If It Ain't Right I'll Make It All Right In The Morning!

A keen, genteely dressed, gentlemanly man "put up" at Beltzhoover's

Hotel, in Baltimore, one day some years ago, and after dining very

sumptuously every day, drinking his Otard, Margieux and Heidsic, and

smoking his "Tras," "Byrons," and "Cassadoras," until the landlord began

to surmise the "bill" getting voluminous, he made the clerk foot it up

and present it to our modern Don Caesar De Bazan, who, casting his eye

ove the long lines of perpendicularly arranged figures, discovered

that--which in no wise alarmed him, however--he was in for a matter of a

cool C!



"Ah! yes, I see; well, I presume it's all right, all correct, sir, no

doubt about it," says Don Caesar.



"No doubt at all, sir," says the polite clerk,--"we seldom present a

bill, sir, until the gentlemen are about to leave, sir; but when the

bills are unusually large, sir--"



"Large, sir? Large, my dear fellow"--says the Don--"bless your soul, you

don't call that large? Why, sir, a--a--that is, when I was in

Washington, at Gadsby's, sir, bless you, I frequently had my friends

of the Senate and the Ministers to dine at my rooms, and what do you

suppose my bills averaged a week, there, sir?"



"I can't possibly say, sir--must have counted up very heavy, sir, I

think," responds the clerk.



"Heavy! ha! ha! you may well say they were heavy, my dear

fellow--five and eight hundred dollars a week!" says the Don, with a

nonchalance that would win the admiration of a flash prince of the

realm.



"O, no doubt of it, sir; it is very expensive to keep company, and

entertain the government officers, at Washington, sir," the clerk

replies.



"You're right, my dear fellow; you're right. But let me see," and here

the Don stuck a little glass in the corner of his eye, and glanced at

the bill; "ah, yes, I see, $102.51--a--a--something--all right, I

presume; if it ain't right, we'll make it all right in the morning."



"Very good, sir; that will answer, sir," says the clerk, about to bow

himself out of the room.



"One moment, if you please, my dear fellow; that Marteux of yours is

really superb. A friend dined here yesterday with me--he is a--a

gentleman who imports a--a great deal of wine; he a--a--pronounces your

Schreider an elegant article. I shall entertain some friends to-night,

here, and do you see that we have sufficient of that 'Marteux' and

'Schreider' cooling for us; my friends are judges of a pure article, and

a--a I wish them to have a--a good opinion of your house. Understand?"



"Ah, yes, sir; that'll be all right," says the clerk.



"Of course; if it ain't, I'll make it all right in the morning!" says

the Don Caesar, as the official vanished.



"Well, Charles, did you present that gentleman's bill?" asks the host of

the clerk, as they met at "the office."



"Yes, sir; he says it's all right, or he'll make it all right in the

morning, sir," replies the clerk.



"Very well," says the anxious host; "see that he does it."



That evening a Captain Jones called on Don Caesar--a servant carried up

the card--Captain Jones was requested to walk up. Lieutenant Smith, U.

S. N., next called--"walk up." Dr. Brown called--"walk up." Col. Green,

his card--"walk up;" and so on, until some six or eight distinguished

persons were walked up to Don Caesar's private parlor; and pretty soon

the silver necks were brought up, corks were popping, glasses were

clinking, jests and laughter rose above the wine and cigars, and Don

Caesar was putting his friends through in the most approved style!



Time flew, as it always does. Capt. Jones gave the party a bit of a

salt-water song, Dr. Brown pitched in a sentiment, while Colonel Green

and Lieutenant Smith talked largely of the "last session," what their

friend Benton said to Webster, and Webster to Benton, and what Bill

Allen said to 'em both. And Miss Corsica, the French Minister's

daughter, what she had privately intimated to Lieutenant Smith in regard

to American ladies, and what the Hon. so and so offered to do and say

for Colonel Green, and so and so and so and so. Still the corks

"popped," and the glasses jingled, and the merry jest, and the laugh

jocund, and the rich sentiment, and richer fumes of the cigars filled

the room.



Don Caesar kept on hurrying up the wine, and as each bottle was uncorked,

he assured the servants--"All right; if it ain't all right, we'll make

it all right in the morning!"



And so Don Caesar and his bon vivant friends went it, until some two

dozen bottles of Schreider, Hock, and Sherry had decanted, and the whole

entire party were getting as merry as grigs, and so noisy and

rip-roarious, that the clerk of the institution came up, and standing

outside of the door, sent a servant to Don Caesar, to politely request

that gentleman to step out into the hall one moment.



"What's that?" says the Don; "speak loud, I've got a buzzing in my ears,

and can't hear whispers."



"Mr. Tompkins, sir, the clerk of the house, sir," replies the servant,

in a sharp key.



"Well, what the deuce of Tompkins--hic--what does he--hic--does he want?

Tell--hic--tell him it's--hic--all right, or we'll make it all

right--hic--in the morning."



Mr. Tompkins then took the liberty of stepping inside, and slipping up

to Don Caesar, assured him that himself and friends were a little too

merry, but Don Caesar assured Tompkins--



"It's all--hic--right, mi boy, all--hic--right; these

gentlemen--hic--are all gentlemen, my--hic--personal friends--hic--and

it's all right--hic--all perfectly--hic--right, or we'll make it all

right in the morning."



"That we do not question, sir," says the clerk, "but there are many

persons in the adjoining rooms whom you'll disturb, sir; I speak for the

credit of the house."



"O--hic--certainly, certainly, mi boy; I'll--hic--I'll speak to the

gentlemen," says the Don, rising in his chair, and assuming a very

solemn graveness, peculiar to men in the fifth stage of libation deep;

"Gentlemen--hic--gentlemen, I'm requested to state--hic--that--hic--a

very serious piece of intelligence--hic--has met my ear. This

gentleman--hic--says somebody's dead in the next--hic--room."



"Not at all, sir; I did not say that, sir," says the clerk.



"Beg--hic--your pardon, sir--hic--it's all right; if it ain't all right,

I'll make it--hic--all right in the morning! Gentlemen, let's--hic--us

all adjourn; let's change the see--hic--scene, call a

coach--hic--somebody, let's take a ride--hic--and return and go

to--hic--our pious--hic--rest."



Having delivered this order and exhortation, Don Caesar arose on his

pins, and marshalling his party, after a general swap of hats all

around, in which trade big heads got smallest hats, and small heads got

largest hats, by aid of the staircase and the servants, they all got to

the street, and lumbering into a large hack, they started off on a

midnight airing, noisy and rip-roarious as so many sailors on a land

cruise. The last words uttered by Don Caesar, there, as the coach drove

off, were:



"All right--hic--mi boy, if it ain't, we'll make it all right in the

morning!"



"Yes, that we will," says the landlord, "and if I don't stick you into a

bill of costs 'in the morning,' rot me. You'll have a nice time," he

continued, "out carousing till daylight; lucky I've got his wallet in

the fire-proof, the jackass would be robbed before he got back, and I'd

lose my bill!"



Don Caesar did not return to make good his promise in the morning, and

so the landlord took the liberty of investigating the wallet, deposited

for safe keeping in the fire-proof of the office, by the Don; and lo!

and behold! it contained old checks, unreceipted bills, and a few

samples of Brandon bank notes, with this emphatic remark:--"All right,

if it ain't all right, WE'LL MAKE IT ALL RIGHT IN THE MORNING!"