He had the
honorable title of Major, and all his best friends called him Major.
Little did I think once that I should be condemned to the disgrace
of spending my old age in a garret with crooked curling tongs,
broken pitchers, old baize gowns, noseless tea-kettles, old
crutches, a foot stove, and, worse than all, a spinning wheel.
My only peers here are the venerable musket and the respectable wig.
Even they have seen too much hard service to be able fully to
appreciate the feelings of a gentleman who has been brought up as I
have. The degradation the musket especially endured, in being used
as a spade by such a very common sort of person as Judah Loring--a
degradation of which, far from being ashamed, he seems actually
proud; all this, I say, my friends, makes a wide separation between
us never to be forgotten or got over."
"I'm agreed, the further off the better," growled the musket. The
old wig also gave a sort of contemptuous hitch, that seemed to say,
he agreed with the musket.
"I consider myself," resumed the broad-sword, "to be a perfect
gentleman. I have never denied myself by any sort of labor. I have
been considered something to show, something to be used only as a
terror to evil doers.
It strikes me that I really made the Major; he never could appear in
his company or perform his duties without me; his queue was not more
essential. He was not a Major without me. Every one feared me when
they saw my shining blade out of its scabbard, and it was really
amusing occasionally to see the effect I produced.
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