"As to that, I cannot so readily answer. If by abolitionist you mean a zealot, I am none; but if you mean a man, who, being a man, feels for all men, slaves included, and by any lawful act, opposed to nobody's interest, and therefore, rousing nobody's enmity, would willingly abolish suffering (supposing it, in its degree, to exist) from among mankind, irrespective of color, then am I what you say."
"Picked and prudent sentiments. You are the moderate man, the invaluable understrapper of the wicked man. You, the moderate man, may be used for wrong, but are useless for right."
From all this," said the herb-doctor, still forgivingly, "I infer, that you, a Missourian, though living in a slave-state, are without slave sentiments."
"Aye, but are you? Is not that air of yours, so spiritlessly enduring and yielding, the very air of a slave? Who is your master, pray; or are you owned by a company?"
"My master?"
"Aye, for come from Maine or Georgia, you come from a slave-state, and a slave-pen, where the best breeds are to be bought up at any price from a livelihood to the Presidency. Abolitionism, ye gods, but expresses the fellow-feeling of slave for slave."
"The back-woods would seem to have given you rather eccentric notions," now with polite superiority smiled the herb-doctor, still with manly intrepidity forbearing each unmanly thrust, "but to return; since, for your purpose, you will have neither man nor boy, bond nor free, truly, then some sort of machine for you is all there is left. My desires for your success attend you, sir. - Ah!" glancing shoreward, "here is Cape Giradeau; Note: [21.9] I must leave you."
Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII. IN THE POLITE SPIRIT OF THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS. Note: [22.1]
— "'PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE OFFICE' Note: [22.2] — novel idea! But how did you come to dream that I wanted anything in your absurd line, eh?"
About twenty minutes after leaving Cape Giradeau, the above was growled out over his shoulder by the Missourian to a chance stranger who had just accosted him; a round-backed, baker-kneed man, Note: [22.3] in a mean five-dollar suit, wearing, collar-wise by a chain, a small brass plate, inscribed P. I. O., and who, with a sort of canine deprecation, slunk obliquely behind.
"How did you come to dream that I wanted anything in your line, eh?"
"Oh, respected sir," whined the other, crouching a pace nearer, and, in his obsequiousness, seeming to wag his very coat-tails behind him, shabby though they were, "oh, sir, from long experience, one glance tells me the gentleman who is in need of our humble services."
"But suppose I did want a boy — what they jocosely call a good boy — how could your absurd office help me? — Philosophical Intelligence Office?"
"Yes, respected sir, an office founded on strictly philosophical and physio —»
"Look you — come up here — how, by philosophy or physiology either, make good boys to order? Come up here. Don't give me a crick in the neck. Come up here, come, sir, come," calling as if to his pointer. "Tell me, how put the requisite assortment of good qualities into a boy, as the assorted mince into the pie?"
"Respected sir, our office —»
"You talk much of that office. Where is it? On board this boat?"
"Oh no, sir, I just came aboard. Our office —»
"Came aboard at that last landing, eh? Pray, do you know a herb-doctor there? Smooth scamp in a snuff-colored surtout?"
"Oh, sir, I was but a sojourner at Cape Giradeau. Though, now that you mention a snuff-colored surtout, I think I met such a man as you speak of stepping ashore as I stepped aboard, and 'pears to me I have seen him somewhere before. Looks like a very mild Christian sort of person, I should say. Do you know him, respected sir?"
"Not much, but better than you seem to. Proceed with your business."
With a low, shabby bow, as grateful for the permission, the other began: "Our office —»
"Look you," broke in the bachelor with ire, "have you the spinal complaint? What are you ducking and groveling about? Keep still. Where's your office?"
"The branch one which I represent, is at Alton, Note: [22.4] sir, in the free state we now pass," (pointing somewhat proudly ashore).
"Free, eh? You a freeman, you flatter yourself? With those coat-tails and that spinal complaint of servility? Free? Just cast up in your private mind who is your master, will you?"
"Oh, oh, oh! I don't understand — indeed — indeed. But, respected sir, as before said, our office, founded on principles wholly new —»
"To the devil with your principles! Bad sign when a man begins to talk of his principles. Hold, come back, sir; back here, back, sir, back! I tell you no more boys for me. Nay, I'm a Mede and Persian. Note: [22.5] In my old home in the woods I'm pestered enough with squirrels, weasels, chipmunks, skunks. I want no more wild vermin to spoil my temper and waste my substance. Don't talk of boys; enough of your boys; a plague of your boys; chilblains on your boys! As for Intelligence Offices: I've lived in the East, and know 'em. Swindling concerns kept by low-born cynics, under a fawning exterior wreaking their cynic malice upon mankind. You are a fair specimen of 'em."
"Oh dear, dear, dear!"
"Dear? Yes, a thrice dear purchase one of your boys would be to me. A rot on your boys!"
"But, respected sir, if you will not have boys, might we not, in our small way, accommodate you with a man?"
"Accommodate? Pray, no doubt you could accommodate me with a bosom-friend too, couldn't you? Accommodate! Obliging word accommodate: there's accommodation notes now, where one accommodates another with a loan, and if he don't pay it pretty quickly, accommodates him with a chain to his foot. Accommodate! God forbid that I should ever be accommodated. Note: [22.6] No, no. Look you, as I told that cousin-german of yours, the herb-doctor, I'm now on the road to get me made some sort of machine to do my work. Machines for me. My cider-mill-does that ever steal my cider? My mowing-machine — does that ever lay a-bed mornings? My corn-husker — does that ever give me insolence? No: cider-mill, mowing-machine, corn-husker — all faithfully attend to their business. Disinterested, too; no board, no wages; yet doing good all their lives long; shining examples that virtue is its own reward — the only practical Christians I know."
"Oh dear, dear, dear, dear!"
"Yes, sir: — boys? Start my soul-bolts, what a difference, in a moral point of view, between a corn-husker and a boy! Sir, a corn-husker, for its patient continuance in well-doing, Note: [22.7] might not unfitly go to heaven. Do you suppose a boy will?"
"A corn-husker in heaven! (turning up the whites of his eyes). Respected sir, this way of talking as if heaven were a kind of Washington patent-office museum — oh, oh, oh! — as if mere machine-work and puppet-work went to heaven — oh, oh, oh! Things incapable of free agency, to receive the eternal reward of well-doing — oh, oh, oh!"
"You Praise-God-Barebones you, Note: [22.8] what are you groaning about? Did I say anything of that sort? Seems to me, though you talk so good, you are mighty quick at a hint the other way, or else you want to pick a polemic quarrel with me."
"It may be so or not, respected sir," was now the demure reply; "but if it be, it is only because as a soldier out of honor is quick in taking affront, so a Christian out of religion is quick, sometimes perhaps a little too much so, in spying heresy."
"Well," after an astonished pause, "for an unaccountable pair, you and the herb-doctor ought to yoke together."
So saying, the bachelor was eying him rather sharply, when he with the brass plate recalled him to the discussion by a hint, not unflattering, that he (the man with the brass plate) was all anxiety to hear him further on the subject of servants.