The Perils Of Wealth
Money is admitted to be--there is no earthly use of dodging the
fact--the lever of the whole world, by which it and its multifarious
cargo of men and matters, mountains and mole hills, wit, wisdom, weal,
woe, warfare and women, are kept in motion, in season and out of season.
It is the arbiter of our fates, our health, happiness, life and death.
Where it makes one man a happy Christian, it makes ten thousand
miserable
"root of all evil," more or less, and--as Patricus Hibernicus is
supposed to have said of a single feather he reposed on--if a dollar
gives some men so much uneasiness, what must a million do? Money has
formed the basis of many a long and short story, and we only wish that
they were all imbued, as our present story is, with--more irresistible
mirth than misery. Lend us your ears.
Not long ago, one of our present well-known--or ought to be, for he is a
man of parts--business men of Boston, resided and carried on a small
"trade and dicker" in the city of Portland. By frugal care and small
profits, he had managed to save up some six hundred dollars, all in
halves, finding himself in possession of this vast sum of hard cash,
he began to conceive a rather insignificant notion of small cities;
and he concluded that Portland was hardly big enough for a man of his
pecuniary heft! In short, he began to feel the importance of his
position in the world of finance, and conceived the idea that it would
be a sheer waste of time and energy to stay in Portland, while with
his capital, he could go to Boston, and spread himself among the
millionaires and hundred thousand dollar men!
"Yes," said B----, "I'll go to Boston; I'd be a fool to stay here any
longer; I'll leave for bigger timber. But what will I do with my money?
How will I invest it? Hadn't I better go and take a look around, before
I conclude to move? My wife don't know I've got this money," he
continued, as he mused over matters one evening, in his sanctum; "I'll
not tell her of it yet, but say I'm just going to Boston to see how
business is there in my line; and my money I'll put in an old cigar box,
and--"
* * * * *
B---- was all ready with his valise and umbrella in his hand. His
"good-bye" and all that, to his wife, was uttered, and for the tenth
time he charged his better half to be careful of the fire, (he occupied
a frame house,) see that the doors were all locked at night, and "be
sure and fasten the cellar doors."
B---- had got out on to the pavement, with no time to spare to reach the
cars in season; yet he halted--ran back--opened the door, and in evident
concern, bawled out to his wife--
"Caddie!"
"Well?" she answered.
"Be sure to fasten the alley gate!"
"Ye-e-e-e-s!" responded the wife, from the interior of the house.
"And whatever you do, don't forget them cellar doors, Caddie!"
"Ye-e-e-e-s!" she repeated, and away went B----, lickety split, for the
Boston train.
After a general and miscellaneous survey of modern Athens, B---- found
an opening--a good one--to go into business, as he desired, upon a
liberal scale; but he found vent for the explosion of one very
hallucinating idea--his six hundred dollars, as a cash capital, was a
most infinitesimal circumstance, a mere "flea bite;" would do very
well for an amateur in the cake and candy, pea-nut or vegetable
business, but was hardly sufficient to create a sensation among the
monied folks of Milk street, or "bulls" and "bears" on 'change. However,
this realization was more than counter-balanced by another
fact--"confidence" was a largely developed bump on the business head
of Boston, and if a man merely lacked "means," yet possessed an
abundance of good business qualifications--spirit, energy, talent and
tact--they were bound to see him through! In short, B----, the great
Portland capitalist, found things about right, and in good time, and in
the best of spirits, started for home, determining, in his own mind, to
give his wife a most pleasant surprise, in apprizing her of the fact
that she was not only the wife of a man with six hundred silver dollars,
and about to move his institution--but the better half of a gentleman
on the verge of a new campaign as a Boston business man.
"Lord! how Caroline's eyes will snap!" said B----; "how she'll go in;
for she's had a great desire to live in Boston these five years, but
thinks I'm in debt, and don't begin to believe I've got them six hundred
all hid away down----. But I'll surprise her!"
B---- had hardly turned his corner and got sight of his house, with his
mind fairly sizzling with the pent-up joyful tidings and grand surprise
in store for Mrs. B., when a sudden change came over the spirit of his
dream! As he gazed over the fence, by the now dim twilight of fading
day, he thought--yes, he did see fresh earthy loose stones, barrels of
lime, mortar, and an ominous display of other building and repairing
materials, strewn in the rear of his domicil! The cellar doors--those
wings of the subterranean recesses of his house--which he had cautioned,
earnestly cautioned, the "wife of his bussim" to close, carefully and
securely, were sprawling open, and indeed, the outside of his abode
looked quite dreary and haunted.
"My dear Caroline!" exclaimed B----, rushing into the rear door of his
domestic establishment, to the no small surprise of Mrs. B., who gave a
premature--
"Oh dear! how you frightened me, Fred! Got home?"
"Home? yes! don't you see I have. But, Carrie, didn't I earnestly beg of
you to keep those doors--cellar doors--shut? fastened?"
"Why, how you talk! Bless me! Keep the cellar shut? Why, there's nothing
in the cellar."
"Nothing in the cellar?" fairly howls B----.
"Nothing? Of course there is not," quietly responded the wife; "there is
nothing in the cellar; day before yesterday, our drain and Mrs. A.'s
drain got choked up; she went to the landlord about it; he sent some
men, they examined the drain, and came back to-day with their tools and
things, and went down the cellar."
"Down the cellar?" gasped B----, quite tragically.
"Down the cellar!" slowly repeated Mrs. B.
"Give me a light--quick, give me a light, Caroline!"
"Why, don't be a fool. I brought up all the things, the potatoes, the
meat, the squashes."
"P-o-o-h! blow the meat and squashes! Give me a light!" and with a
genuine melo-drama rush, B---- seized the lamp from his wife's hand, and
down the cellar stairs he went, four steps at a lick. In a moment was
heard--
"O-o-o-h! I'm ruined!"
With a full-fledged scream, Mrs. B. dashed pell-mell down the stairs, to
her husband. He had dropped the lamp--all was dark as a coal mine.
"Fred--Frederick! oh! where are you? What have you done?" cried his
wife, in intense agony and doubt.
"Done? Oh! I'm done! yes, done now!" he heavily sighed.
"Done what? how? Tell me, Fred, are you hurt?"
"What on airth's the matter, thar? Are you committing murder on one
another?" came a voice from above stairs.
"Is that you, Mrs. A.?" asked Mrs. B. to the last speaker.
"Yes, my dear; here's a dozen neighbors; don't get skeert. Is thare
robbers in yer house? What on airth is going on?"
This brought B---- to his proper reckoning. He ordered his wife to "go
up," and he followed, and upon reaching the room, he found quite a
gathering of the neighbors. He was as white as a white-washed wall, and
the neighbors staring at him as though he was a wild Indian, or a
chained mad dog. Importuned from all sides to unravel the mystery, B----
informed them that he had merely gone down cellar to see what the
masons, &c., had been doing--dropped his lamp--his wife screamed--and
that was all about it! The wife said nothing, and the neighbors shook
their incredulous heads, and went home; which, no sooner had they gone,
than B---- seized his hat and cut stick for the office of a cunning,
far-seeing limb of the law, leaving Mrs. B. in a state of mental
agitation better imagined than described. B---- stated his case--he had
buried six hundred dollars in a box under the lee of the cellar-wall,
and gone to Boston on business, and as if no other time would suit, a
parcel of drain-cleaners, and masons, and laborers, must come and go
right there and then to dig--get the six hundred dollars and clear.
After a long chase, law and bother, B---- recovered half his
money--packed up and came to Boston.--There's a case for you! Beware of
money!
More
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