One quizzed him with want of
gallantry,--another told him what the ladies said of his oss,--a third
pitied him, but hoped he might get back his property; and then, Tom
Span, the dandy lawyer, laconically told him that to love a fair
slave was a business he must learn over again; and Sprout, the
cotton-broker, said there was a law against ornamenting the city
with blue placards and type of such uncommon size. In this
interminable perplexity, and to avoid the last-named difficulty, did
he invoke the genius of the "bill-sticker," who obliterated the blue
placards by covering them over with brown ones, the performance of
which, Blowers himself superintended. This made the matter still
worse, for with jocose smile did every wag say he had hung the city
in mourning for his loss; which singular proceeding the ladies had
one and all solemnly protested against. Now, Blowers regard for the
ladies was proverbial; nor will it disparage his character to say
that no one was more sensitive of their opinions concerning himself.
In this unhappy position, then, which he might have avoided had he
exercised more calmly his philosophy, did his perturbation get the
better of him;--an object of ridicule for every wag, and in
ill-favour with the very first ladies, never was perplexed man's
temper so near the exploding point of high pressure. And here,
forsooth, disgusted within the whole city, nor at all pleased with
the result of his inventive genius, he sought relief in strong
drinks and a week of dissipation; in which sad condition we must
leave him to the reader's sympathy.
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