I must confess, he presently went on, that here I dont feel at all smart. My remarkable talents seem of no use. I feel as simple as a little child, and a little child might take me by the hand and lead me about.
Oh, Ill be your little child, said Tristram, jovially; Ill take you by the hand. Trust yourself to me.
I am a good worker, Newman continued, but I rather think I am a poor loafer. I have come abroad to amuse myself, but I doubt whether I know how.
Oh, thats easily learned.
Well, I may perhaps learn it, but I am afraid I shall never do it by rote. I have the best will in the world about it, but my genius doesnt lie in that direction. As a loafer I shall never be original, as I take it that you are.
Yes, said Tristram, I suppose I am original; like all those immoral pictures in the Louvre.
Besides, Newman continued, I dont want to work at pleasure, any more than I played at work. I want to take it easily. I feel deliciously lazy, and I should like to spend six months as I am now, sitting under a tree and listening to a band. Theres only one thing; I want to hear some good music.
Music and pictures! Lord, what refined tastes! You are what my wife calls intellectual. I aint, a bit. But we can find something better for you to do than to sit under a tree. To begin with, you must come to the club.
What club?
The Occidental. You will see all the Americans there; all the best of them, at least. Of course you play poker?
Oh, I say, cried Newman, with energy, you are not going to lock me up in a club and stick me down at a card-table! I havent come all this way for that.
What the deuce have you come for! You were glad enough to play poker in St. Louis, I recollect, when you cleaned me out.
I have come to see Europe, to get the best out of it I can. I want to see all the great things, and do what the clever people do.
The clever people? Much obliged. You set me down as a blockhead, then?
Newman was sitting sidewise in his chair, with his elbow on the back and his head leaning on his hand. Without moving he looked a while at his companion with his dry, guarded, half-inscrutable, and yet altogether good-natured smile. Introduce me to your wife! he said at last.
Tristram bounced about in his chair. Upon my word, I wont. She doesnt want any help to turn up her nose at me, nor do you, either!
I dont turn up my nose at you, my dear fellow; nor at anyone, or anything. Im not proud, I assure you Im not proud. Thats why I am willing to take example by the clever people.
Well, if Im not the rose, as they say here, I have lived near it. I can show you some clever people, too. Do you know General Packard? Do you know C. P. Hatch? Do you know Miss Kitty Upjohn?
I shall be happy to make their acquaintance; I want to cultivate society.
Tristram seemed restless and suspicious; he eyed his friend askance, and then, What are you up to, anyway? he demanded. Are you going to write a book?
Christopher Newman twisted one end of his moustache a while, in silence, and at last he made answer. One day, a couple of months ago, something very curious happened to me. I had come on to New York on some important business; it was rather a long storya question of getting ahead of another party, in a certain particular way, in the stock-market. This other party had once played me a very mean trick. I owed him a grudge, I felt awfully savage at the time, and I vowed that, when I got a chance, I would, figuratively speaking, put his nose out of joint. There was a matter of some sixty thousand dollars at stake. If I put it out of his way, it was a blow the fellow would feel, and he really deserved no quarter. I jumped into a hack and went about my business, and it was in this hackthis immortal, historical hackthat the curious thing I speak of occurred. It was a hack like any other, only a trifle dirtier, with a greasy line along the top of the drab cushions, as if it had been used for a great many Irish funerals. It is possible I took a nap; I had been traveling all night, and though I was excited with my errand, I felt the want of sleep. At all events I woke up suddenly, from a sleep or from a kind of a reverie, with the most extraordinary feeling in the worlda mortal disgust for the thing I was going to do. It came upon me like that! and he snapped his fingersas abruptly as an old wound that begins to ache. I couldnt tell the meaning of it; I only felt that I loathed the whole business and wanted to wash my hands of it. The idea of losing that sixty thousand dollars, of letting it utterly slide and scuttle and never hearing of it again, seemed the sweetest thing in the world. And all this took place quite independently of my will, and I sat watching it as if it were a play at the theatre. I could feel it going on inside of me. You may depend upon it that there are things going on inside of us that we understand mighty little about.
Jupiter! you make my flesh creep! cried Tristram. And while you sat in your hack, watching the play, as you call it, the other man marched in and bagged your sixty thousand dollars?
I have not the least idea. I hope so, poor devil! but I never found out. We pulled up in front of the place I was going to in Wall Street, but I sat still in the carriage, and at last the driver scrambled down off his seat to see whether his carriage had not turned into a hearse. I couldnt have got out, any more than if I had been a corpse. What was the matter with me? Momentary idiocy, youll say. What I wanted to get out of was Wall Street. I told the man to drive down to the Brooklyn ferry and to cross over. When we were over, I told him to drive me out into the country. As I had told him originally to drive for dear life down town, I suppose he thought me insane. Perhaps I was, but in that case I am insane still. I spent the morning looking at the first green leaves on Long Island. I was sick of business; I wanted to throw it all up and break off short; I had money enough, or if I hadnt I ought to have. I seemed to feel a new man inside my old skin, and I longed for a new world. When you want a thing so very badly you had better treat yourself to it. I didnt understand the matter, not in the least; but I gave the old horse the bridle and let him find his way. As soon as I could get out of the game I sailed for Europe. That is how I come to be sitting here.
You ought to have bought up that hack, said Tristram; it isnt a safe vehicle to have about. And you have really sold out, then; you have retired from business?
I have made over my hand to a friend; when I feel disposed, I can take up the cards again. I dare say that a twelvemonth hence the operation will be reversed. The pendulum will swing back again. I shall be sitting in a gondola or on a dromedary, and all of a sudden I shall want to clear out. But for the present I am perfectly free. I have even bargained that I am to receive no business letters.
Oh, its a real caprice de prince, said Tristram. I back out; a poor devil like me cant help you to spend such very magnificent leisure as that. You should get introduced to the crowned heads.
Newman looked at him a moment, and then, with his easy smile, How does one do it? he asked.
Come, I like that! cried Tristram. It shows you are in earnest.
Of course I am in earnest. Didnt I say I wanted the best? I know the best cant be had for mere money, but I rather think money will do a good deal. In addition, I am willing to take a good deal of trouble.