Jipson's Great Dinner Party
"Well, you must do it."
"Do it?"
"Do it, sir," reiterated the lady of Jipson, a man well enough to do
in the world, chief clerk of a "sugar baker," and receiving his twenty
hundred dollars a year, with no perquisites, however, and--plenty of New
Hampshire contingencies, (to quote our beloved man of the million,
Theodore Parker,) poor relations.
"But, my dear Betsey
do you know, will you consider for once, that to
do a thing of the kind--to splurge out like Tannersoil, one must
expect--at least I do--to sink a full quarter of my salary, for the
current year; yes, a full quarter?"
"Oh! very well, if you are going to live up here" (Jipson had just moved
up above "Bleecker street,")--"and bought your carriage, and
engaged----"
"Two extra servant girls," chimed in Jipson.
"And a groom, sir," continued Mrs. J.
"And gone into at least six hundred to eight hundred dollars a year
extra expenses, to--a----"
"To gratify yourself, and--a----"
"Your--a--a--your vanity, Madam, you should have said, my dear."
"Don't talk that way to me--to me--you brute; you know----"
"I know all about it, my dear."
"My dear--bah!" said the lady; "my dear! save that, Mr. Jipson, for
some of your--a--a----"
What Mrs. J. might have said, we scarce could judge; but Jipson just
then put in a "rejoinder" calculated to prevent the umpullaceous tone of
Mrs. J.'s remarks, by saying, in a very humble strain--
"Mrs. Jipson, don't make an ass of yourself: we are too old to act like
goslings, and too well acquainted, I hope, with the matters-of-fact of
every-day life, to quarrel about things beyond our reach or control."
"If you talk of things beyond your control, Mr. Jipson, I mean beyond
your reach, that your income will not permit us to live as other people
live----"
"I wouldn't like to," interposed Jipson.
"What?" asked Mrs. Jipson.
"Live like other people--that is, some people, Mrs. Jipson, that I know
of."
"You don't suppose I'm going to bury myself and my poor girls in this
big house, and have those servants standing about me, their fingers in
their mouths, with nothing to do but----"
"But what?"
"But cook, and worry, and slave, and keep shut up for a----"
"For what?"
"For a--a----"
But Mrs. J. was stuck. Jipson saw that; he divined what a point Mrs.
J. was about to, but could not conscientiously make, so he relieved her
with--
"My dear Betsey, it's a popular fallacy, an exploded idea, a
contemptible humbug, to live merely for your neighbors, the rabble world
at large. Thousands do it, my dear, and I've no objection to their doing
it; it's their own business, and none of mine. I have moved up town
because I thought it would be more pleasant; I bought a modest kind of
family carriage because I could afford it, and believed it would add to
our recreations and health; the carriage and horses required care; I
engaged a man to attend to them, fix up the garden, and be useful
generally, and added a girl or two to your domestic departments, in
order to lighten your own cares, &c. Now, all this, my dear woman, you
ought to know, rests a very important responsibility upon my shoulders,
health, life, and--two thousand dollars a year, and if you imagine it
compatible with common sense, or consonant with my judgment, to make an
ass or fool of myself, by going into the extravagances and tom-fooleries
of Tannersoil, our neighbor over the way, who happens for the time to be
'under government,' with a salary of nothing to speak of, but with
stealings equal to those of a successful freebooter, you--you--you have
placed a--a bad estimate upon my common sense, Madam."
With this flaring burst of eloquence, Jipson seized his hat, gloves and
cane, and soon might be seen an elderly, natty, well-shaved,
slightly-flushed gentleman taking his seat in a down town bound bus,
en route for the sugar bakery of the firm of Cutt, Comeagain, & Co. It
was evident, however, from the frequency with which Jipson plied his
knife and rubber to his "figgers" of the day's accounts, and the
tremulousness with which he drove the porcupine quill, that Jipson was
thinking of something else!
"Mr. Jipson, I wish you'd square up that account of Look, Sharp, & Co.,
to-day," said Mr. Cutt, entering the counting room.
"All folly!" said Jipson, scratching out a mistake from his day-book,
and not heeding the remark, though he saw the person of his employer.
"Eh?" was the ejaculation of Cutt.
"All folly!"
"I don't understand you, sir!" said Cutt, in utter astonishment.
"Oh! I beg pardon, sir," said poor Jipson; "I beg pardon, sir. Engrossed
in a little affair of my own, I quite overlooked your observation. I
will attend to the account of Look, Sharp, & Co., at once, sir;" and
while Jipson was at it, his employer went out, wondering what in faith
could be the matter with Jipson, a man whose capacity and gentlemanly
deportment the firm had tested to their satisfaction for many years
previous. The little incident was mentioned to the partner, Comeagain.
The firm first laughed, then wondered what was up to disturb the usual
equilibrium of Jipson, and ended by hoping he hadn't taken to drink or
nothing!
"Guess I'd better do it," soliloquizes Jipson. "My wife is a good woman
enough, but like most women, lets her vanity trip up her common sense,
now and then; she feels cut down to know that Tannersoil's folks are
plunging out with dinners and evening parties, troops of company, piano
going, and bawling away their new fol-de-rol music. Yes, guess I'll do
it.
"Mrs. Jipson little calculates the horrors--not only in a pecuniary, but
domestic sense--that these dinners, suppers and parties to the rag-tag
and bobtail, cost many honest-meaning people, who ought to be ashamed
of them.
"But, I'll do it, if it costs me the whole quarter's salary!"
A few days were sufficient to concoct details and arrange the programme.
When Mrs. Jipson discovered, as she vainly supposed, the prevalence of
"better sense" on the part of her husband, she was good as cranberry
tart, and flew around in the best of humor, to hurry up the event that
was to give eclat to the new residence and family of the Jipsons,
slightly dim the radiance or mushroom glory of the Tannersoil family,
and create a commotion generally--above Bleecker street!
Jipson drew on his employers, for a quarter's salary. The draft was
honored, of course, but it led to some speculation on the part of "the
firm," as to what Jipson was up to, and whether he wasn't getting into
evil habits, and decidedly bad economy in his old age. Jipson talked,
Mrs. Jipson talked. Their almost--in fact, Mrs. J., like most ambitious
mothers, thought, really--marriageable daughters dreamed and talked
dinner parties for the full month, ere the great event of their lives
came duly off.
One of the seeming difficulties was who to invite--who to get to come,
and where to get them! Now, originally, the Jipsons were from the
"Hills of New Hampshire, of poor but respectable" birth. Fifteen years
in the great metropolis had not created a very extensive acquaintance
among solid folks; in fact, New York society fluctuates, ebbs and flows
at such a rate, that society--such as domestic people might recognize as
unequivocally genteel--is hard to fasten to or find. But one of the Miss
Jipsons possessed an acquaintance with a Miss Somebody else, whose
brother was a young gentleman of very distingue air, and who knew the
entire "ropes" of fashionable life, and people who enjoyed that sort of
existence in the gay metropolis.
Mr. Theophilus Smith, therefore, was eventually engaged. It was his, as
many others' vocation, to arrange details, command the feast, select the
company, and control the coming event. The Jipsons confined their
invitations to the few, very few genteel of the family, and even the
diminutiveness of the number invited was decimated by Mr. Smith, who was
permitted to review the parties invited.
Few domiciles--of civilian, "above Bleecker st.,"--were better
illuminated, set off and detailed than that of Jipson, on the evening of
the ever-memorable dinner. Smith had volunteered to "engage" a whole set
of silver from Tinplate & Co., who generously offer our ambitious
citizens such opportunities to splurge, for a fair consideration; while
china, porcelain, a dozen colored waiters in white aprons, with six
plethoric fiddlers and tooters, were also in Smith's programme. Jipson
at first was puzzled to know where he could find volunteers to fill two
dozen chairs, but when night came, Mr. Theophilus Smith, by force of
tactics truly wonderful, drummed in a force to face a gross of plates,
napkins and wine glasses.
Mrs. Jipson was evidently astonished, the Misses J. not a little vexed
at the "raft" of elegant ladies present, and the independent manner in
which they monopolized attention and made themselves at home.
Jipson swore inwardly, and looked like "a sorry man." Smith was at home,
in his element; he was head and foot of the party. Himself and friends
soon led and ruled the feast. The band struck up; the corks flew, the
wine fizzed, the ceilings were spattered, and the walls tattooed with
Burgundy, Claret and Champagne!
"To our host!" cries Smith.
"Yes--ah! 'ere's--ah! to our a--our host!" echoes another swell, already
insolently "corned."
"Where the--a--where is our worthy host?" says another specimen of
"above Bleecker street" genteel society. "I--a say, trot out your host,
and let's give the old fellow a toast!"
"Ha! ha! b-wavo! b-wavo!" exclaimed a dozen shot-in-the-neck bloods,
spilling their wine over the carpets, one another, and table covers.
"This is intolerable!" gasps poor Jipson, who was in the act of being
kept cool by his wife, in the drawing-room.
"Never mind, Jipson----"
"Ah! there's the old fellaw!" cries one of the swells.
"I-ah--say, Mister----"
"Old roostaw, I say----"
"Gentlemen!" roars Jipson, rushing forward, elevating his voice and
fists.
"For heaven's sake! Jipson," cries the wife.
"Gentlemen, or bla'guards, as you are."
"Oh! oh! Jipson, will you hear me?" imploringly cries Mrs. Jipson.
"What--ah--are you at? Does he--ah----"
"Yes, what--ah--does old Jip say?"
"Who the deuce, old What's-your-name, do you call gentlemen?" chimes in
a third.
"Bla'guards!" roars Jipson.
"Oh, veri well, veri well, old fellow, we--ah--are--ah--to blame
for--ah--patronizing a snob," continues a swell.
"A what?" shouts Jipson.
"A plebeian!"
"A codfish--ah----"
"Villains! scoundrels! bla'guards!" shouts the outraged Jipson, rushing
at the intoxicated swells, and hitting right and left, upsetting chairs,
tables, and lamps.
"Murder!" cries a knocked down guest.
"E-e-e-e-e-e!" scream the ladies.
"Don't! E-e-e-e! don't kill my father!" screams the daughter.
Chairs and hats flew; the negro servants and Dutch fiddlers, only
engaged for the occasion, taking no interest in a free fight, and not
caring two cents who whipped, laid back and--
"Yaw! ha! ha! De lor'! Yaw! ha! ha!"
Mrs. Jipson fainted; ditto two others of the family; the men folks (!)
began to travel; the ladies (!) screamed; called for their hats, shawls,
and chaperones,--the most of the latter, however, were non est, or
too well "set up," to heed the common state of affairs.
Jipson finally cleared the house. Silence reigned within the walls for a
week. In the interim, Mrs. Jipson and the daughters not only got over
their hysterics, but ideas of gentility, as practised "above Bleecker
street." It took poor Jipson an entire year to recuperate his financial
"outs," while it took the whole family quite as long to get over their
grand debut as followers of fashion in the great metropolis.