merriweather in the lobby but he was busy instructing the carpenter, regarding the special arrangements for accommodating General Thumb.

I had only lately come to regard my daily visits to Elijah as blessed periods of respite from the mundane routines of hotel life and times at which I might exercise faculties that went untested anywhere else in this no-hope place. This afternoon was different and I was loathe to leave the scenes of so much unprecedented excitement and had half a mind to ignore the summons, borrow a horse and gallop back into town. The other half acknowledged that it had been a long morning and that I had worked to exhaustion. Also, the effects of the whisky that so much novelty had distracted me from suffering, were now making themselves known. An hour or two with Elijah might be sufficient for me to recuperate before I returned in time to witness the arrival in town of the Greatest Show on Earth. Elijah recognised the condition I was in the second I began to make my apologies. I fumbled with the glass cover of the oil lamp and somehow caught it just before it hit the floorboards.

‘This is too bad,’ he said as he gazed vacantly through my presence. ‘It’s a poor enough show that you don’t attend me because of some flimflam men and their circus and that I have sat here the livelong day with nothing to occupy me but my memories. But that you lost your Great Expectations whilst in your cups is beyond crediting. Well, Pip and Estella will have to remain at what they are about until we can get another copy.’

He sighed over the manifold follies of youth, mine in particular. His brow furrowed as he cogitated upon something before he leaned towards me, upon his stick and said: ‘Billy, there is something I must talk to you about. It’s a very important matter and I must be sure that I explain it and you understand it properly. I had thought to lay the matter before you today but it’s clear that you’re too tired from your gallivanting and addle-headed from whisky.’

And so I had been an instant before but now that Elijah had confirmed my suspicion of the other evening, that something of significance was to be revealed to me, I felt as alive as electricity and burned with curiosity.

‘Pardon me, Mr Putnam, but you’re mistaken. I never felt better,’ I said. ‘Please tell me all now.’

But Elijah was adamant. ‘Tomorrow will be better,’ he said. ‘I shall expect you at sundown. We will take a walk. In the meantime and in lieu of our readings, perhaps you will be so good as to take down a little more of my memoir?’

I moved a lamp to a small table and opened the bound ledger in which was written already so much of Elijah’s story, the place at which his angular hand was replaced by my own slapdash loops denoting that at which he had owned to himself that he was certainly going blind.

He said, ‘Remind me of where we left off last time.’

‘You had been in London some three months and had visited with the lawyer, from whom you collected your inheritance. The sum was much smaller than you had expected but Mr Bulstrode had been good enough to help you invest it in the hope of great return. We had just completed a passage in which Mr Bulstrode announced that he had secured an introduction to Mr Chalmondely-Palmer, agent for the Bombay Spice and Silk Company.’

‘The Bombay Spice and Silk Company. Yes,’ said Elijah and reclined in his deep leather chair and in so doing, sank back some twenty-five years.

I dipped my nib and began to scratch away as quickly as I could, my pen racing hard against Elijah’s narrative.

‘Bulstrode and I both thought it was a golden opportunity. We had heard of others who had made their fortunes by it. I let Bulstrode invest a small amount and it paid off handsomely. I ventured some more and this too made an excellent return. This continued for such a time that we came to regard the Bombay Spice and Silk Company as a convenient source of revenue. One had only to send in a little bronze for it to return as gold.

‘Bulstrode visited me one day, greatly excited. He said the whisper in the city was that Bombay stock was about to soar and that he had mortgaged his home and staked all he had upon it. It was a sure thing and if I followed suit, I would undoubtedly return to America a very rich man indeed.

‘I hesitated. I had never been a gambling man and a venture of this magnitude had my heart pounding and head reeling. This was too big for me. I would quit while I was ahead of the game. I told Bulstrode, who shook his head and looked at me as if to say well, that was my funeral. He left, whistling at my rashness.

‘Doubt nagged me throughout the night. Supposing he was vindicated? Would I see Bulstrode in a golden coach on the morrow? If he was right – and respected City capitalists were certain of the Bombay’s future – then I would regret it for ever, I knew that.

‘That I had acted wisely was poor consolation and when I rose, tired and haggard the next day, I had changed my mind and prayed I could find Bulstrode in time for him to make the necessary arrangements before all the world knew about the Bombay. I found him in his office with another, grandly-dressed gentleman. He betrayed no surprise at my sudden entrance.

‘“I’m glad you’ve dropped by, Putnam,” he said, “for this is Mr Chalmondely-Palmer, agent for the Bombay Spice and Silk Company. It’s high time you made the acquaintance of the man who has made your fortune.”

‘I shook his hand and for a second or two I could say nothing, overawed as I was by the fine appearance of this gentleman. His suit, his hat, his rings and his manner all bespoke great wealth. Then I composed myself, said how honoured I was and asked Bulstrode if there was still time for me to fall in with him and invest my all. Mr Chalmondely-Palmer said it was all most irregular and Bulstrode was commiserating with me when the gentleman in the powder-blue suit appeared suddenly possessed of an idea. “Wait,” he said, “I think I see how it might be done.”

‘It is unnecessary to go into the details of how my wealth was converted into stocks and bonds of the Bombay Spice and Silk Company but transformed it was and I shook hands with both gentlemen and almost immediately, I took three of my closest friends to celebrate with dinner at the pleasure gardens. I could tell them nothing and how it must have perplexed them, to see me so gay and so lavish with my entertainment.

‘The next day I took my newspaper to my breakfast table and read of a massive fraud involving the Bombay Spice and Silk Company. The scandal was all over the second page but I had barely read the half of it before I had grabbed my hat and was running pell-mell down Chancery Lane to where Bulstrode had his chambers. I took the steps five at a time and burst into his apartments, where I received my second shock of the day. They were empty. Not physically so: the desk, chairs and carpets remained but not so any sign of Bulstrode. His pictures, books and papers, his certificates, plaster bust of Thomas Chatterton, knick-knacks and ornaments were all gone. It was the same scene in the adjoining room.

‘I left the door and bounded down to the basement, where the porter had his office. The man said that Bulstrode had paid up to today and vacated early that morning. I took a cab to the Stock Exchange, where my worst fears were confirmed. The Bombay Spice and Silk had crashed and I was newly penniless. How I cursed Bulstrode and the man who called himself Chalmondely-Palmer but how much more and how bitterly I cursed myself.

‘I pass over the next two days as they did me no credit. Suffice it is to say that I lay upon my bed much of the time and bemoaned the unfairness of my fate. On the third day, I called on friends I had made during my stay in London but, as did those of the prodigal in the parable, mine had deserted me to a man. They were apologetic but their suggestions, that I find myself a good post somewhere, or go home to America were unhelpful and it was plain that they would rather I took myself and my ill-fortune somewhere else. I found myself alone in a strange city with barely a penny to my name.

‘The education that I had thought to complete in London after I had collected my grandfather’s bequest was useless to me now. I exhausted the introductions I had made without any success whatsoever. I moved from my comfortable and spacious lodgings off Green Park, to a hellish boarding-house in Seven Dials but my spirit revolted at the noxious conditions and I spent what money I had assigned to accommodation, on two months’ rent of a single clean room near the river, in Bermondsey.

‘I had precious little money and eked out what food I allowed myself each day. My palate no longer revolted at thin, fatty soup and stale bread. I sought employment but my expectations were soon spiralling giddily downwards. After seeking positions in government offices, I tried to find reporting work on newspapers and in Doctors’ Commons and then applied for a succession of posts as personal tutor and as schoolmaster. Perhaps my foreignness of manner or appearance – for I had pawned my suit and looked now much reduced in circumstances – counted against me. I tried for work as a lowly clerk and then, when calamity loomed and nothing was in prospect, I offered myself as a labourer – to builders and rag merchants before seeking work on the docks amidst which I lived. But still I was without success. I have not the build of a labourer and my hands, that are more used to the feel of a book’s leathern cover than a pick’s shaft, betrayed my unfitness for the work.

‘When I had nothing left for food and only some days’ rent of the room, I joined those people who glean a small living from picking over the ash heaps and do other unmentionable work in the fight for existence. I failed in my every endeavour; others more tried and used to these conditions faired better and took what I might have had.

‘My poor diet, my hag-ridden mind and the foul places I was obliged to habituate affected my health, which soon deteriorated and I wandered about the docks, devoured by hunger and becoming weaker by the hour. When all hope had departed and I no longer had a roof above my head, fortune came to my aid in the form of a fellow countryman, John Andrews, of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

‘To my shame I had been contemplating suicide and intended to offer myself to the embrance of the river and become only another of the frightful things that were daily washed ashore or discovered in the mud at the ebb of the tide. To this end, I had been making my way through bustling places where gangs of men were unloading ships, and great consignments of goods from across the oceans were being hoisted aloft into warehouses, where sailors came and went between chandlers’ shops, instrument-makers and pawn-brokers and spilled out from low taverns and brothels. There was nowhere here that suited my fatal purpose and I went on, down a narrow street between high warehouses, towards a quieter part of the waterfront.

‘It was here that I fell against John Andrews, or he against me. I was weak and dizzy, he drunk. Whatever the origin of the accident, I collided with his massive bulk and the air was filled with his imprecations and I saw the blade of a knife glint in the waning sunlight. I don’t know what I said. I know I asked for no mercy and may well have implored him to do his work swiftly. I expected the deadly blow and no more.

‘I next found myself upon the cobbles and for a moment I thought myself cut and that my life blood must be seeping away towards the river. But I felt the fire of brandy in my throat and the face of the sailor was before me. “I’ll be damned,” he was saying. “A Yankee!”

‘He had a good heart, this Andrews and when I told him of my plight, he helped me to a tavern and watched me like a mother as I devoured a plate of lamb cutlets and potatoes. When I was much improved by the meat and the port-wine he made me drink, he bid me tell my story, which I did in full. He said I had been a fool and I said I could hardly argue that point and that my only wish was to return home to America. I might sink or swim there but I would be among my own, which I thought must be an infinitely more hopeful situation. I owned, however, that there was small hope of that.

‘Andrews only laughed, a big and booming laugh, that had the sailors and porters and prostitutes turning towards our table. “What a weak specimen of American manhood you are” he said, “to falter at such a low fence.” He called to a man at the bar, who was entertaining not one, but two ladies of the London night. “Jack,” he called, “I have an educated Yankee here, the very man for you.”

‘Later I would thank God for my fortune. Then, I only thanked John Andrews, for introducing me to Jack Fairchild, first mate of the passenger steam packet Britannia, due to set out from Liverpool for Halifax and Boston the next week and still in pressing need of a steward.’

Elijah paused and I wondered if he had finished for the day or had merely stopped to collect his thoughts. I was dead tired and my handwriting had become a record of my exhaustion. He took a breath and continued his story. There was a journey to Liverpool, a sea voyage and I thought I heard mention of Charles Dickens. But by then I must been dozing because the next thing I knew, Elijah was saying, ‘Enough, boy, enough,’ and lifting me upon the sofa, where I gave myself up to sleep.

IV

I was fairly blown along the road to town. The wind had gotten up while I slept and from the top of the hill I could see the fun that nature was having with man and his workings below. The big banners we had hung this morning were gone as was the bunting on the plaza. Small objects were chasing around in pockets of chaos and people were running about in the streets, for reasons I couldn’t guess at that distance.

Elijah had been incensed that when I awoke I had made feeble excuses and gone quickly, anxious that I was missing the arrival of Barnum’s show, but that was no matter; this was too big a deal to miss. There was no sign of any such event having occurred as yet. I crossed an empty plaza and was caught in a sudden blast that funnelled violently into Main Street, sweeping up a huge cloud of dust and straw, chaff and grit, hurling it against the offices of the Bugle and into the eyes of anyone who looked the wrong way.

Some part of the crowds of the morning could be seen through the windows of the saloon and in other places of refuge but hardier folk were on the street, appearing and disappearing in clouds of wind-born debris and mouthing words I couldn’t hear, because of the dreadful ruckus created by the wind as it whistled through fissures, loosened tin roofs and went searching for anything that wasn’t nailed down.

Women found their skirts turned sails and relinquished any choice of direction but the movements of a conspicuous party of men retained some purpose; they were darting this way and that and with bandannas and handkerchiefs covering their faces, they might have been a great gang of outlaws or a band of Confederate renegades, searching for a bank to rob.

One of their number separated from the pack and the dentist, Abe Oliver, was blown over my way. ‘Nice weather we got for Barnum,’ I hollered to him but he startled me by spinning me about and pinioning my arms behind my back. The cry went up, ‘They’ve got one of them!’ and many hands laid hold of me and hustled me along the sidewalk and into a sheltered alley. I was thrown to the ground and a crowd of townsfolk gathered about me, not one of them looking like he bore me any goodwill. I need hardly say that I was bewildered and not a little alarmed at this strange turn of events.

‘What’s the matter? Whatever’s happened?’

‘As if he don’t know!’ snapped Abe. ‘Where’s our money, you thief?’

Mrs Roop, the druggist’s wife was shouting into my face, ‘You’ll pay, you will. Every penny, you’ll pay!’

‘Where’s our money?’ went up again.

Someone at the back said, ‘Git a rope.’

‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ I cried. ‘What are you about?’ I must have looked white with fright, because someone else said, ‘Let up on him, Abe. Maybe he wasn’t in on this.’

‘On what?’ I cried and Judge Eckert, who had elbowed through the crowd and was now keeping the rougher elements from exacting their own justice on me, said: ‘We’ll find out the whys and wherefores in a proper place. Now, boy, let’s have the truth. Have you been a part of this?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said, ‘I’ve been with Elijah Putnam all afternoon. What’s happened?’

‘I’ll tell you what’s happened, boy. The men you kindly brought to this town don’t have nothing to do with P.T. Barnum. They’re guinea-droppers and sharpers and they just lit out of here with all the ticket money.’

He must have known I was innocent from the look on my face.

‘How do you know?’ I stammered. ‘Maybe they’ve gone to meet up with the circus.’

‘We just had a wire from Syracuse. They pulled this trick there last month. Those boys are long gone and our money with them.’

What could I say? I had been taken in as they had. We had all believed these nattily-dressed and sweet-talking gentlemen and I was the bigger fool than they. But because I had swelled myself up like the cock of the yard and had talked myself blue about Mr D’Orleans and acted like I had the ear of Barnum himself, I had done half these swindlers’ work for them.